Hand of the day V?

Question

another cash game question today:

you are playing in a $1-2 cash game with effective stacks of $1,500(yes, i enjoy these deep stacked questions, makes the hands more interesting when all-in isn't an option)...your opponent, who is an extremely aggressive but very good player, comes in for $6 from the cutoff, and you flat-call on the button with A-10, as does the small blind...the flop comes down A-A-J with two clubs, the small blind checks, and the cutoff bets $13...you raise it up to $39, the small blind folds, and your opponent comes back over the top making it $130 total, and since the stacks are so deep you decide to call...the turn is an offsuit 5, and your opponent fires $260, and again because of the deep stacks and also because of your opponent's aggressive image you decide to see one more card...the river is an offsuit queen, and after about three full minutes of chip counting and delibertaing, your opponent bets out $650...(continued)

Answer 1

A-10 on the button is a decent hand to call with so i don't have any real issue with the call pre flop. The flop is a pretty good one for you, and betting right out is also a good move, this lets you know where you are at in the hand. With so much action he most likely has a better ace or a worse ace. If he had the aces full here he would have just smooth called you when you popped it up to $39.00, he could even be semi-bluffing with a hand like K-10 of clubs, but i don't think so since he re-raised your raise, most draws would just call the $ 39.00 to see if they make there hand on the turn. But a hand like K-10 of clubs could be a hand to make that kind of move with. He most likley has an ace as well, he may even have the same hand as you. On the turn i don't like the falt call here, but if your beat it's not the worse play i have ever seen either. But you are no on the defence. The river is not the best card you for you here, but it missed the flush so thats a good thing. As far as his bet you only have two options, you either just call or fold. You can't go all-in here since you may be beat by jacks full, or aces full of jacks or queens.

Answer 2

Your oppenents range is very polarized to JJ+ or bluffs. So your hand is basically a bluff catcher. It comes down to whether or not he is bluffing 30% of the time or not. If he is, call. I believe a call is in order based on the info we have. You make it sound like his range is incredibly wide even when he 3-barrells so how can we not call?

Edit: Well, I still think his hand is either JJ+ or bluff. But what hands would he be bluffing with?

10% air

5% flush draw

5%- worst aces (turning made hand into bluff, which he is capable of because he is a very good player)

Hes bluffing 20%, 25% max. A fold is in order!

However, there is some things you need to think about.

1. Your hand is at the top of your range. Your hand looks incredibly like a weak or ok (but not awesome) Ax. If you had Jx or worse, you would probaly fold turn. If you had a house you would raise turn or get it in on the flop (with these stacks and the board its probaly smart to try to inflate the pot as fast as possible with a strong hand). You could argue AK is at the top of your range, but usually you would be more agressive with it on the flop or turn. As i said earlier, AT is almost or is the best hand you could possibly have. I am not sure how or even if it affects your decision.

2. Now lets talk about how your decision may affect your future decisions. Lets assume your oppenent puts you on a weak ace. If you fold this, he will know you are able to fold. He will also know that he can get you to fold 90% of your range with a triple barrell, but you will call his double barrells. Because of this, he will start firing more 3 barrells which is a bad thing for you.

3. We know he 3-barrells. Yet we called turn and now are intending to fold on the river on a card that didnt change anything. Im not sure whether this is a leak.

I know that number 2 is something we need to think about. 1 and 3 are probaly important, but im not sure how it relates to the decision. ANY IDEAS HOW 1 AND 3 RELATE TO THE DECISION AT HAND?

I actually liked the call on the turn. Raising the turn is too strong, but folding is too weak against the GOOD and AGRESSIVE oppenent.

Now lets talk about your previous question. How can you not get the money in with AA? Is my range off? (If it is please correct me) It seems like an accurate portrayal of the hands he is 3-betting the flop with based on YOUR INFO. How can you not be happy with 60% equity??

Edit 2:

Once again, even if you take out some draws, your equity stays almost the same.

If you take out the gutshot straight flush draw (which seems fair) your equity will drop 5% max.

Obviosly in this situation, you cant be thrilled about getting it in. How can you think of folding though? I mean, if you are scared of coinflips you shouldnt be playing poker.

Edit 3: Okay, i agree its pretty close, but  I dont think you need to think too long on this one before you shove it.

Edit 4: We know he is capable of firing 3-barrells. However, we call the second barrell so he will be scared to fire a 3-barrell. If he is capable of firing a last barrell, I dont think us calling the turn will be a big deterrant. In the end, I think calling turn so he will be scared to bluff river isnt good logic.

I feel the turn is actually a pretty good case of reverse implied odds even though we hold trips /w a good kicker. We dont know where we are in any part of the hand. When we call the turn, we are hoping to get a free showdown and winning the minumum. However, if we face a river bet we have to fold or make a bad call. The more I think about it, I think we have to fold turn against a good oppenent. The turn call itself is definitly +EV. However, the turn call leads to a -EV river spot. Another thing to think about is the fact that a better hand is always betting the turn, but worse hands and bluffs slow down alot.

Anyways, this was a really tough spot and I thought this question really got me thinking. Thx!

FINAL :

FOLD RIVER, FOLD TURN

The last thing to discuss is the flop raise. We want to price out draws, but we only get like one street of value against worst hands, maybe two against A5-A9. Not sure raising flop is actually a good idea. Lets discuss!

Another thing to think about is when does your hand being at the top of your range matter?

Edit: I meant "another thing to think about is when does your hand being at the top of your PERCEIVED range matter".

Well I guess im done with this thread, fun times!

Answer 3

I am prejudiced here, after about 15k hands online over a period of time, mainly tournament play, my poker tracker said A/10 was my biggest leak, I seldom, if ever play an A/10 for a raise...lol. I dont do it in live ring games either simply because of what my poker tracker has told me about that hand.  

With him being extremely aggressive, I really can put him on an ace/rag raising in that possition, a small pp or possibly something with a J.  so this is a hard hand to play, he either doesn't put you on an ace, or if so, he wants you to put him on a stronger hand.  this is the problem with getting into a big pot with someone extremely aggressive, I am not going to do an indepth analysis, because, with aggressive players, you are going to pay them off when they make a hand.  The one hand I might worry about, I see real aggressive players raise with k/10 on the button, and his re-raise smells of a semi-bluff on the flop, more so than a made boat, and at that stage that is all you have to worry about really, a boat.  

I would call, and if I lost, so be it, the best players in the world pay off aggressive players who make these off the wall moves, it is just too hard to lay down trip aces to an aggressive player.  To a rock, that is another story if he were a tight aggressive player, yeah, I would lay down, extremely aggressive player who is good, it is a call, because he is betting that you don't have trip aces.

Answer 4

I would fold for a few reasons.

One is that's a scary flop usually. The only people who stay in with that flop are those who have something. Which in this case is us and him. And people don't usually bluff alot with this flop. People see that flop and usually say, I'm glad I folded. LOL.

Another reason is it's a cash game and I like to play much more conservative when real moneys involved. In a tournament, I know that all that's at stake is my buy in. But even with that said, if it was a tourny with a $1500 buy in I'd probably still fold this one.

Theres enough hands that beat us, although King 10 and pocket 5's are unlikely. And usully the extremely aggresive player that puts in a small raise, $6 is small, thats when they have cards more often than not.

I'd also rule out Q's cause the bets were too high on flop and turn.

So the scary ones are the A K, A Q, A J and pocket Jacks.

The pot is now $798. And our set is nice too. But I don't think it's quite nice enough to call another $650.Dam 10 kicker. We only have $400 in so if we fold, we have $1100 left and we are good enough, if we get decent cards it will work out.

And if he is bluffing, which is possible with us just calling flop and turn bets if he puts us on to an Ace with a weak kicker, Then we have to tip our cap to him for continuing to throw bullets out there with that board.

PLEASE post results for this one if you have it after you pick best answer.

Answer 5

As played, fold, you're behind a ton of his range here and he isn't likely to fire a river barrel on a bluff.

However, avoid this situation.

1. Don't raise on the flop. By raising here you're ensuring that the only further action you'll see is the dangerous kind.

Other actions are hard to determine without any note or consideration of the hero's table image.