[Proofrock]

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Now I am in the CO and it is folded to me. I look down and find two red aces. Very sweet. I decide to raise to 1600. I do this because I am trying to represent a steal and a bully. My raises though quite frequent have been garnering alot of respect (from all the good hands I've shown) and I felt that this hand was too strong to just take the blinds.

Read on SB....I have played with this guy many times before. Both in tournaments, and in cash games ranging from 3-6 to 15-30 to the 2/5 no limit they spread. I am very familiar with his play and I have to assume he knows me a little. He is very tight. Doesn't get out of line ever. Plays his good hands strong. Lays down marginals (A9,QJ,etc..)and won't bluff into a raise. Oh and by the way, he has about 11000 so he is other CL at table. Only guy that can hurt me.

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I've been thinking a bit about this hand and this post, because things just don't quite feel right here. I don't really have a coherent response, but let me do my best to articulate my impressions reading this.

You want to represent yourself as being a bully, and you just won the last hand with kings. How many other times so far / recently in this tournament have you minraised from late position? Though I don't really like a minraise, if this is typical for you and you've been "dominating the table" as you stated in your original post, then I can see why you would do it with a big hand here. However, I don't like your reasoning. You always *want* to win more than just the blinds with any hand you're dealt, especially AA, but that doesn't mean you slowplay them or minraise with them to get one extra bet out, especially when gaining that extra t800 may very well cost you much more than you stand to win. If you are really trying to represent a steal, then bet what you would with a steal -- i'd have a hard time betting less than t2000 here, especially with the blinds so large relative to the effective stack sizes. Besides, such a bet comes closer to being cEV neutral if you end up getting sucked out on and paying with your stack anyway (i.e., it makes it hard / impossible for you to really make a mistake).

Given this player in the SB, whom you know to be tight, the minraise shouldn't be targetted at him. Since you have such a complete and expert read on him (tight, doesn't bluff ever into a raiser, folds marginal hands), then now is not the time he is going to put 15% of his stack in preflop with very many hands that he wouldn't put more/all of his stack in. BB has only t3000 chips, so i can only assume he's either playing for them all this hand or folding to any raise -- i.e., I'm not sure who you are trying to induce to put more chips in and how this is a more effective way of doing it than making a more typical raise.

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Back to the hand. He thinks for a moment and just calls. BB folds. Right away I rule out AA(cause I got em),KK,QQ,and AK. I believe he would reraise with these hands. Remember he bets his strong hands. I have shown strength with my raise and he wouldn't slowplay here with a big hand. Just by calling my raise (mini as it may be) he has to have one of the following I think. PP (less than QQ), AQ,AJ,KQ,KJs,KTs (pushing it),QTs (really pushing it).

Flop comes K Q 4 rainbow. (pot is 4000 for math impaired) He bets 1500 into me! What to do?

If raise, how much? If call or called and turn is T! Now what? What if he continues to bet into you? Fold? Call? Allin?...

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From this point on, I'm not sure why, or if, you're asking for advice. Your line is completely read-based, and you have conveniently narrowed his range to one that is ahead of your hand. Though I know stronger reads are more common in live play than in online play (this is one of the reasons I prefer live play myself), it seems a little hard to believe that this player is so readable-tight that you know from his probe bet that he must have KQ or 44 (maybe an unlikely KJ or KT, but he dumps such marginal hands, right?). But if he figures you for a steal, what is the point in leading out with such hands? They aren't likely to be drawn out against, and I assume that you've been making enough continuation bets that he figures he could win more from a weak hand and the same amount from a strong hand with a check-raise.

But fine ... so you have your read, and you figure he either has TPGK or two-pair plus. Here is a situation where you don't really want to fold yet, but you'd like to quickly find out if you're good (if it's possible to do so with an effective stack of about t9600 and a pot of t3600). So -- given your read, if he has TPGK, does he typically shut down on the turn, or keep firing if you call behind? If you raise, does he call/fold/push this hand, and what do you expect him to do if he has two pair or a set? If he is as predictable as you make him out to be, you should be able to use this information to decide how to play the hand. But again, so much of your statement of the situation and your reasoning for even considering folding this hand is read-dependent, I don't know what more of a response you are looking for. Imagine how he would play each of the hands in his range vs. each of your possible actions, then choose which one will win the most when you're ahead and/or lose the least when you're behind.

The main options I see are (assuming if he puts any more money into the pot it means he has KQ+):
raise to t3400 (i know it's a tiny raise), and check-fold unless you improve.
call and fold the turn unimproved (i.e., no 4,A) if he bets, bet if he checks to you.

If, on the other hand, you assume he's not so perfectly readable as you have led us to believe (i.e., against most opponents), I would raise to about half his remaing stack, and put the rest in as soon as possible.

FWIW, I can think of exactly one player I've played with recently in a live tournament where I would muck on the flop without hesitation, but hundreds whom I would beat into the pot with my chips.

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Please help break this puzzle.

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I take some issue with the way you've presented this hand for consideration, but in short I'm not sure you really consider it a puzzle to be broken -- the impression I get is that you consider it a great laydown that you made (though really, you helped get yourself into the situation with a suspect minraise preflop) in a tournament where you had been "dominating," and in which you could have crippled yourself by getting overcommitted with a strong hand, but instead laid it down when you knew you were behind. You presented the hand in a leading way from the beginning to heavily skew his hand range and action to KQ / 44, and also gave us the results that you didn't get to a showdown, none of which is helpful for providing an unbiased analysis of the hand / formulating a plan.