Hero is a mid 20s white guy. Been playing TAG but havent gotten many hands so I haven't raised much pre. I'm sitting at about $325.

This is a 1/2 game, but this table happens to be full of solid players except for 1 player. Probably the most skilled 1/2 table I've ever played against.

The hand:

Preflop:

A seemingly solid player who I haven't seen get out of line raises utg to 8. I have aces at utg+2. I debate reraising, but it just looks so strong to reraise here. So say if I had made it $24 or so, and only villain calls, then the pot has $51 and villain has a pretty good idea of where im at with an SPR of 6. Still a profitable situation, but if villain out flops me, I'm susceptible to getting stacked. against a decent player, it seems to be a "win a little, lose a lot situation". Maybe I'm being really paranoid, but I know that aces are much more profitable when they're somewhat concealed.

Here I opted to flat the raise, hoping for someone to squeeze somewhere along the line, where I can hopefully win a huge pot. The table has been raising pretty often pre flop, and the player to my immediate left has been doing a lot of raising, though there has only been 2 three bets (neither by me) during the hour I've been at the table. If the flop goes 5 or 6 ways, which is kinda likely if no one 3 bets, then I'd play my hand extremely cautiously.


What do you guys think? Are squeezes generally too rare at 1/2 to play it this way?

Raise for value.

Going 5 ways out of position is not a good place to be.

Don't be so afraid of being in outflopped. You have position and can easily pot control post flop.

Would you rather play $50 pot heads up with position, or play a 5 way pot out of position?

You have to reraise it here. An $8 utg raise is small for 1/2 and I'm certain if you flat you would get more than one caller behind you. You have to 3 bet here, and not be afraid of losing with AA. If you can get into a HU situation with the utg raiser you're at least 80% chance to win the hand. When other players come into the pot your equtiy decreases. Isolate, and try to thin the field, the last thing you want to do is play with AA multiway possibly OOP.

Also, you can't bank on anyone squeezing, it just won't happen often enough in 1/2. It's not worth the risk for you to flat here and hope someone squeezes behind. Also, you're more likely to get outflopped in a pot with 5 people rather than in a pot HU.

I think it's definitely a raise. For value and to get people behind you out of the hand. You are in mid position. If you flat more people will call. Play this heads up.

The villain might have a big pair and if the board comes low you can stack him. I'll raise every time to about $20.

Raise and stack him when he cant fold jj on a 9 high flop.

As someone who thinks he is pretty good at inducing squeezes, I believe that you shouldn't flat the raise because you are hoping for a squeeze, you should flat the raise if you think that the probability of a 3bet behind you is large enough to justify the risk of just calling the initial raise. I tend to have more courage than most when it comes to taking risks like that, but you've given me no good reasons to think this is a good spot for slowplaying aces preflop.

At a 1/2 table, the best scenario for flatting with AA is if you have a couple of short stacks in late position who are aggressive enough to just pick a hand and go with it after a loose player opens and gets several callers or if the raiser plays a lot of hands and is short stacked so that other players are interested in getting it heads up all-in PF with a bunch of dead money in the middle.

If you just call, someone else 3-bets and THEN you throw in a big raise, then I think your hand looks like AA and it should be really obvious.

This actually is an interesting spot and I can understand arguments for both. If the table is really squeeze happy calling has much more weight. But we don't have great reads on the rest of table or the villain really other than he is "solid".

If he is raising UTG his range should be pretty strong. Although his 4bb sizing would indicate weakness. This is generally super weak pre sizing for 1-2 especially UTG. If you call, it will likely entice a string of callers looking for a cheap flop for 8 bucks. How has the table been playing, lose? Trying to see flops? Passive? Aggro?

I raise to 35 here because I don't want a string of callers. If he is really a thinking player, he might level himself thinking you are bullying due to weak sizing and because your line looks so strong.

If he raised to 15-17 and the rest of the table has been folding a ton to these raises you could make a call for flatting, especially because 3betting here looks incredibly strong. Still I am raising here a lot too.

It sucks sometimes we just have to play our monsters fast and face up especially at this level.

I make it 25 here. Very difficult to justify flatting in the small chance or a squeeze. Really have to 3b.

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The only way that you can justify flatting in a spot like this would be if the table has been 3-bet happy. If a lot of opens are getting 3-bet/if there is a lot of 3-bet squeezing then flatting could be the most +EV line. However, this is almost impossible to find in a $1/2 game, so rather than letting yourself get fancy, just 3b for value/to prevent being oop in a 5-way pot.

Table change?