Hand played by a buddy and interested in a line check on every street...


Bought in for $2,000 at 5/10 NLH.

Built that stack up to $5,900ish in about 2 hours.

Guy to my immediate right was a ultra aggressive button player who was a very effective position player. My observation was that whenever it was limped around to him under a straddle hand, he would always pop it to $115-$145.

I am in the small blind and have pocket aces so I just call setting the trap (took a major risk by letting 5 people into the hand, but my observation was on-point and this guy raised to $135. I then raise to $525, everybody else folds but this guy tanks and finally decides to call (we both are sitting on $5800+).

Flop (~$1100) is King, 7, 3 (rainbow)

I fire out $925, he tanks and raises me to $1,850. I go into tanking mode, and since there aren't any flush or straight draws, I just smooth call so he can hang himself.

Turn (~$4850) is a 2

and I decide to check (pretending I'm scared of his imaginary "set"). He then fires out $2,250ish, I tank and decide its best to just call bc we are getting it all in on the river anyway and I don't wanna prevent him from bluffing off his remaining stack.

River (~$9350) is a Jack

I check, he tanks and shoves all in for remaining $1600+ stack... I call

He shows his set and laughs, right?

How did the button raise your SB after you called pre-flop?

I wondered same thing? Button / V was straddler?

I assume missippi straddle is on???

1. your cbet is too large. no reason to pot it on a bone dry flop with a 5 SPR

2. he's not triple barrel bluffing you. let's think about it.. you limp/backraise pre.. then bet pot on a bone dry flop... then call a raise... on a bone dry flop.. setting up a 3/4 pot bet going to turn.. on a bone dry flop...

do you have ANYTHING that will EVER fold? no. and he knows that.

It's a button straddle with SB first to act.

I think the key question here isn't: what does villain have?

It is: what does villain think Hero has?

Unless Hero has a strange image or history of really FPS, villain has to think hero has 'the usual' hand for pre-flop limp/back raise. Since Hero' hand is so transparent (esp. after calling his flop min-raise) and there are no draws... Well consider the obvious, as Villain ain't playing scared post-flop.

Bummer for your buddy.

$525 isn't enough preflop. Because you are so deep and there is already some money in the pot your giving villain over 10:1 and telling him you probably have a big pair that he can win a lot of money against if he hits his set. If your going to do this you need to pop it to $750 preflop and just kill his odds.

After that it's entirely about reading villain. Your not always losing this but if villain is any good he is beating any single pair when he shoves river. When you call his flop min-raise he knows you have at least AK here, he isn't triple barreling if he can't at least tie that.

I'm not sure who played this hand worse, but your buddy is going to get ripped apart short and long term if hes regularly stacking off 600BB wth AA with this ultra bipolar/face up line. His first mistake is limp-back raising the BTN as if this were a 100BB spot. If I were the BTN I would open-call ATC and pressure the strong-ultra narrow range on most flops that I didn't nut my hand with. Second, the PSB-call the min raise with <a PSB behind is another fantastic way to get melted. From that point forward it doesn't even matter anymore, but even if atill ahead allowing this BTN to see rivers and then ck or bet then is the coup de grace. For hero to feel comfortable here is quite mind-boggling, but even more numbing is trying to find what value hands the button can raise OTF... Perhaps he knows his man, but his non shove turn suggests strength but is still a needless slow play.

If your friend won the hand then the BTN is the biggest spot on the planet for 5T. So often, this deep and when played completely face up, AA is going to just win a smallish pot, get forced out, or stack off terribly.

Deep stack poker is the nuts!!!!

Got no help for you. No way in hell I am calling river, unless guy is complete maniac. (Don't get there in thus manner)

This is such a terribly played hand. As others have said, obvious AA is obvious. And yet he's still trying to get stacks in and sets up a very small river shove. Is he ever doing this with a hand that AA has beat? Answer is not unless he's a complete idiot.

We need more information than villain is 'ultra aggressive'. In a vacuum, putting in 600BB with an overpair is a huge mistake. I'm assuming ultra aggressive means he tries to max fold equity and put his opponents under pressure. None of his three bets are designed to get you to fold you hand. Every bet looks like a suck bet.

I hate the limp/rr. It's so obviously AA/KK to any thinking player. I would only limp/rr with a super aggressive player on my left (not right) and anticipate 3-4 calls when the aggressive villain raises. A limp/rr also works well as a bluff.

I'd rather check the flop or 3bet than call down as played. Bet-call looks exactly like AA/AK.

Open to 3x (60$?) and hope someone reopens the action. Then 4bet big.

as played:

Don`t give him odds to do the right thing while telegraphing that you have AA/KK. LRR huge or call (hoping someone does something stupid like shoving). Having AA here actually king of sucks, and I don`t consider shoving super terrible.

Apparently 5/10 Heros play exactly like 1/2 Heros. That's good to know...

Stacking off ~300bb deep when your hand is face up is terribad, I don't even care if he won the hand (because if he did, his read on V is way off)

Don't get too excited, these two would be unicorns in just about every room I play. Vs line is pretty ******ed as well.. I hope V had AK and the whole table went "whooooaaaaa coooolerrrr" as if that's what happened.

This

Is this a home game or something? The only hand that V should ever have is a set. And I still don't like his line.

Everyone pretty much nailed it. The limp - reraise screams AA. 1/2 players know that, let alone anyone playing 5/10. If your "buddy" won, don't tell anyone where this game is. You'll have people flying in to sit at this table.

If villain flopped a gssd and turned oesd ima lmao.

Not enough reads on villain postflop play to justify bluff catching 600bb with AA IMO.

The preflop l/r and flop bomb put hero in the position of opening up his stack with a face up hand. This board is completely dry. You'd have to know villain was a spewtard to take this line with this bet sizing.

And river doesn't qualify as much of a bluff. It's 1/6 pot.

This seems more of an "I haz aces" hand.

the flop is the key to this hand.

when V MIN raises to 1850, it is right there where you have to decide if you are going to go with the hand or fold, everything else after that point is trivial. So once hero decides to go with the hand, whether he calls it all off or shoves on the turn, it doesn't make any difference.


the only other spot where hero could have played better is if he makes it 725 to pre. when he makes it 525, only 395 over V's open, he is giving him the right odds to set mine on the 395 that he has to call.

Wait a minute! This seems like results oriented thinking. now are you trying to come up with a pre-flop raise size that denies V the odds to set mine and therefore would have - with the benefit of hindsight - gotten V to fold pre?

Even if V is set-mining, we ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS want him to call pre. If we give him proper set mining odds, and he does have a PP and does go set mining, that is hugely profitable for Hero, PROVIDED Hero has the post-flop skills and discipline to recognize a set and get away from the hand.

While I'm not a fan of limp/re-raise line, sizing the re-raise to end the hand immediately is sub-optimal.

If Hero gives V bad odds to set mine, but he set mines anyway and hits, the result is still the same... huge error post-flop of several $thousands, not small error pre-flop of a couple $hundred.

Agreed with consensus that you should be betting >700 pf. But when you are this deep, there is no point going for a limp reraise with this hand in the first place. Realistically, this play is not going to be building the SPR you want, leaving you OOP while turning your hand up for many, many BBs.

You can't do anything about this. So instead, just open normally, and hope you get 3b. A 4b is really what you want here, and a limp reraise virtually eliminates that happening (unless BTN is superstrong, in which case you should still lead pf anyway).

Another poster mentioned something a few weeks back that stuck with me. There is temptation to view AA as an EVENT! type hand, and then play sub-optimally. It's easy to look at AA in SB and say "oh noes, I don't want to raise and play this multiway, here's this tricky limp play, I'll get HU and make so much monies." Especially this deep, you should resist this urge.

^^^ Mostly this IMO. He's 600 bb deep (straddle is mostly irrelevant it's not 300bb poker). Employing a low SPR stack off plan is going to lose value for the sake if scooping 10bb or so. And if that's our std strat id suggest we shouldn't play this deep.

It's deep stack poker and premium pairs aren't as valuable as they are 100bb deep.

Now if we open raise and are 3! We can consider the merits of a polarizing huge 4! Against villain's 3!/call Range.

Information on how many other players called our limp. Is fairly important.

You do know that your comment about playing ATC in pos against a face-up range and applying max pressure would have got you stacked for 275BBs here, right?