AA flopped set against good player, how to maximise value?

[paddymcg21]

Playing in a local live tourney, most players pretty poor but this 1 guy to my right is very good (compared with the rest obviously) but nonetheless a good player.

blinds 100/200, starting stacks 10k. My stack 9500, villains stack 11,000 roughly.

Villain is UTG and makes it 700 to go. Im next to act and I make it 2,000 even. It's folded to villain who thinks for a while, looks at me and calls.
Pot= 4,300
My stack = 7,500, villains stack = 9,000

Flop comes A 4 6 with 2 diamonds.

Villain wastes no time at all and checks to me.

My problem here is im pretty confident he doesnt have an ace and im not entirely sure what the best action to take here is. If I bet then him not having an ace and folding is quite likely. If I check I could get action but then again it could also look very suspicious to him.

What are people thinking here?
cheers
Paddy

[illini43]

Would you c-bet this flop if you had KK instead of AA? If you would check KK behind here, maybe think about checking AA to elicit a bet on the turn.

If you bet KK in this spot, I think you need to bet AA. If he's not going to call with anything less than a pair of aces, I can't see you getting much value out of this hand. You don't want to give a free card to something like JdTd.

I bet 2800. It gives the illusion we have left enough in our stack to fold if re-raised.

[registrar]

Do you have A [img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img]?

Either way, while suspicious, I think checking is best and this is what I'd do with JJ-KK too. He won't fold an ace whatever and he'll pay off one street with 99-KK probably, and somewhat more probably a street closer to showdown.

[maletaja]

Probably check down to river.The probability that he has flush draw is unlikely.
I would do slowplay to the river,why?
a)Becouse i give him chance to bluff him when he has nothing
b)He could hit set and you get action
c)You convince him that u dont have A and u might get paid value bet against KK,QQ

[erocplayer]

since it's live, if you have any theatrics in your arsenal, maybe you pull his move--stare at him for a bit, reach for some chips--stop, look at him some more and then quickly toss in a bet like you've decided he hasn't hit.

in general, however, i bet.
not that there's anything wrong w/ slowplaying
but if a diamond falls, then i personally wont be able to get away and risk going broke. the pots already bigger than 1/2 your remaining stack, so its not bad to just pick it up now (if he folds).

since you reraised him he may not put you on any A other than AK, he may think you have TT-KK and will fold a check/raise, or he may have hurriedly checked a smaller set as a trap. he may call on a flush draw or he may raise on a bluff.

basically, i think there's enough hands that he'll call with to make betting worthwhile.

-eroc

[Lord_Strife]

I check the flop because he is probably on a pretty strong hand, TT+ AQ+, but since three of the aces are accounted for then it's hard to put him on AQ, AK, so we've put him on TT-KK. We want him to think he might be able to steal this pot from us because we have a similar hand. I like checking the flop and hoping he makes a bet on the turn, if he does, then we have to "timebank" before calling and hoping he'll two barrel for the river before we raise him... all the meanwhile he might pickup an underset along the way and give us his stack.

[pariah8]

[ QUOTE ]
Would you c-bet this flop if you had KK instead of AA? If you would check KK behind here, maybe think about checking AA to elicit a bet on the turn.

If you bet KK in this spot, I think you need to bet AA. If he's not going to call with anything less than a pair of aces, I can't see you getting much value out of this hand. You don't want to give a free card to something like JdTd.

I bet 2800. It gives the illusion we have left enough in our stack to fold if re-raised.

[/ QUOTE ]

In this spot I'd bet, 2000-2200, to make it look like a c-bet.

Let's look at this from his point of view, you are either checking behind because you are scared (kk-1010) or because you hit big (Because your reraise preflop at least signifies that you have a large hand). Now if you bet something that would be a standard c-bet to take the pot (wether you hit or not), I think you give him the opportunity to reraise you hoping for a resteal (and figuring that you would fold 1010-kk which easily falls in your range due to your reraise preflop).

As the illini said with that bet you make it seem like you could fold to a reraise.

[ChipSpeak]

IMHO, This is a check, with this pot, he is one move from being nearly committed. Reads and the cards we know, he has a pp, a good UTG raised and flat called oop. >95% chance he has no ace, a good player is not flat calling you oop pf with KQs, he's probly not flat calling many pp's either, especially with his stack. There are quite a few pairs over the second card on this board, very good chance he has a pair over the 6's.This is as good a flop as we could hope to have a check behind. It can as mentioned, represent a mid-big pair scared of the A, or a slow play, but what can he put you on that you're slowing here? (other than our hand), you are betting out AK AQ. If he has KK,(which he very well could with this line, having you isolated pf w no need to rr), you are giving his hand perceived value. Let him see the turn, fall in love with his big pair, start worrying about the fd and start thinking value. The suit doesn't concern me, if he has suit here I'm very surprised. Keep in mind, he has no idea of how powerful of a read this flop provided us on his pf play, we can show fear of the ace, we have a weird stack to pot ratio, so checking as a frequently seen weak play is not too suspicious.

[paddymcg21]

To answer Registrars question (a rather delayed answer I know) no I had Ac As. I should have included that in my original post really. Some good answers so far which is much appreciated. I agree id almost always bet out AK or AQ here. I think the problem is we arent deepstacked enough to be getting a call from anything worse than say AK/AQ (unlikely) or possibly QQ or KK may keep me honest at least on this street. Im thinking it all comes down to how the table perceives me (been caught bluffing once but other than that I havnt played many hands at all). This is just one part of my game I need to improve, I need to identify when to bet out once ive flopped the nuts. Against a known donk id check here but its the fact that villain is very clued up that makes this a tough one.

[registrar]

I think you're overthinking to be honest. The fact is that you've reraised an UTG raiser from UTG+1 for a big part of your stack. You might be bluffing but you're very probably not. So you have an ace or a big pair and the flop is A high. I really don't think you're bluffing frequency is that relevant. 95% of the time here, you've got the goods and I don't think that, given stacks, villain is going to be persuaded that you have KK and will fold it often enough that you're going to persuade him to make a move on the pot with QQ (for example).

So, he has an ace or set, and getting it in shouldn't be hard. Or he hasn't, and getting it in is virtually impossible unless he has some tremendous brainfart. But, if he's good, he'll call more and more often on turn/river than he will on the flop.