200 NL - AQ facing river shove

[HoldEmNewby]

JC,

reason for flop check is usually to give villain the opportunity to bluff with weaker hands, and to hopefully extract some value from hands that would fold to our cbet. We check this flop all of a sudden TT may feel a little froggy. It also sucks nuts to be reraised on this flop as well. These factors are what make me lean towards a flop check. We're not afraid of catch ups on this flop because its not very drawy.

In your opinion how does betting help us? Do you really think you can get value out of a weaker ace in a reraised pot on 3 streets?

ps> I'm genuinely interested in your point of view as I too am still learning the game.

[J_C]

HEN

At these limits you really don't induce bluffs on A high flops when you have reraised PF. I'll respond properly tomorrow, but basically this line loses rather than increases value short/medium/long term, particularly OOP. If you want to mix up your flop lines you should be betting more often, not less.

JC

[HoldEmNewby]

look forward to your response.

[Perseus]

As mentioned, this is something I do extremely rarely.

My thought was that this guy had stats that marked him for a not-so-solid player, I was OOP, if I bet I ONLY get called with hands that I am dominated by (besides, maybe, an A), yet if I check I can extract money from bluffs and/or weaker A/pairs.

I don't mind letting someone draw to 3 outs, as they would probably be calling my flop bet anyway so it's not like I would be chasing them away.

[Mossberg]

I would cbet this flop for these reasons - he often has either an Ax or a pocket pair. Lower pocket pairs you aren't getting value from this guy anyways (any reasonable bet on the turn after checking flop in this reraised pot will be more than enough for this guy to put you on a better hand and fold) - So you might as well just end it now to avoid the small chance that you get 2-outed.

If he has a higher pocket pair he is likely to peel one off (planning to fold to a second barrel). So you can bet flop, he can call, you can check the turn to make him think that you probably don't have an ace, and possibly end up catching a bluff.

The other advantage of betting is that this guy will tend to be honest with you on this ace high flop. OTOH, when you check you possibly open yourself up to some ugly situations on the turn/river. All in all, betting the flop seems optimal to me against most of his range.

I could be missing something though.