[bruce]

Great hand to discuss.

Preflop I think you should raise more or flat call. The stacks are deep and I don't think any of the callers are going to fold. The raise will most of the time buy you the button.

Alarm bells will be going off in my head when I am called on the flop. WTF doe my opponent have? We'll assume he is not
a lunatic. Reasonable hands to put him on are a weaker Ace,
a flush draw, an oddly played set (maybe he's afraid of you
flopping a set of Aces), or a poorly played big pair.

With the flush coming on the turn I think a check is mandatory. Getting c/r'ed is catastrophic. If the stacks were smaller a bet might make more sense. There is no way
I will bet the turn.

Now on the river things get very interesting. Your opponent
bets 2000. What reasonable hands can he have? Is your pair of Aces good? I think it's very difficult to arrive at the best answer. On one hand I can see your average player taking a card off on the flop and with your turn check thinking their pair of Jacks,Kings, or weaker Aces are good. On the other hand if I'm against a more sophisticated player I don't expect him to show anything less than a flush or AQ with the Ace of clubs. All things considering I probably fold. If I'm wrong I don't think I'm wrong by much. If you fold your stack is not decimated and you still do have chips
to play with. If you call and lose you have lost 2/3 of your chips.

I think another way perhaps to approach this is to take into consideration how large this tournament is. The event began with roughly 3000 players. If I call and win I now have a much bigger stack to work with. If I'm wrong well I probably would not have won anyway so what the hell? I personally don't play like that, but I'm sure there are plenty of people who do.

Hope I'm not rambling.

Bruce