WSOP ME - AQ facing mini-raise on flop

[PhatPots]

I had a few situations where I was facing a mini-raise and was a little unsure to how to deal with it.

I had been pretty aggressive preflop, and there have not been a lot of show downs. I have been sitting at the table for about an hour. I had continuation bet just about everytime it was heads-up and about 50% of the time it was 3 handed. Villain had not done anything out of the ordinary. He is a middle aged African-American, listening to his Ipod. His chips are in one big stack. So far he has shown down AA once preflop.

Hero has 22,000
Villain has about 24,000

We are eight handed at this point and Villain is to my immediate left.


Blinds are 200/400 w/ 50 ante
Preflop: Hero has A [img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img] Q [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] in MP2
3 folds, <font color="red">Hero raises to 1,200</font>, Villain Calls, 3 folds

Flop: 9 [img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img] 2 [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] 3 [img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img]
<font color="red">Hero bets 2,000, Villain raises to 4,000</font>, Hero?

This is the second time he has mini-raised on a dry board against me. Last time I folded. Do we peel one off and see what he does on the turn or let it go right here?

How do you proceed if an A or a Q comes and he makes a bet of 4K on the turn? Or do we fire 4K if an A or Q comes out?

[MLG]

folderson. don't always c-bet.

[uclabruinz]

Call and see the turn. Probably check/call an A or Q and value bet the river if he checks behind. Check/fold to a normal sized turn bet.

[MLG]

ucla,
what?? i think calling is a huuuuuuuuuuge spew here. you're calling for a 6 outer which may or may not be good. Often i think you only get 1 card to look at, and really you're like never ahead. so you can't think your A high will be good all that often can you? seriously. just give this one up, and next time you suspect a guy may be getting play happy check the flop here.

[NoahSD]

I agree with MLG. Lots of otherwise good players just sort of call minraises for no reason. You have pretty awful reverse implied odds here, so drawing to a 6 outer es no bueno.

[uclabruinz]

There's like 9500 in the pot and we have to call 2k. Our six outs are almost always good, I find these minraises on dry boards are nothing more then "moves" a vast majority of the time, so my suspicion is that we might even be good already. He's already done it once before according to the OP.

He could have 9x or TT or JJ. QQ+ would have reraised. I just find it much more likely he has nothing and will give us a free look at the river and fold to a river bluff.

[MLG]

ucla,
ugh. so you are basically calling here hoping he checks 100% of the time, and then folds to your river bet almost 100% of the time. Even getting almost 5:1 on a 4:1ish shot that seems really bad. Especially since he will surely have a set some % and he will surely bet a middle pair on a low card some %. And you can't start telling me we have implied odds to hit, because then you lose out on the argument that we can often bluff the river and make money.

[uclabruinz]

Where are you getting the "100%" stuff?

I'm saying simply we have almost express odds to call if our six outs are good, we're often ahead, and we're often going to get a chance to see the river for free. I don't expect any of this stuff to happen 100% of the time.

Bottom line, I think he is FOS a large amount of time, has a hand that gives us six outs another pretty decent amount of time, and has a set very rarely.

I have no intention of putting a signficantly further amount of my stack in jeopardy. My line is mostly check/call going forward if I hit. I'm not sure what I was talking about with bluffing the river. Maybe if a K comes or something.

[MLG]

ucla,
we dont have express outs to call if our 6 outs are good, because that assumes seeing two cards. If the plan is to check call if we hit then we need to ascertain what % of the time he checks the turn on cards we dont hit in order to figure out if we have the right odds to draw.

[uclabruinz]

I probably worded it poortly, but my point is that we almost have express odds to call because villain checks behind the turn very often and our hand is often already good unimproved. What this comes down to is that I think people bluff way, way too much, and this appears to be a bluff to me, considering he did it once already.