How well/poorly did I play this hand???

[illusion]

This was at a home cash game so I will try to post as much relevant info as possible... Sorry for the format.

.25/.50 NL

11 Handed

Table is a mix of loose/passive "gamblers", Maniacs, and "I think I'm tricky" players. I need to emphasize this as my play would be totally different at a regualr cash game or online full ring, etc... I frequently play with these guys and turn 40.00 into 150.00 in a few hours. I am viewed as a tight/aggresive player that almost always shows down the winning hand.

Hero is in Late Position with AQoff

2-3 limpers from early position

Middle postion Raise to 1.25 from a player who raises almost every pot he comes into ("to build the pot")(80.00 Stack)

Re-raise to 2.50 from next player (unknown 12.00 stack)

Call from next player (60-70.00 stack)

Call from next player (50.00-60.00 stack)

Hero Re-raises to 7.50 (80.00 Stack)

Limpers Fold, Initial raiser Re-raises to 15.00

Initial Re-Raiser calls all in for last 9.00

Next 2 players Folds

Hero Calls due to pot odds,position, looseness of players, and being heads up now.

Pot is roughly 48.00

Flop comes A 6 4 Rainbow

Villian bets 10.00

Hero calls 10.00 and Moves all-in for last 52.00

Villian thinks about it for 3-4 mins and finally calls showing down AK and takes the pot. He put me on pocket aces but "had to pay me off".

Here is my line of thinking:

Villian raises and re-raises with literally anything and gives the most ridiculous reasons for his "plays" so I dont and cant put him on just AA or AK just because he raised me pre flop especially with all the loose action and dead money in the pot.

When He bets into me post flop I really saw it more as a sign of weakness than stregth simply because he is a trappy player who slowplays made/strong hands and overbets/overcalls his draws. At that point I thought he could very possible have TT JJ QQ KK AA AK AQ AJ A10 or some other random holding and I am only beat by AK AA (I didn't put him on AA 66 44 because I know he would have definitely checked with a set heads up) So I am beating all hands but one AK. I raised all in because if I reraise to say thirty I am committing too much of my stack to where I have to call if he pushes (Which he would with most hands)or have him call the reraise and put all the money in on the next card, and I dont want to simply call the flop bet of 10, a turn bet of 20, and a river bet of 30 (getting all my money in anyway)while giving him chances to catch up to me if I have him beat right now. Also, I am pretty sure he will fold AQ in the unlikely case that we are tied. He sees me as a very tight player relative to EVERYONE else at the table and would put me on AK or better. So I feel when all was said and done I did the right thing and was destined to lose this hand under these circumstances. I suppose I could have folded Pre Flop but these guys are so loose and aggressive I felt it was an ok call.

Sorry for the long winded summary... this is the first time I have posted a hand like this in 2+2.

Please fire away with the criticism, advice, etc... Please dont be to mean though [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

Thanks

[AKQJ10]

Your thinking certainly sounds accurate. You want to play in a way that's accurate for the range of hands that your opponent might have. (See http://poker.wikia.com/wiki/Hand_reading .) If his range for playing like this is 77-AA, AT-AK then AQ is well ahead of that range throughout the hand. He happened to turn up with a good hand for that range, but you don't know that.

Now, all of that said, even wild players won't generally 5-bet (!) after a solid player 4-bets without at least AK or a big pair. So you need to be thinking carefully about how wide his range REALLY is given the information you have.

Have you ever seen him 5-bet on this action with something like 99 or AT?

[illusion]

Not exactly BUT... I can tell you that he constantly raises to 1.25-1.50 on ANY hand (his reasoning is that "I play 3-6 limit at the casino and that is not even a small bets worth) so under the circumstances and having seen hom make the same raise 3-4 times in the last 45 mins i really didnt see it as a "raise" in the real sense of the word. This is pretty common and unless the raise is to 4 or 5 dollars you are gonna get at least three or four callers. Now, the three players behind him; the re-raiser and the two callers are extremely loose as well and follow the same line of "logic" So I wasn't too worried abou the "re raise". "In effect" I was the initial re raiser when I made it 7.50 because this is just the normal raising/reraising that goes on in almost every hand. When he then Re Raised to 15.00 I perked up a bit and put him on a good hand but still with in the range of TT JJ QQ KK AJ-AK especially since I have seen him reraise with those hands before to push out all but the strongest aces. This is kind of a hard image to convey because alot of this poker play is pretty convoluted so bear with me [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

[AKQJ10]

You're doing fine. We can't tell you how you should have played this hand because we don't know this guy. But we can help you make sure you're thinking about the right things.

Even a wild raiser who raises because he was dealt two cards will often slow down when a good player shows aggression. That depends on whether his wildness is to put everyone on their heels and gain an advantage, or because he wants to gamble for stacks.

Note that even against your range for his 5-bet (which I agree is more like a 3- or 4-bet), you're not ahead. You might be entitled to call based on pot odds, I'm too lazy to run it on Poker Stove, but be advised you're behind that range.

[illusion]

Yeah, I agree.

I felt that I was behind pre flop but I just didnt want to lay it down simply because of how reckless these guys can be as well as the fact that I thought I could outplay him after the flop. I felt very certain that I could lay the hand down fairly easily post flop if I thought I was then really behind. I just got the wrong flop against the wrong hand to be able to do that (in my eyes atleast).

Thanks for the feedback, I really appreciate it. [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

[Pov]

Once this flop hits against this opponent you're getting it all-in. That's fine. Stop worrying about it. It's fine. But I really dislike how you played this hand pre-flop and I think you should spend a lot of time thinking about that.

Facing limpers, two raisers and two cold-callers . . . AQo is a small-pot, few-players sort of hand which is the opposite of what we have here. But if you aren't going to fold it you really must either call (which is ugly) or raise much more. And raising much more on AQo is pretty risky, especially against players you seem to hold such a big edge over. Here's what I mean - first look at what happens with the raise size you selected:

Pot = maybe $8 when you raise to $7.50. The blinds or players behind you are getting 2:1 on a call even cold. If it weren't for the threat of additional raising from the original raisers, they'd be getting great odds to call you with all sorts of hands, small connectors, obviously pairs which have you beaten. You need to make it something like $20 just to deny odds to 86s.

So you really need to consider what you wanted to have happen with your raise. This amount was almost a pot sweetener, which is definitely not desirable with AQo and a large field. But putting in 1/4 of your stack or more when you've got 160 BB's in your stack with AQo is also definitely not desirable.

That leaves calling and folding. Calling is not very pretty, but honestly isn't too bad considering how much money is behind. The main thing that makes me not like it is the presence of a raise and a re-raise before you. There's a reasonable chance your $2.50 call won't be the last money you have to put in preflop.

Moral of the story - AQo looks much better than it plays when you're deep. Let those blinds creep up and it becomes a premium holding. But at this stage you should really consider just letting it go.

[Gonso]

[ QUOTE ]
AQo looks much better than it plays when you're deep. Let those blinds creep up and it becomes a premium holding. But at this stage you should really consider just letting it go.

[/ QUOTE ]

I agree with this 100%; my first reaction was to just fold the AQ. Bad/loose players or not, you've got a raise, a re-raise, and then two more calls before you. What kind of hand are you hoping to go to war with if you have to? AQ isn't ahead of too many hands.

If I were going to raise at all here, I'd raise with the intent of taking the whole pot down now. 2x the pot is the kind of amount needed if I actually had any hope of taking it down, which it really doesn't have much chance of doing given the actions and the opponents.

When you get HU on the flop against guys like this, I can see pushing AQ on an A-high flop or whatever. But that's another situation... I really think the re-raise with AQ is the wrong play preflop.

[illusion]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
AQo looks much better than it plays when you're deep. Let those blinds creep up and it becomes a premium holding. But at this stage you should really consider just letting it go.

[/ QUOTE ]


I agree with this 100%; my first reaction was to just fold the AQ. Bad/loose players or not, you've got a raise, a re-raise, and then two more calls before you. What kind of hand are you hoping to go to war with if you have to? AQ isn't ahead of too many hands.

If I were going to raise at all here, I'd raise with the intent of taking the whole pot down now. 2x the pot is the kind of amount needed if I actually had any hope of taking it down, which it really doesn't have much chance of doing given the actions and the opponents.

When you get HU on the flop against guys like this, I can see pushing AQ on an A-high flop or whatever. But that's another situation... I really think the re-raise with AQ is the wrong play preflop.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah, I can agree with that. And looking back at the hand over and over again that's where I felt I went wrong. However, my thinking at the time was that if I put in a decent reraise against these maniacs I will probably only get called by one of them and be heads up with AQ. I am seen as avery tight player so the field thins out real quick when I reraise them (leaving a lot of dead money in the pot). In effect, that is what happened I was just up gainst a better hand. But, I definitely agree, I should have either raised more or folded, with folding being the much better of the options. It's amazing how you can convince yourself to do something you know is wrong given the right circumstances. I still remember looking down at the hand and my very first thought being "ah AQ!, too bad I have to fold", followed by the second thought "I know this is probably the best hand right now, I should just stick in a reraise and hope it holds up to whoever sticks around with me". I have been working on continuing to be more disciplined and listen to my first instincts in iffy situations. Alot of times when I look back at a hand that I misplayed I realize that I had the right read/thought/decision when first thinking about it but then went against it and made another play.

Thanks so much for the advice guys, this is really helping to open my eyes to some of the things I need to continue work on and build upon.

I really appreciate any and all feedback given.

[AbreuTime]

Sorry I didnt read all the responses, but I have one comment about your flop push.

Since it's a cash game and you can rebuy, it is important to not waste any edges you have. You said that you pushed to protect your hand, and that he would fold all worse hands. Then in that case, I don't completely understand your push. Why would you want to push out AJ or KK that is drawing to 3 outs or less? You want this person all in with you in these situations. You can't wait for the situations where your opponents are actually drawing dead... they dont happen very often. Take this edge.

Basically, if your read was that he folds all worse hands when you push, and calls better ones, then dont push this flop. (I dont recall there being any apparent flush or straight draw) A smaller raise is fine, or a push on turn, may extract money from worse hands. (Would you push if you had AA? I doubt it, in this game)

[illusion]

I understand what you are saying and that is very true. That is one of the thingds I remarked about after the hand; that "he's probably only going to call with hands that beat me and fold most others" but I couldn't be sure as this guy is very loose and can hardly ever lay a hand down. He just doesnt like to lay down hands and I guess the table image of a lot of these guys is that of sucking out since they rarely fold when they should and make alot bad all in calls. I guess I figured that since I was most likely going to get all my money in on this hand I might as well make him pay to draw out on me if he was behind. But yeah, you are right.

Thanks