I played 15/30 and 20/40 for several months and am new to this forum.

Here is a hand I played yesterday and I am wondering how you guys would play this hand:

Hero in SB with AA.

UTG + 2 calls
UTG + 3 calls
CO raises
Hero reraises
BB, UTG+2, UTG+3 cold calls, CO calls.

Flop: J102

Hero bets, BB folds, UTG+2 calls, UTG+3 calls, CO calls.

Turn: 6

Hero bets, UTG+2 calls, others fold

River: 10

Hero checks, UTG+2 tanks for 3 seconds and bets, Hero calls

UTG+2 had 10Q

I am wondering if you guys will play this differently. Any advice would be appreciated. Thank you.

Realistically, I bet this river thinking he has QJ, KJ, AJ, QK, spade draw (probably not though), 98s (of some sort), 33-99, and pray he doesn't have a ten.

When he raises river, I cringe and call. Can't really see myself getting away from it.

How would you play differently before river?

Played fine until the river

fold pre, work on your psychic powers

real answer: bet river, fold to a raise vs most people unless you have history.

You played hand perfectly until the river, IMO, and arguably you didn't make a mistake at that point, either, if the reason for your check was some type of live read or a strong sense that--based on other information--villain had a 10 in his hand. That said, you must get max value out of hands as big as the one you held here, so the river is spot to bet out on this board almost all of the time. When you're raised, it will be a close decision between a call and a fold, but most of the time we have to call due to the large price the pot is laying is.

b/c should be your default line, not b/f. AA is way high in your range and there are plenty of missed draws villain can turn into a bluff.

EDIT: i should add, "if you are betting..."

I actually really like a river check, provided we are playing against players who value bet a jack. If they check a pair of jacks behind we should bet the river. But, this lets our opponents bluff some times and the most obvious hand we get paid off on is a jack - which usually bets the river any ways and we don't get forced into making a mistake when we bet/fold or bet/call.

oops forgot this is 20/40

if this was a typical small stakes 4/8 hand then it doesnt matter what your range distribution is

I think the river check was exceptionally good. Since he never raised, he probably does not have top pair, so T is a very likely holding. But that is retrospective analysis based on knowing the result. Don't provide the result -- that's ironclad tradition here.

I think its very villain dependent, but obv if your opponent can bluff-raise the river then we need to be calling here. On the east coast, river raises are very rarely anything other than the nuts or close to it (at the Borg 20 at least.) If I were at the Commerce I never fold here, as you say.

First, welcome to the forum. I hope you get at least as much out of reading and posting here as I have.

Secondly, as other people pointed out, don't include the results when you post a hand. Why not? Because it will affect the character of the responses you get. People will (consciously or otherwise) respond in a way to be more right in the context of the actual result, rather than what might have been best in the situation.

Up through the turn you played the hand in a standard manner. It is only at the river where things get really interesting.

Should you check or bet? If you bet, should you call a raise or fold to it? If you check, are you folding to a bet, calling, or raising?

I lean towards betting in this spot, and then folding. Why bet? Because in the games in which I play my opponents have a tendency to freeze up on the river, to bet only their very best hands, or to sometimes bluff. (We say that when a bet represents the very strongest hands or the very weakest that that bettor's range [the set of hands they might be playing given the action of the hand from its start to the present point] is polarized.) At the same time, players are likely to call our with hands with at least some showdown value. They will be calling with worse hands than our AA a lot more often than they will be betting them if checked to, and so we get an additional bet out of them when our hand is good that we otherwise wouldn't have. Why fold to a raise? Because most (not all, but most) of the people I play against only raise for value, because they expect that raise to get called, just as I generally expect my river raises to get called by the typical players in my game. So we save a bet by folding when a better hand than ours raises.

The decision to bet/fold is very dependent on your understanding of your opponent and the general game culture in which you are playing. When people are liable to bet a hand like AJ here when you check or are liable to have a lot of bluffs in their range, then by all means check and call. If this villain is capable of bluff-raising on the river, then you probably ought to bet/call.

I hope this is helpful, and illuminates some of the other responses you have gotten.

THank you all for your input.

Actually，I was thinking that maybe I should check on the flop, hoping CO (he raises preflop and I 3-bet) to bet, then I reraise, so players between me and CO can fold any second pair (like 10) and flush draw. Any wrong with this play? I know the problem with this play is that CO may check as well. But this might be the only way to protect my AA if possible.

no, letting this flop check thru is disastrous, plus you pretty much turn your hand face up with this play

Thank you. This is very helpful!

I think I might bet and then call if there is a raise.

Those who say well played with the river check come on!!!! It's a bet and you know it, despite results.

Get real

What about the mistake of checking and it getting checked through when your opponents would've called you with a J or a PP?

LOLZ - I was kinda thinking the same thing. They might say "expert check " which it might be but 99% of the time at game speed they're betting pho sho.

"provided we are playing against players who value bet a jack. The they check a pair of jacks behind we should bet the river." But I think this player type is rare.

You could think about when the CO raises you on the flop and you get to put that same 2 cold to the limpers by 3! on the flop. Plus you got extra bets in.

I'd have bet the river with one player in, and called.

You can't protect your hand by raising the flop. Everybody is getting the right price to call two bets - including gut shots/straight draws/flush draws/pair draws other than PP's.

If you want to try to protect your hand then check/raise the turn. This is risky though because you don't want the turn checked through. And of course it is still correct for flush draws and straight draws to call. I would do it only if I knew the CO to be very aggressive.