$215: AA on button, UTG+1 shortie raises, reraise or flat call?

[Mr.Poker]

Reads: Raiser have been moved to table an orbit or so ago, and hadn't played a hand. SB has just moved to table and BB seems to be fairly standard TAG who plays decent hands strongly (had pushed in second level with 99 over 5xBB UTG raiser).

My dilemma here was whether to flat call this raise or reraise?

My thinking was if i flat called, it may invite one of the blinds to make a squeeze play with any reasonable holding while a raise will almost certainly isolate the opening raiser, and I may be able to double up rather than just UTG+1's stack.

What do you think os the right play in this scenario?

Also, if you reraise, what do you raise to in order to get UTG+1 to commmit his stack most often?


PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em Tourney, Big Blind is t1200 (9 handed) internettexasholdem.com

UTG (t28183)
UTG+1 (t13920)
MP1 (t12985)
MP2 (t61555)
MP3 (t5140)
CO (t22460)
Hero (t33760)
SB (t87485)
BB (t37025)

Preflop: Hero is Button with A[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img], A[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img].
<font color="#666666">1 fold</font>, <font color="#CC3333">UTG+1 raises to t3260</font>, <font color="#666666">4 folds</font>, <font color="#CC3333">Hero ??

Thanks

[registrar]

I like a call.

[Soulman]

[ QUOTE ]
I like a call.

[/ QUOTE ]

[AragornX151]

I like it too.

[Mr.Poker]

Are there any specific reasons why you prefer a call over a reraise here?

[registrar]

Yeah. You're in position so it should be easy enough to get OR to put his chips in and it's gagging for the SB to squeeze you.

[DiscipleAA]

I'm a little torn, given your read of the BB I think calling may be a bad play as it may end up that the blinds dont push the squeeze play and instead you are faced with having to make the OR commit his remaining stack which is larger then the size of the pot... which may be hard to do if villian is solid like your read suggests... Also what kind of a hand are you normally calling with here given these stack sizes... doesnt a call look stronger then a push to the observant blind player?... I think I like re-poping to ~15000, and I'd expect villian to be calling here a huge % of the time...

[Mr.Poker]

Disciple, like you, I was really torn when this came up as obviously we want OR to commit his stack as often as possible, but obviously would love to fully double up through either the SB or BB. Calling means lots of flops could cause OR to not commit his stack and we forgo that opportunity. I certainly like a call if the blinds are very alert and aggressive- i dont think they will see the call as particularly strong, unless they consider me to be a very strong player who knew their style well.

If we decide to reraise, we presumably want to make our hand look as weak as possible to maximise the times we are called, might an allin be better than any other raise size?

[Arcturus]

This is just my two cents.

I think I would rather raise in this situation in order to get it heads up. Since you don't have any reads on the SB, other than he is the large stack at the table, a call could allow him to enter the pot with a lot of hands. Now I know you don't really fear what he would play since you have AA, but allowing more players in the hand will increase the chance that you lose it. If you can get HU with the preflop raiser AND get him to commit his stack, you will increase your stack to over 35% of your current value. That seems like too good of an opportunity to pass up.

Of course, as you mentioned, the down side to this is losing the chance to get other players committed to the pot, but I would be really PO'd if I let the SB in cheap and he hits a straight or something similar. Thoughts?

[Mr.Poker]

Well, after being pretty split between the raise and the call, I decided that UTG+1 had enough chips that it was worth me trying to get him to commit his stack PF, and figured he would be getting allin with a large % of the hands he raises from this position and for this much of his stack.

I raised to 7400, blinds folded, OR thought for about 30-40 seconds and folded. I was wondered whether the call was better, but i think on balance, I still think the reraise is better given the read on the blinds. The reraise amount was something I was quite curious about and im not sure whether this raise amount looks super strong or like a hand I could fold if one of the blinds comes over the top?

I guess aswell that UTG+1 generally pushes this 70-80% of the time and i just got unfortunate that he raised a marginal hand or could lay down a decent hand...

Any comments?