AK flops top 2 in reraised pot

[Willd]

3rd hand of the tournament so no real reads. Play in these is generally loose/passive (bad) on every street (particularly preflop) so I had no reason to thing reraiser didn't have a real hand preflop, UTG has a fairly wide range though because people generally aren't aware of changing raising ranges OOP.

Cryptologic
No Limit Holdem Ring game
Blinds: $10/$20
10 players
Converter

Stack sizes:
UTG: $1440
UTG+1: $2250
UTG+2: $1420
MP1: $1440
MP2: $1500
MP3: $1500
CO: $1440
Hero: $2050
SB: $1480
BB: $480

Pre-flop: (10 players) Hero is Button with K[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img] A[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img]
<font color="#cc0000">UTG raises to $60</font>, UTG+1 folds, <font color="#cc0000">UTG+2 raises to $180</font>, 4 folds, Hero calls, 2 folds, UTG calls.

Flop: K[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] A[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img] J[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] ($570, 3 players)
UTG checks, <font color="#cc0000">UTG+2 bets $140</font>, Hero calls, UTG calls.

Turn: 4[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] ($990, 3 players)
UTG checks, <font color="#cc0000">UTG+2 bets $460</font>, Hero calls, <font color="#cc0000">UTG raises all-in $1120</font>, <font color="#cc0000">UTG+2 calls all-in $640</font>, Hero folds.

How's my line here. I almost folded UTG+2's turn bet but it was giving me very good pot odds and I thought there was an outside chance he was playing AJ this way. When UTG c/r turn UTG+2 instacalled so I didn't think there was any chance I was ahead of both of them.

[DC Fletcher]

PREFLOP:
I don't mind the button coldcall here. No reason to
put in the third raise with ace high, especially when
I have position for the rest of the hand.

POSTFLOP:
I think you missed an opportunity to define your hand
and see where you stood on the flop. Your passive play
on the smallish continuation bet makes your turn decision
harder because you don't know who's winning this so far.
I would make it 350 or so on the flop and probably shut
down if they both call my raise. If only one calls my
raise, I would bet half the pot on the turn and fold to
a checkraise. Regardless I would probably check behind
on the river.

In my view, you missed a chance to take control of the
hand on the flop (or to at least determine what you're
up against) and that made the turn impossible against
two opponents. I would probably have viewed the turn
as a raise/fold situation as well (leaning more toward
raising given the assessed level of competition).

Overall, I feel you called too much throughout the hand.
Passive play is much harder to pull off than aggressive
play with a strong yet vulnerable holding like top two
pair on a broadway board.

[J.A.K.]

[ QUOTE ]

POSTFLOP:
I think you missed an opportunity to define your hand
and see where you stood on the flop. Your passive play
on the smallish continuation bet makes your turn decision
harder because you don't know who's winning this so far.
I would make it 350 or so on the flop and probably shut
down if they both call my raise. If only one calls my
raise, I would bet half the pot on the turn and fold to
a checkraise. Regardless I would probably check behind
on the river.

[/ QUOTE ]

No. We are not putting in 1/2 our stack then folding. Raising 350 leaves utg+2 5-1 odds to call on the flop. If you feel your hand is best and are going to raise, it will commit 25% of your stack and you are shoving alot of turns. QT doesn't make sense with the preflop action and I am discounting AJ as well. That leaves sets putting you to 4 outs. I don't know why utg woke up on that 4h unless he is holding AhQh or slowplaying (my guess).

I think utg's c/r on the turn is skewing my thinking but since the donk bet on the flop lets you peel the turn for cheap, I take it. But when the preflop 3-bettor fires that second bullet I'm done. Once you called the 460 on the turn, that makes over 1/3 of your stack invested in this hand which usually means you are pot committed. Interesting spot though.

Testing my "readar" I will put utg on JJ and utg+2 on our hand...AK.

[DC Fletcher]

"No. We are not putting in 1/2 our stack then folding."


No, making it the 350 I suggest only represents 1/4 of
Hero's stack. There are tournament situations when this
is not the end of the world. This is one of them IMHO.
Although I am usually thrilled to flop top two with AK
in this instance the board is terrifying and we need to
find out where we stand. At least a raise takes control
of the hand and gives us more information if one of our
opponents donks the turn.

If the quote above refers to the turn bet, I would be
comfortable folding this hand if I got checkraised on
the turn after making my raise on the flop. Only hands
that beat me can make that play and if I'm behind I'm
drawing very slim with one card to come. I don't like
it but I'm not calling the checkraise.

[J.A.K.]

DC,
It's the combined action of raising the flop, betting the turn (when 1 villain calls) that commits 1/2 of your stack. To do this with the intention of folding is bad.

[skier_5]

What buyin is this?

anyways, I think that at a full table you should just fold this preflop especially if the play is loose passive like you said. I'd probably raise this flop and go from there. I'm pretty sure I'm not folding though.

[lwrunner103]

To OP, can you explain why just calling on the flop is more profitable than raising.

[betgo]

The buyin here is very significant both preflop and postflop. At high buyin, this is a fold preflop. In a $3 tournament, I would 4-bet preflop and be prepared to go allin. Also, a read on the other players is important.

The call preflop is probably OK, but it puts you in a difficult position where you connect strongly and don't know if it is good.

I think you have to bet the flop. On the turn, once you call half your stack, you have to call the rest. There is some possibility you are ahead, and atleast your 4 outs may be good.

[Willd]

Yeah, I guess I played this hand fairly bad. I don't think my call preflop was awful, since I have position and am likely to have a fairly clear idea of whether or not I want to continue after the flop. I think my main mistake was failing to raise the flop.

If I had raised the flop and got 2 calls I think I could have laid down to any turn bet, so it probably costs me slightly less than the line I took. Once I flat called the flop it made the hand very difficult to play. Calling the turn was probably a mistake because UTG+2 very rarely has a hand I beat here after double barreling. However I don't think folding to the c/r is bad since I've only committed 2/5 of my stack and I would still have ~60bbs at these blinds. Even though I'm getting rediculous pot odds I'm good &lt;5% of the time and never drawing at more than 4 outs (often less).

FWIW JK got the hands spot on, UTG had JJ and UTG+2 had AK.