Live 1/2 Fancy Play with AA

[KurtSF]

I usually just play ABC with aces, especially preflop raising big every chance I get. I've seen a lot of posts recently where good players will slow down preflop with AA to disguise their hand in order to pick up a ton of value postflop. Recently I was playing and I found a spot to try this out. Here's the hand:

Typical live 1/2 game. I've got about $200 in front of me. I get A[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img]A[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] and raise to $8 UTG.

MP player calls. No real reads on this guy, but he hasn't been raising much and seems quite passive, and only has about $120 in front of him.

Folds to BB who raises to $24. This is a young Asian kid in his early 20s, also with around a $200 stack. He's been playing pretty tight and very aggressively postflop. My guess is he would just call here and try to hit a flop with AQ and probably AK too, so once he makes his raise to $24 I put his range at TT-AA.

Normally I re-pop this to $60-75. But being in position on BB and pretty sure he's got a big pocket pair, I though this was a good spot to slow down and try to get value from him postflop. FPS? I call, MP player calls. My plan is to jam almost any flop (KQT is a disaster).

Flop comes T[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img]9[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img]4[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img]

BB bets $20. I raise to $60. MP calls. BB goes all in for about $110 more. Chips are counted and I cover BB by $5.

I'm not very concerned about MP as he could have any 2 cards. Most likely TPNK or the flush draw, but also possibly 2-pair. So be it if he does.

This is exactly the action I was looking for. But I'm a little surprised how fast BB is playing it. Based on my reads I think I'm splitting with AA, losing to TT, and beating JJ, QQ, KK.

General questions:

* Did I pick a good spot for this play?
* How's my range for BB preflop?
* What's up with the $20 c-bet?
* How does flop action affect the range for BB?
* Is a call on the end correct? I can't fold after the way I played preflop, can I?

[Makonnen]

The spot was fine.

I don't know what you're image is, so it's hard to think about what BB would put you on, and, hence, to evaluate your sense of his range. That said, my guess is some lower pairs do this, too, so I would expand it down to, I dunno, 77, and I wouldn't rule out AQs.

C-Bet screams that he wants action, but that doesn't necessarily mean TT, 99, AKd.

Doesn't really for me.

Yes, no. The board is too drawy, with things like QJ being possible for MP, AT, QQ, etc. for me to find a fold.

[O0Brian0O]

Spot is okay, but you want to make these slow plays heads up, so having MP in the hand is bad for you, those ATCs can catch flops no matter what hand you ahve.

Range looks spot on.

$20 c-bet smells of either AK or TT. He has the nuts, or missed.

Doesn't

I don't think you can fold. I doubt you are ahead of both players in this spot very often though. Best case BB has JJ/QQ/KK and MP has AT or the like (or a flush draw), but it's also likely you are beat by a set or 2 pair.

[KurtSF]

I can't recall recent history, but I was down a couple buy-ins to this table. I'm usually the table nit, if anyone is paying any attention whatsoever.

[GiantBuddha]

The title kind of says it all to me.
[ QUOTE ]
Live 1/2 Fancy Play with AA

[/ QUOTE ]
Almost never a good idea.

That said:

I like that you have position on reraiser.
I don't like that your first raise was so small and his reraise was similarly small.
I don't like the third guy in the pot who's always calling once you call.
I do like the relatively shallow stacks. If you were ~$300 deep I think this would be terrible.

So in answer to your questions:

* Did I pick a good spot for this play?
not really, but it's not the worst spot to get cute
* How's my range for BB preflop?
sounds about right, but I wouldn't rule out AK or AQs even if you've seen him flat call it before. He's in a good squeeze spot this particular hand
* What's up with the $20 c-bet?
got me. that's a horrible bet no matter what he has. typical confused $1/2, though.
* How does flop action affect the range for BB?
I think it's less likely he has JJ given the tiny c-bet, and absurd for him to have AKo at this point
* Is a call on the end correct? I can't fold after the way I played preflop, can I?
You're getting better than 3:1. You wanted to underrep your hand and you have. Hopefully it worked and he has QQ or KK. I think you win more than 25% here, but it's close, considering MP is probably drawing to beat you and most of his money's in the pot already. And that's why I don't really like preflop.