I think it's very clear that double flat is not my preferred line.
That said, if you flat once, then I think flatting the second time in this hand seems like the strategically consistent play given the stacks and your assessment of the button.
You said that you made the first flat for the following reasons:
- Didn't want to announce hand.
- Disguise AAxx.
- Limp-called everything (this is a substantial leak, imho).
- Not bloat pot / keep pot small, so that you can...
- Find higher edges post flop.
These are all viable reasons to flat. In fact, it can be a very profitable strategy in a soft game.
When the 3-bet comes around, I think all of the reasons you mentioned above for flatting still hold. What ended up happening was that you announced your hand, you bloated the pot, and you guaranteed roughly a crooked coin flip (i.e., not a "higher edge") for your stack.
This strikes me as being an inconsistent strategy.
As I mentioned before, I prefer a raise here. Why is that? Assuming that someone is willing to take crooked coin flips for their stack (I usually am), I want to be able to make a raise to somewhere in the 5-10% range of effective stacks. This will effectively allow me to shove on any raise. A raise to 1100 would have been about 8% of effective stacks... perfect.
The only catch is that hero needs to raise more hands in late position in order to disguise his AAxx hands. That's a topic for a different post.
Lastly, if the pf line is double flat, would I fold flop? Folding with an overpair and no draws on a semi-wet board with 11bbs invested in the pot isn't bad -- it doesn't feel good, but it's consistent with a strategy that looks for bigger edges. If you put more money in this pot without a solid read, then you're flipping against ranges. If your willing to flip, then don't double flat pf. If you're looking for bigger post-flop edges, I don't think this is your spot.
I guess my overall summary is that hero should have a consistent strategy within a hand, and I didn't see that.
FWIW, I feel like I am rambling a little bit here, but it's tough for me to speculate about what I would do in situations that I rarely/never find myself in. For example, the small-pot line described above would only be something I do in early position, and I am ok playing small pots from out of position with marginal hands. In late position like the original hand, that's when I want to use my position to build and play bigger pots (e.g., 3-bet 8% effective stacks pf).
What would you have done on a double flat pf line?
