Just another Thursday night at the poker room. Typical 1-2 table -- a couple competents, a couple incompetents, and the rest somewhere in the middle.
I'm MP with a stack of 350. One limp. I have AA. I make it 18. At this table tonight it seems the right size to get heads up.
Folds to Villain in BB. He calls. Limper folds, and we're HU.
Villain has about 200. He's bad but not terrible. Calls too much, passive. But he's not stacking off light -- he likes to see a lot of flops and tends to call a street or two if he hits the flop and if it's cheap. Typical 1-2 player fishing for a monster. He's about 40, white, neat hair and tidy pile of chips.
Flop is 10 3 2 rainbow.
I bet 20. He calls. There is now 76 prerake, 70 postrake.
Turn is 7. Two clubs on the board.
I bet 40. He calls. 150 postrake.
River is K, not a club. He shoves his remaining appx 120.
I need to call 120 to win the 270 currently in the pot.
Why I should call:
-- I'm getting a decent price and I do have Aces. It's not out of the question he has AK, AT, QQ, JJ, JT, T9, 54, A4(?).
Why I should fold:
-- With any of the hands above, he would have played them poorly on one street or another. AT, QQ, or T9s kind of make sense, except for the shove at the end. I could see him playing 54s this way, but that's just 4 combos.
-- TT, maybe 32s, maybe 22 or 33 are the hands that make the most sense. And they all beat me.
If hes really calls too much and is passive like you said he is, then he probably has KT. I think only you can decide for sure if you should call or not. Its way too read dependent for any of us to answer with any accuracy.
For 100bb, it's tough. He might think his K is the nuts. I guess he could have KT (bad player in the blinds -- any two big cards look good).
With reads, maybe we are beat. This is one I'd need to be at the table for. If he's not stacking off light, maybe folding is the right play. Just never show.
Against a player like this, I bet more on flop and turn for straight value.
This is what I'm thinking. He must put you on at least AK, yet he's shoving into you on river? A player who is passive and doesn't like to stack off light. I just don't see him bluffing here.
I hate folding AA for 100bb against bad players, but sometimes you just have to -- mainly because they are bad players if that makes sense. Follow your read unless you get another vibe on the river.
Pre & Flop sizing is good, Turn I would bet more for value from Tx. River is a fold.
It makes no sense from him to have a naked K here, and when passive players suddenly turn aggressive and jam river for pot they almost always have 2p+ here - these players don't value bet thinly, and there are almost no draws that missed he could be bluffing with. The K hits your range much more than his, yet he is still choosing to shovel in chips.
The board is dry and not scary so also no reason that he would have raised his sets on flop/turn. I would expect to see KT, 22, 33, TT, 77, T7 here.
The only hand you are beating honestly is 45. From this type of player, his hand is polarized to a whiff or he had AA beat. He's never playing AK this way, or even QQ or JJ. I think it's a fold unless you've seen spewy/spazz from him in the past or if he is insanely stuck and hopelessly tyring to win a pot with a busted draw.
I'd fold and if asked say you had JJ or something.
As to rest of hand, I would bet more on flop, shove turn.
Preflop: This raise is giant for 1/2. Your goal with AA is not to get the pot h/u, your goal is to make as much money as you can with it. If there's one massive degen at the table who is willing to call 9x open raises, then go for it, but otherwise you are too likely to only take the blinds.
Flop: As played, bet larger. $30ish is good. If your opponent is willing to call big bets without much of a hand preflop, then he's likely to call big bets without much of a hand on the flop too.
Turn: As played, bet larger for the same reason as last street.
River: As played, call. KT, 45, and strangely played bluffs are all part of his range. I suspect you're good here 50% of the time and you're getting better than 2:1.
I play in lots of 1/2 games where you don't see a flop for less than $15, and it's usually $20 - $25 pre with no limpers. H knows his game, and he accomplished what he wanted, so $18 was probably perfect.
I dont think hero needs to bet more on the flop or turn. There are no draws to protect against and the flop and turn bets are nicely sized to keep TP from folding. We dont want them folding and the bets are already big enough to get all in on the river. If villain didnt shove the river, hero could do it and get calls from a T.
I would probably fold the river here unless Ive seen something from villain in the past to change my mind.
