AA hand at LC

[Tommy Angelo]

$1000 minimum buyin NLHE game at Lucky Chances. I’d been in the game for six hours when this hand came up and there had been hardly any player turnover so it was an intimate group by now.

The first player opened for the minimum $40. Next player called $40. I was next with AA. My stack was 4K. Both the players in the blinds had me covered, and both of them had a propensity to steal-raise from the blinds after a bunch of limpers, often enough, I thought, to make limping a reasonable play. I limped along for $40. No one raised, and five us saw the flop.

The flop was 2-3-5 with two hearts. My aces were black. One of the things that makes limping before the flop with AA to trap spunky blind-raisers a good play for me in general is that I know in advance that I won't go broke after the flop with one pair, even aces, especially aces, no matter how safe the board looks. There is no safe board when 4K goes in with one pair.

So basically I was done with the hand, except in small units, depending on who bet them.

The flop was checked around.

The turn paired the three. The turn betting went check, check, I checked, the next player bet $100, the next player called, the next two folded, and I called $100. Now there were three players, with me first, and the pot was $500. The river was an offsuit 8. I checked, the next player checked, the next player bet $200, I called, and the other player folded. Bettor tabled 8-5 for a rivered top-two. I had to show my hand to get the pot so I did and on we went like nothing.


Tommy

[creedofhubris]

Hmmmmm. I don't usually play that high.

I would probably play rockets like 77 in this case: make a decent bet on the flop and then slam on the brakes.

Your play is fine too. I've gone check/check/check with AA before.

[vector2]

I think if you were in position, a bet on the flop would've been reasonable, but out of position I like the check. I'm assuming your competition is good enough that if you were to bet the flop and then check either of the later streets, your opponents would bet big enough to make you lay down aces (it's too easy to represent a straight or set when the stacks are that deep and there's that many callers). I think you played the hand perfect....won the most you were going to win and lost the least (if you would've happened to be beat).

[HughJassell]

i don't get it. why no raise before the flop? you were afraid of the big stacks putting you all-in before the flop? worse case you're 4-1 right (or 50-50 against aces)? i may be completely wrong but it sounds like scared money. hell i don't play at this level but it seems that if i did an opening raise and possible re-raise is in order here. perhaps they would've called the raise and went all in after the flop. is this the problem? if you didn't hit an ace you'd be worried about someone else having a set or other. someone educate me please. lastly, what would you have done if someone tried to steal the pot before the flop. thanks.

Hugh Jassel, a huge Tommy fan (I am huge)

[elnino12]

Personally, I treat rockets like a Boston Red Sox World Series victory: it doesn't happen very often, so milk it for all it's worth. Even if you think there will be some blind burglary, it's certainly not something you can count on. As for me, I raise preflop and isolate (so hands like 8/5 don't drag a pot and end up costing $340 on a pot I have dead to rights). Basically, I don't think you should assume there will be a steal attempt, so go ahead and raise PF.

[Kaz The Original]

The reason Tommy limped preflop was because the players in the blinds had the habit of raising preflop to drag in all the limp money. This was no doubt a strategic consideration (protecting his future limps) as well as an immediate tactical consideration (trying to limp-reraise and get a large amount of money in the pot preflop).

Note, the reason he played so passively post flop was because he was folding if it got too aggressive, and so would much rather induce bluffs than value bet.

[Justin A]

[ QUOTE ]
i don't get it. why no raise before the flop? you were afraid of the big stacks putting you all-in before the flop? worse case you're 4-1 right (or 50-50 against aces)? i may be completely wrong but it sounds like scared money. hell i don't play at this level but it seems that if i did an opening raise and possible re-raise is in order here. perhaps they would've called the raise and went all in after the flop. is this the problem? if you didn't hit an ace you'd be worried about someone else having a set or other. someone educate me please. lastly, what would you have done if someone tried to steal the pot before the flop. thanks.

[/ QUOTE ]

He was trying for a limp-reraise. He figured the chances of the blinds raising was high enough that he could make this play. Didn't work out so he was forced to play a small pot.

Justin A

[HughJassell]

[ QUOTE ]
Hmmmmm. I don't usually play that high.


[/ QUOTE ]

high meaning high stakes?

[sdplayerb]

I like it how you played it. You've played with them so you thought there was a good chance there would be another raise.
Otherwise you make it $160-200 and your stack is in jeopardy due to the huge stacks.
Then it was scary so you kept it small and manageable.

As you know (so this is for others), AA really isn't that great in deep stack NL unless you can get a lot in preflop.

SD

[Matt Flynn]

tommy, just when during the hand did you order the fruit plate? ;-)

i assume this was a fullhanded table and neither of the limpers had a short stack.

with aces my general rule is if i cannot outplay/outread (or at least read by bets or tells or both) my opponents, i am willing to give up some value to avoid tougher decisions by keeping the pot below 5% when i cannot get it above 25% of my stack (this is flynn's rule, so give it as much creedance as you care to). commitment decisions just get much easier in those circumstances. however, when the money's big and you know the players the lower bound is less important providied it's below 10%. the 10-25% range just makes for the hardest decisions.

critical point is you very much prefer to have the preflop pot over 25% of your stack. you make a lot more money that way.

so, how big do you want the pot? ideally over $800, depending on how many players come along. call it $700 because you've got lesser stacks in there too. if you cannot get it over $800, you may want to give up value and go for $200 or less to get out of some tougher decisions. again, you give up value to get to that easier state, so it pays to play for a bigger pot when you can. with a 4K stack and the loose nature of the game, a raise to $200 will often work perfectly because on average you will get two callers and have a little dead money too. even better would be a limp-reraise that got $1,200 or more into the pot, and best is if one of the aggressive blinds horses it for $400 and you flat call, hopefully with one other caller (barring the fantasy all in of course). overall, you need someone behind you to raise _often_ to make three-limping a better play in a loose table with deep stacks. one caution is big blind raises are like acquaintances having heart attacks: because they stand out so much people tend to overestimate their frequency dramatically. so as always it depends - depends on how aggressive your opponents are. if you've got a maniac behind who raises half the hands, it's a no-brainer check. and so forth.

as played, the flop was coordinated but not likely hit hard. any ace through 6 and any heart dramatically hurts your earn. aces are very likely the best hand, and likely will get action. plus a 4K stack protects any bets. i would pot that flop. it's a trade off between playing it safe and making money, and here with aces you are ahead AND get paid off so often that it's in my mind a big earn hit to check. once that turn comes, you have competing concerns of getting bluffed off the hand if you bet and wanting to maximize earn and get the flush/straight draws to pay. that's where it pays to have position - which you do on several players - and to know if they'll check-raise without the goods. in the LC game most are capable of check-raising without the goods, so we're not helped.

despite the risk of getting raised, had i bet the flop and got called i would usually bet the turn a bit under the pot. there are many hands that pay aces off, and the opponents must fear a set or straight. you then have to play poker if raised or if there's a big river bet, but that compares to the high likelihood of getting called for good money on the turn when aces are still a big favorite OR of taking it down, depriving the field of its collective draws. a big overpair on a low board that is unlikely to have hit someone hard is very different from tptk on a high or coordinated medium board.

avoiding tough decisions is an excellent strategy, but one often gives up EV by playing that way. here in my mind the EV cost to the limp/check combination with that board overwhelms the cost of potentially facing a tough decision.

i claim credit for coining "three-limping." ;-)

matt