[Gildersneeze]

Had a situation just like this a couple of weeks ago in my home game (No Limit with .25/.50 blinds). Picked up red Aces on the button (first no-brainer hand pre-flop all night. Coooold cards until then). Whole boatload of limpers, and needless to say, I raise to get a few of these drawing turkeys the hell outta my AA pot. I kick it up five bucks, making it $5.50 to go. I only catch one caller in middle position.

Board shows up 5c 6c 8s.

MP bets $.50. I raise by $4.50 to bring the total bet to an even $5. MP calls (sweet, either he hit something on the board that he liked, or I've got this guy on a draw he just can't let go).

Turn is the 6s.

MP bets $3. I have a feeling that he's representing two pair or trips, but I'm determined not to let him scare me off with a $3 bet. For f***'s sake, I've been betting out $5 per round! But then the old nagging doubts come into my mind. "What if he does have that six? Hell, what if he's got POCKET sixes? What if I was beat on the flop and now, drawing dead on the river? What if? What if? What if?"

Earlier that night, since this was only the second No-Limit game I'd played ever, I re-read the No-Limit section in Super System (yeah, yeah, Brunson's a cheater, or his book sucks, or whatever, don't know for sure, don't really care), and some advice here on the No Limit subforum. Brunson's advice in No Limit is a lot like Major Kong's here. Once you start playing a pot, especially when the pot odds are giving you decent odds on a raggedy-ass board to your huge over-pair, play that mahfah agressively, and KEEP LEANING on the other guy until the other player gives you a reason to slow down, not the cards on the table.

So I count my chips, look at the pot, suck it up and go All-in over the top of this guy's $3.00 bet by another $10.70, to bring the total to $13.70 (what, we're all waiters, valets, McJob holders and college students, not bankers [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]). I figure with the blinds/limper calls, my bets and his calls/last bet, there's already between $25 and $30 in the pot, and it's the biggest we'd had all night.

My all-in bet added another $10 I want him to be pot committed to try and snag. He thought about it, and called. We turned up cards, and I couldn't believe the craziness. He turns up 7c8c. Caught him with his hand in the cookie jar trying for the straight flush.

River is a beee-yutiful red 7, giving him eights and sevens to my Aces and sixes.

Back in the proverbial day, I would have folded with the possibility of two (straight) flush draws, a pair on the board, straight draws, and a guy suddenly betting hard (by comparison) in to me after the board pairs. But I finally decided that I wasn't going to be a nancy boy, and ended up dragging a pot.

I think most of the time that my pocket Aces haven't held up isn't because they got cracked on the river, or whatever, but more along the lines of I was scared when certain boards would show up and someone who'd been quiet before makes some sort of weak-assed bet, trying to represent.

So cheers, Major Kong, I agree wholeheartedly. Stop being wusses, guys. There's more to poker than what's told to you in a book.

Edit: I know, one hand doesn't mean crap overall. But before more research, reading, and thinking about things, I would have never raised, and automatically assumed I had just been bet into by trips instead of an open ended SF draw, and mucked my Aces up.

But seriously, had I lost it all by a rivered straight, flush, trips, full, or SF, I still would have realized that I made the right play by making this guy sweat over an All-In bet, and then have to make the call on a draw.