terrible flop all-in--right?

[mosta]

short version: I three-bet flop all in with TP2K (AQo). Ugh.

long version: back story. same opponent 2 or 3 rounds earlier. I pot raise a couple limpers in mp with AQo ($200). villain ($500) cold calls. Flop As 9h 2c. He calls my pot bet, others fold. 7s. I bet about two-thirds pot which is half my stack intending to fold to any more action. He min-raises to set me in. I fold getting 4.5:1. He shows his set of aces. woo hoo I'm so clever.

Villain is around 27/7 (not enough hands for an AF). fast forward. AQo again. I open raise the pot in mp ($220). Villain is second cold caller ($600), and then a blind in. Four of us see:

As 7h 4d. I bet the pot $40. Villain raises to $90 (so just over a minraise). Heads up. Now I start thinking. He doesn't have AA again--lightning doesn't strike twice. He can't have two-pair. (Well, maybe I should give A7s more credit.) He's got to hvae KK or QQ (or a worse ace) and wants to end it now. He could have 77, but them's the breaks. And he can't have AKo, even as a proven slow-player, because that's a dumb hand to slow-play--you have to fit or fold basically and get terrible reverse implied odds. (I also don't give AKs enough thought.)

So even if it worked out gloriously for me, this has to be the worst all-in ever. If I put him on a worse hand, I have to call and hope he keeps betting or try to trick him with a weak bet myself. No way he calls this all in. And pretty much no better hand folds. His range:

AA--he laughs maniacally while trying to find a way to reraise.
77--he swallows hard and calls.
A7s--not real unhappy about calling.
KK, QQ, JJ, TT--happily folds.
AJ, AT, A9--ditto--muck it hard.
AK--the only at all interesting possibility, and the one I most discount. I'm not sure what he does with this one.
AQ--I guess this one is also possibly interesting. AQ (and maybe AK) are the only hands where my all-in has merit.

I had some other all-in moves in this session that I think were pretty good, so I thought I was playing better NL. But not this one. (Except what does he do with AK?)

The only sensible moves here are call and fold--right? depending on my read or assessement of his range. And given that my "read" was that he had one pair--assuming that was right--then I should have called. (Unless I needed to push him off of AK, which I discounted (but probably shouldn't have...))

[Gary Stevenson]

[ QUOTE ]
As 7h 4d. I bet the pot $40. Villain raises to $90 (so just over a minraise). Heads up. Now I start thinking. He doesn't have AA again--lightning doesn't strike twice. He can't have two-pair. (Well, maybe I should give A7s more credit.) He's got to hvae KK or QQ (or a worse ace) and wants to end it now. He could have 77, but them's the breaks. And he can't have AKo, even as a proven slow-player, because that's a dumb hand to slow-play--you have to fit or fold basically and get terrible reverse implied odds. (I also don't give AKs enough thought.)

[/ QUOTE ]
a lot of this makes no sense. why would a guy with KK/QQ just call your open raise... and then raise you when an ace falls in a multi-way pot? why is AK so far out of the question for him to have? if you're willing to go to the felt which it seems like you are in this situation, calling is probably best because a push on this flop will almost definitely get him to fold worse hands and always call with better hands (except maybe AK, though i doubt he's folding that).
[ QUOTE ]
He's got to hvae KK or QQ (or a worse ace) and wants to end it now.

[/ QUOTE ]
most good players like to bet their good hands hard and would raise a set or 2pair here most of the time. when ppl raise in NL it doesn't always mean they want to take down the pot right now.

[mosta]

yeah you got it right on I think. I decided to put him on an ace and try to push him off AQ or AK. (I thought he might have KK QQ b/c of his recent slow play. Him raising with KK QQ multi-way is too much of a stretch.) It's got to be an ace or better. It was AKo and he called. I don't know how much I can criticize his being second cold caller with AKo. I do think _my_ play was not good. I thought it was kind of interesting that he happened to have the only hand (or only 1 of 2--AK/ AQ) that possibly gave my play any merit. Another problem is that even in this case, being a fluke, we need to be deeper for me to test him (and then I wouldn't want to do it...).

[not_da_nizzles]

Villain folds AKo here about never. He also gleefully calls with 77 (there is no hard swallowing involved).

He might fold AQ and probably folds AJ-

mj