50NL AA facing full pot donkbet

[futuredoc85]

i probably call this with the intention of calling him down. you dont have a significant sample size on him and a set doesnt usually pot a flop this dry. Problem is that probably the only times a set does pot this flop is when stacks are this deep. How did you double at this table and did you see how villain got his stack?

[puckle]

Okay, most of the posters are advocating a call. Problem is that I see a lot of 4BB calls PF at these stakes with hands like Axs. If in this example the villian made a loosish PF call with A4s or A5s (or even 45s)then calling him and letting him see the turn could be catastrophic. With a straight draw on the flop, a pot sized semi bluff ( or a blocking bet hoping to hit a flush draw) could be within his skillset-: you need a read on the villian. Obviously any Axs hand could also see four cards to a flush on the turn and inspire another semi bluff with a passive call from the hero. The villian has just been given 5 cards to hit a set, a straight or a flush. Yuck!

When the stacks are this deep, then unless you have a very specific read on this villian, it is reasonably safe to assume that he will be as reluctant to stack off as you are. If he reraises allin on the flop with bottom or middle set then the villian is gambling that the hero doesn't have top set (as represented by the hero's raise) and the only question for the hero is," do I want to gamble"? If not, then fold.

With respect to the other posters, I feel that if you are not willing to defend AA by raising a pot sized bet on the flop then you should probably limp in or min raise preflop and attempt to control the pot size from the start of the hand, instead of changing course later in the hand.

Regards,
puckle.

[pineapple888]

[ QUOTE ]
Okay, most of the posters are advocating a call. Problem is that I see a lot of 4BB calls PF at these stakes with hands like Axs. If in this example the villian made a loosish PF call with A4s or A5s (or even 45s)then calling him and letting him see the turn could be catastrophic. With a straight draw on the flop, a pot sized semi bluff ( or a blocking bet hoping to hit a flush draw) could be within his skillset-: you need a read on the villian. Obviously any Axs hand could also see four cards to a flush on the turn and inspire another semi bluff with a passive call from the hero. The villian has just been given 5 cards to hit a set, a straight or a flush. Yuck!

When the stacks are this deep, then unless you have a very specific read on this villian, it is reasonably safe to assume that he will be as reluctant to stack off as you are. If he reraises allin on the flop with bottom or middle set then the villian is gambling that the hero doesn't have top set (as represented by the hero's raise) and the only question for the hero is," do I want to gamble"? If not, then fold.

With respect to the other posters, I feel that if you are not willing to defend AA by raising a pot sized bet on the flop then you should probably limp in or min raise preflop and attempt to control the pot size from the start of the hand, instead of changing course later in the hand.

Regards,
puckle.

[/ QUOTE ]

Dude, I'm not sure what you are on about, but I call like everyone else.

[Genz]

If he likes to semi-bluff his stack away, I'm more than willing to call and I see no reason to stop him from doing so. Look at this thread: http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showfl...e=0#Post8885476
I don't want to put down the poster there (I'm not even saying that he isn't right. Hell, he probably is!), but I want to point out that reasonable aggressive players will donk into you with a lot of hands on flops like these because they think you haven't hit. If he is on a gutshotstraightdraw and thinks a blocking bet of pot size is a good bargain, he can block as much as he wants. Because a pot size bet is what I planned to get into the pot in the first place. I see that I give up on my fold equity, but I'm not going to fight to get that back by putting in huge raises growing a huge pot with a one pair hand. You only have one pair! That's a hand that I'm willing to give up all the time and not a hand that I'm going to stack villains with unless I get them to go all in preflop.

[Genz]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Okay, most of the posters are advocating a call. Problem is that I see a lot of 4BB calls PF at these stakes with hands like Axs. If in this example the villian made a loosish PF call with A4s or A5s (or even 45s)then calling him and letting him see the turn could be catastrophic. With a straight draw on the flop, a pot sized semi bluff ( or a blocking bet hoping to hit a flush draw) could be within his skillset-: you need a read on the villian. Obviously any Axs hand could also see four cards to a flush on the turn and inspire another semi bluff with a passive call from the hero. The villian has just been given 5 cards to hit a set, a straight or a flush. Yuck!

When the stacks are this deep, then unless you have a very specific read on this villian, it is reasonably safe to assume that he will be as reluctant to stack off as you are. If he reraises allin on the flop with bottom or middle set then the villian is gambling that the hero doesn't have top set (as represented by the hero's raise) and the only question for the hero is," do I want to gamble"? If not, then fold.

With respect to the other posters, I feel that if you are not willing to defend AA by raising a pot sized bet on the flop then you should probably limp in or min raise preflop and attempt to control the pot size from the start of the hand, instead of changing course later in the hand.

Regards,
puckle.

[/ QUOTE ]

Dude, I'm not sure what you are on about, but I call like everyone else.

[/ QUOTE ]
I think he is saying that
a) you should raise to prevent villain from hitting a flushdraw on the turn and semi-bluffing you, resp. suck out on you with a runner runner.
b) villain won't reraise all-in with bottom set because he is gambling that you don't have top set and doesn't want to stack off. So if he actually pushes, he is more prone to have nothing because he doesn't want to stack off with bottom set (?!?).

I don't want to make fun of you. But the more often I read that post, the less sense it makes to me, actually.

[Pokey]

A few comments about your post, puckle.
[ QUOTE ]

If you want to take an aggressive line then raise to get some more information.


[/ QUOTE ]

I have all the information I need: my hand is way ahead of villain's range.

[ QUOTE ]

If you want to take a passive line that will enable the villian to fire another barrel at you on the turn with a lower overpair, top pair or even a middle pair, then call.


[/ QUOTE ]

That's the majority of villain's range, and since I'm clobbering these hands that's my play. Why make a raise and chase off a hand that has 2-5 outs to beat me?

[ QUOTE ]

If you want to play scared then make the big laydown.


[/ QUOTE ]

This would be absolutely horrible. Our hand is best most of the time; we're not looking for a way to get out of it, we're looking for ways to sneak more money into the pot.

[ QUOTE ]

Don't be overly concerned at the prospect of AT or other 2nd best hands or a bluff folding to your raise. AA generally wins smaller pots.


[/ QUOTE ]

This seems to be the core problem in your thinking, here. You've got AA, you know that AA wins small pots, the pot is small, so you're looking to win it. This thought process is crippled. AA tends to win small pots because AA almost always wins and people rarely flop a big hand. However, in this particular case we seem poised to do better than average: villain is aggressive, OOP, and betting, and the board is safe. Our goal should not to be chase him off so that we can scoop up our little pot; our goal should be to give him enough rope to hang himself so that we can win as much as possible.

Let's compare raising to calling and see how it pans out against villain's range:

If villain has KT or weaker, our raise gets him to quickly fold. This will include the times that he has air or an underpair. A call might not win more money from villain, but it certainly won't win less.

If villain has an overpair, a raise will probably get more money into the pot on the flop, but will probably cause villain to shut down, either calling down or folding on a later street. While this builds the pot bigger on the flop, it doesn't guarantee a bigger pot in the end. Smooth-calling makes it entirely likely that villain will fire a second barrel on the turn, building the pot even bigger.

If villain has two pair (highly unlikely) or a set (always possible), a raise by us could wind up being extremely expensive. If we're raising this flop it's not going to be with the intent of folding to a three-bet, so we're really losing the absolute maximum when we raise this flop while behind. (Oh, and if you ARE raising with the intent of folding to a three-bet, then you REALLY have no business raising this flop.)

We're either way ahead or way behind, here, and that's often the time when we want to get passive. Considering that we're way ahead much more often than we're way behind we'd like to build this pot, but there's just not enough meat on the board to give our opponent a hand that's likely to call our raises. Take it slow and let him lead. Often I'll take a line like call/call/call in this situation, letting villain bet all three streets and taking down the pot at the river. Against some opponents, I might prefer a call/call/raise all-in line instead. Folding is not on my to-do list with this hand and this board.

[munkey]

Dude has a PP in alot of his range, limp calling PFR.
Sc's are negated somewhat [except Tx hands which are in his range too] since board is dry.

Donking into PFR with a set to get a raise and hence make AI by the river easier will only occur if we raise this flop, I'm not raising vs this type of villan.

i call flop, prob. turn or check if checked too, if he bets 3 streets I'll have to decide to call/fold the river, but this is just my general plan for the rest of the hand and obviously will change depending on action/board and is just pot control preplanning - this isn't a situation I want to be AI with AA.

If he bets turn weak I may raise, but unlikely given villan stats and the fact we're deeper than 100bbs I'm almost always checking turn.


Raising the flop AI is horrible for the reasons given by earlier posters.