Stars 5-10 NL

[BeeKay]

A few hands have been bothering me today. Game is 5-10 NL on stars.
Your stack is 1000 at this time.
UTG makes it 40, your the button with AKo. You call. FLop 78J rainbow, UTG checks, you check behind, Turn K, he bets 80, you call, River 3, he bets 130, you call. UTG shows AA. Thoughts on the preflop flop turn and river plays?

Hand number 2

your UTG +2 and make it 40 with red kings, MP1 Button SB and BB all call. Flop is A86 rainbow. SB and BB check to you. Play here?
I ended up checking, button bet pot , SB and BB folded, i folded. Was this hand way to weak? Comments.

[Ulysses]

Hand 1: I like it.

Hand 2: Much of the time I'll bet however much I'd bet if I had AK.

[BeeKay]

With more consideration about Hand 2 it seems to get more and more complicated the more i think about it. It seems like you can play it 3 ways. Check fold. Bet 2/3 the pot after SB and BB check to you, or Check with intention of folding, seeing the button bet the pot, the sb and BB folding, then making a decent size raise which would most likly cause button to fold anything but AK 66 or 88 here. I am still undecided.

[Garland]

You did not indicate opponent stack sizes.

Hand #1:

Preflop - Reraise and fold to his reraise. Folding AKo to UTG's original raise is also ok if you read him as very tight especially from UTG...even with your position.

If you take the line you took of smooth calling the preflop raise, bet the flop, bet the turn, and check the river. Fold to any massive resistance at any point.

Hand #2:

With 3 or more opponents and a raised pot, it increases the odds someone has an A out there. Check folding to button's bet is not a horrible play. With 2 opponents or heads up, I'll usually take one stab at it. Then shut it down if a non-K appears on the turn.

Garland

[Chazbot2000]

Hand one, the only thing I'd consider is raising his bet on the turn. Either way I think you wind up losing the same amount of money.

Hand two, I definitely don't bet that flop with 3 other players in the hand. Someone has an ace. Maybe it's a lousy ace but if they were dumb enough to call a raise with it, they'll be dumb enough to call a big bet with it once it's paired. Did you consider raising more than $40 preflop? With KK or QQ, I usually don't want more than once caller and I'll bet more than my standard raise, especially UTG. Otherwise you get what happened to you where you get one caller in middle position, and the combination of one additional caller and a small raise as a percentage of your stack gives later positions the implied odds to call with more drawing hands. If all I do is pick up blinds and someone's limp, it's not such a bad thing.

But maybe I'm getting too cute here. Would love to hear other opinions.

[Esoteric]

Hand 1: Why no flop re-raise with position and AK?

Hand 2: Seems likely someone is playing the A so I don't think there is anything wrong with playing it very cautiously.

[turnipmonster]

[ QUOTE ]
Preflop - Reraise and fold to his reraise.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm assuming normal stacks for 5/10 (i.e. > 1k)

I am in general not a huge fan of plans that end with "and fold to a raise/reraise". the only time I would be willing to reraise with AK here is if I was willing to stack with it, which in general I am not but that's very player specific. if you do reraise, you are not going to make a lot of money when you hit, because if they don't have you beat you are not going to get action.

you will lose a lot money when you miss and get trapped and/or bet the pot. again, look at this from a stack sizes perspective. a pot reraise is 135 more. you want to be holding AKo in with 3-5x the pot behind?

--turnipmonster

[doubleas]

I think you lost the least amount anyone could have on hand 1. A lot of people would have stacked off with the turn card...good job

On hand 2, I generally wouldn't bluff into 3 players that have hands strong enough to call your preflop raise.

[Matt Flynn]

hand #1 is fine.

hand #2 i would check-fold. you have KK on an ace-high board. making a pot-sized or near-pot-sized bet into three opponents who have called a raise preflop, with an ace on the board, will not win you the pot often enough to justify the amount risked. plus once they call the turn, you will be tempted to fire again, thinking if they only called they might be feeling you out. no need to throw good money after bad.

matt

[theBruiser500]

Hand 2 - Three people called you preflop, it is very likley that one of them hit aces. Checking with the intention of folding, then seeing the button raise and the other two fold... raising there sounds interesting but make sure you know your player. Know he will call preflop with a weaker ace, and then fold his weaker ace to your bet there. Also, it would help this play a lot if he would make a button bet with some smaller piece of the board.

A play like this would probably be better if you had JJ, flop is Q high. Then you could represent an overpair pretty credibly whereas here you're representing very unlikely AAA, or AK.