Three AA Hands

[Soulman]

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I don't know how many times it's going to take players to get in these awful spots with AA postflop in a limped pot. Before, you stop open limping, hell even a minraise is better.

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you betgo fan you.

[betgo]

First of all, the fact that you post three AA hands tells me that you are a weak/tighty.

Slow playing AA, makes things trickier, but it is not necessarily bad.

I know you are playing this way because you are upset about busting out when you raise AA and get multiple calls, but I think raising is better for your style. You seem a little weak/tight as I said (you are the one who wrote the infamous landmine article). You get into a lot trickier situations with AA when you limp or flat call, and I don't think that plays to your strengths as a cautious player. When you raise AA, you generally just try to get the rest of the money in postflop, which is much easier, and will lead to less mistakes if you are afraid of busting out.

I hand 1, I think you have to reraise with the limp and raise. The main purpose of flat calling is to get someone else to come over top. Here, if you flat call and no one reraises, you are looking at atleast 2-way action. There is no way the UTG limper folds. You could easily have 5-way action. With AA, you need to do whatever you can to get it HU or atleast 3-way, or maybe take it down preflop. Flat calling with AA is possible in some situations, but this is really bad.

In hands 2 and 3, the limp is fine if people are coming over top of limpers and you have been limping other hands. If people are calling early position raises, then raising may be better. It depends on table dynamics, but I see nothing wrong with the limp is general.

As to even miniraising being better, that depends on whether a miniraise looks normal for you and the table and people are likely to come over top of it. The miniraise is likely to produce a multiway pot. By limping, there is a good chance of a raise, which is what you want to provoke.

Hand 1 postflop. Awful flop. I don't like leading out, but I don't like checking. When you get 3-way action allin, I think you have a pot odds call. Either player could have a draw and you have outs against anything but a made straight.

Hand 2, I bet the flop. As played, probably raise the small bet. I probably also go broke on this flop. If you get action, you could be behind, but villain could have a K or a draw.

Hand 3, very easy call. Does he usually overbet push with 55 or a 3, which are the only hands ahead of yours?

[NYWalker]

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In hand 1 the pot is already raised. At that point you aren't hoping to trap a late-position raiser; you're just allowing more people into the pot with increasingly attractive odds.

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Here is my problem with AA in early stage of a tournament - e.g. blinds 25/25- how much profit should I expect from AA when in early position?

At this point, I have won 2-3 show downs with best hands, I have a tight/weak (or I call it tight/selective aggressive) image at the table. If I reraise to 300 - 400, most likely, this will shut off the rest players and HU with utg. In most cases UTG folds too if no one come along. I end up only 150 with AA here.

I expect too much from AA in early stage (from an action table)?

On the other hand, I don't think I considered the following two factors when expecting a raise from behind :1. it's opened pot already; 2. probably a tight player calls utg's raise already;



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In hand 2 you open-limp UTG with 18 big blinds. Anyone who isn't a total moron will be a little suspicious.

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This is true.

[Soulman]

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At this point, I have won 2-3 show downs with best hands, I have a tight/weak (or I call it tight/selective aggressive) image at the table. If I reraise to 300 - 400, most likely, this will shut off the rest players and HU with utg. In most cases UTG folds too if no one come along. I end up only 150 with AA here.

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I expect you meant MP1? Anyway, if you reraise to 400 and he calls, the pot will be at 850 with villain having 1100 behind. You will probably get his entire stack or nothing (or lose to a set/whatever, but that's besides the point). This is a 60% increase of your stack. Is that not good enough?

If you always expect to double with AA, then yeah you have way too huge expectations. Probably though, you need to please shania some more and raise it up a bit more often.

[betgo]

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In hand 1 the pot is already raised. At that point you aren't hoping to trap a late-position raiser; you're just allowing more people into the pot with increasingly attractive odds.

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Here is my problem with AA in early stage of a tournament - e.g. blinds 25/25- how much profit should I expect from AA when in early position?

At this point, I have won 2-3 show downs with best hands, I have a tight/weak (or I call it tight/selective aggressive) image at the table. If I reraise to 300 - 400, most likely, this will shut off the rest players and HU with utg. In most cases UTG folds too if no one come along. I end up only 150 with AA here.

I expect too much from AA in early stage (from an action table)?

On the other hand, I don't think I considered the following two factors when expecting a raise from behind :1. it's opened pot already; 2. probably a tight player calls utg's raise already;



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In hand 2 you open-limp UTG with 18 big blinds. Anyone who isn't a total moron will be a little suspicious.

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This is true.

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I think you have to reraise in hand 1 and hope the raiser calls. The early position raiser probably has atleast AQ or 99, in which case he may have trouble folding. Also, there is a possibility the limper or the ealry position raiser has KK, in which case reraising should get you plenty of action.

If you reraise to 300 and get it HU with the raiser, that is a much better result than playing it 4 or 5 way, which is likely if you flat call. Also, if you pick up 175, that is not good, but playing AA 5-way is also not good.

This is a lousy spot to flat call with the limper already in. Also, with the early position action and the blinds so small, no one is going to squeeze.

There is an advantage of deception with the flat call, which is important with the money deep. I might consider flat calling without the limping in, but with the limper this looks so much like a multiway pot nightmare.

If the limp looks suspicious, don't do it. I can get away with it when I limp small pairs and other hands. Also, if there are a lot of loose fish limping, it is OK. If it is suspicious, you wind up with a limped pot with your hand sort of face up, which is another nightmare.

Plus, if you are worried about a raised pot multiway, when you have 20xBB, you can definately just get the money in if you raise and get called.

[Bakes]

how come hand one gives like a billion reads about the button when he shouldn't be in the hand

[NYWalker]

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First of all, the fact that you post three AA hands tells me that you are a weak/tighty.

Slow playing AA, makes things trickier, but it is not necessarily bad.

I know you are playing this way because you are upset about busting out when you raise AA and get multiple calls, but I think raising is better for your style. You seem a little weak/tight as I said (you are the one who wrote the infamous landmine article). You get into a lot trickier situations with AA when you limp or flat call, and I don't think that plays to your strengths as a cautious player. When you raise AA, you generally just try to get the rest of the money in postflop, which is much easier, and will lead to less mistakes if you are afraid of busting out.

I hand 1, I think you have to reraise with the limp and raise. The main purpose of flat calling is to get someone else to come over top. Here, if you flat call and no one reraises, you are looking at atleast 2-way action. There is no way the UTG limper folds. You could easily have 5-way action. With AA, you need to do whatever you can to get it HU or atleast 3-way, or maybe take it down preflop. Flat calling with AA is possible in some situations, but this is really bad.

In hands 2 and 3, the limp is fine if people are coming over top of limpers and you have been limping other hands. If people are calling early position raises, then raising may be better. It depends on table dynamics, but I see nothing wrong with the limp is general.

As to even miniraising being better, that depends on whether a miniraise looks normal for you and the table and people are likely to come over top of it. The miniraise is likely to produce a multiway pot. By limping, there is a good chance of a raise, which is what you want to provoke.



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Excellent comment.

How to play AA early on to lose small pots and win big ones ?

From hand 1, like I said in another post, reraise will most likely end up only 150 profit, a flat call may end up in bad situations like this one. What's AA's value in early stage?

Yes, this is the *first time* I flat call with AA after a series of problems with AA recently. In these hands, I was trying something new to find out what if I do this with AA here or do that with AA there...

I learn/understand some good from the actual action and people's analysis from hand 1.

[Foucault]

Walker,

You ask how much profit to expect when you raise AA UTG in the early levels. The better question to ask is how much profit to expect when you raise UTG in the early levels. In other words, it isn't just about how you play AA, it is about how you play the whole range of hands with which you raise UTG.

If you are concerned about people calling you with pocket pairs and taking your stack when they flop sets, then raise more hands that you won't stack off with. A good player is looking to put in no more than 10% of his stack preflop with a pocket pair when you raise UTG, on the assumption that he will flop a set 1:8.5 times or so, and that when he does he will often take your entire stack. But what if he only wins your stack half of the time that he flops a set? Then it is no longer a good idea for him to put in so much pre-flop when he will have to fold the vast majority of flops. So to counteract his set mining strategy, about half of your UTG raising range would have to be hands that you won't automatically stack off with on most flops.

So if you only raised AA, KK, QQ UTG, he'd be correct to call 10% of the effective stacks with a pocket pair and get away unless he flopped a set. But if you also raised AK, AQ, JTs, and T9s UTG, then he would once again be losing money by calling off so much of his stack preflop with a hand that can't play past the flop.

When you're shallow and there are aggressive players raising/shoving against limpers, I don't mind the limp all that much, provided you don't think the table will interpret it as suspicious. But when you're deep, the solution is not to slowplay your big hands, it's to play aggressively with a wider range of hands so that you are harder to read and play against.

[NYWalker]

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I think you have to reraise in hand 1 and hope the raiser calls. The early position raiser probably has atleast AQ or 99, in which case he may have trouble folding.

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Just a different spin off the topic, in cause, you come to LA for LAPC.

For LA action players (especially the best mid-stake cash players in the world at Commerce), their range of this 4bet in EP is very very wide at 25/25...




<font color="white"> Showdown button: Th8h tp, MP Qc9c str8.</font>

[betgo]

Your whole thinking is too weak/tight if you are so worried about how to play AA. You need to be looking for profit more by playing marginal hands well then waiting for monsters.

You really need to get in the mindset of looking at AA like QQ, AK, 99, KQ, 76s, 33 or any other playable hand. Just play it like another hand, and don't be concerned if you lose or win a small pot.

This is a relatively easy hand to play, particularly if you don't get tricky with it, not that getting tricky with it is necessarily bad. In a live $500 tournament, you can't expect a huge gain with AA. At low buyins online, the action is so loose that can often win a big pot, but this usually doesn't happen in tighter games.

So just play AA like AK or JJ and raise or reraise in the appropriate situation.

If people are limping and people are coming over top of limpers, than limping is OK. I will sometimes limp it if there is not a lot of limping, because my style to limp marginal or speculative hand and to make loose limpreraises. I also only play this way if the table conditions are right. It sounds like you play a more straight TAG style, so don't limp it unless limping looks normal.

A miniraise is OK if you expect people to come over top and it looks normal for you and the table, but then your hand is sort of face up when you reraise it, so I would generally only play it that way if I was miniraising tons of marginal hands. You can also make a large raise if people are calling loosely and you want to build the pot and cut down on the field.

Typical fish go to far with AA and make unusual bets, miniraise/reraise, extra big raises, unusually taking something off there standard raise, suspicious limps, small reraises, etc., and these can be major tells.

Generally, you make normal looking plays with AA. After the flop, play it pretty much like AK with TPTK, except it is weaker than that because there is an extra card out ot make someone a set or straight.