First post after lurking for quite a while.

Playing in $1-2 NL game at local casino last night and following hand comes up. Would love some feedback.

Hero is in cutoff with stack of $250 and there is a button straddle to $6 (button has me covered with around $320). Table is loose passive except for button and seat to my right who are both playing a lot of hands very aggressively.

MP2 limps and hero also limps with A K knowing that the button is going to raise to $25-30 here 50% of the time - of course button checks - BB also limped in.

Flop is A 2 5 - checks to hero and hero bets $15, button raises to $35. Folds to hero and hero calls.

Hero checks on turn of K and button bets $55.

What does hero do?

Is hero trying to get stacks in against BU or is hero looking for a reason to fold?

raise: $155

if he has 34, well congrats. you still have some outs. You said button was aggressive so I am guessing he would have raised 55 or 22 and obviously AA

Your now beating, all of his two pair combos post flop and his flush draws. We have a well underrepped hand. I am raising for value trying to get my whole stack in.

Call the turn. Check/call any river.

The aggro types who raise half of their straddles are generally bluff-happy, so you dont want to get him off his bluffs on the turn. If he happened to wake up with 43, so be it.

With a solid read and a chance to squeeze out a lot of dead money in the pot after he raises and 2 - 3 peopel call I'm completely ok with limping here.

Pot seems like it has $30+ in it (5 people at least saw the flop, right?) so we should be betting close to $25 here for fat value vs loose passive likely stationary types.
Calling the raise is fine.

Turn is a great card for us obviously and I think a ck/raise here is in order. Stack sizes are little bit on the big side for a shove, but almost any other bet will look just as strong and leave us with a lol stack size on the river. So just go ahead and shove.

This is a common spot where V is repping a monster, and we have near the top of our range. We need to decide right now if we're going with this hand or not, because if decide to play, we can't fold river really. (Maybe if, and only if the 5 comes and he shoves).

I despise calling in this spot. Calling allows our V to play perfectly on the river with draws/the nuts. If he has a hand like A2/A5 and a club hits, he's likely checking back and we're missing a ton of value. 3's, 4's also kill action potentially. We want him to put it in now with hands like 5x of clubs, A3, A4, QJcc, QTcc, Kxcc, because he's likely giving up with these on the river and basically freerolling us otr. So you just have to decide if he's the type of player that barrels with these types of hands, or checks and gets a free card.

I think we have to just gii, and hope for the best. If you're really concerned about the money though, folding honestly isn't terrible. Because whatever he has LIKELY has a lot of equity against you, with the exception of 52, A5, and A2.

Well, I know trying to steal from the CO in a straddled pot never seems to work for me, so I reckon if I have equity I might as well bet it. But, as you read the discussion below, and think about the benefit of keeping his pre-flop range as broad as possible, you might feel better about limping.

AP, I got a sinking feeling. Villain probably has you on an ace, albeit a weak one. Dunno if he's trying to shove you off it with his fd, or if he's taking you to value town with his deuces. He's literally on any two cards, so the prior probability of him being on clubs is more or less about equal I guess to him being on 55 or 22, accounting for card removal. You might say, well if he was on a fd he would take the free card OTT. Would he? I wouldn't. The other possibilities (A5,43 whatever) likewise tend to balance out. There's dead money, there's outs -- I don't think you can get away from it.

Kinda doubt the dude is going to fold, and if he's aggro, you make more money by letting him bet the bottom of his range, rather than convincing him to fold it anyways. Call him down.

I think this thinking is a huge leak in spots like these. First, define the bottom of his range. 89? If described V is capable of blasting off with this hand, then I agree that calling is best.

HOWEVER. Let's assign a more realistic bottom of his range. Ax, every 2 pair, FD, pair + FD seem reasonable? If villain can be betting with hands like 56 then this changes my analysis but MOST v's are NOT doing this at 1/2. Period.

How much of this range is he going to bet on the river if the board bricks? Ax? doubtful probably too thin now. 2 pair? Probably for value. but every draw and pair + FD (and there are a LOT now because V is literally ATc. He could have K7cc for example) and ALL of these hands are likely checking back river. They are not barreling. If he has like 57 he's checking river after getting a free shot at 12 outs probably.

Think about it! If V shoves river on a club, what bluffs can he have? If V shoves river on a brick, sure he can have missed clubs in his range, and we still have the problem of if we were beat on the turn we're still beat on the river.

Well played. Good turn ck vs "very aggressive" player - shove always so he never has a chance to fold rivers as he might have if you had taken any other line.

I would just fold the flop after butchering this hand pre. You took a gamble preflop by trying to l/rr. I understand the logic behind it but the gamble failed. You only have one-pair in a 5 way pot so your hand is not strong and cannot stand the pressure of calling down. I'd say you're behind here 80% of the time on the flop with the real possibility of drawing dead.

JackInDaCrak - was definitely trying to get stacks in with this guy.

Lessons learned for me from this specific hand were:

1. Raise it up PF most of the time in order to better define hands. No sense getting cute with AK in a $1-2 game - although I don't think this was a horrible spot to do so knowing the button is so aggro.

2. I think the overall agreement is to go with this hand after the turn gives me top 2 and the villain could have so many hands that I beat - flush draw, worse two pair, air...

3. Result was that villain had 34, seriously slow-roll called me when I shoved the turn and I rivered an A to win a large pot.

(I decided to shove the turn because I hated just calling and seeing a club or a 3 or 4 that would make some straights for him or just getting put to the test with an all-in river bet from the villain.)

Hand was difficult to play for me after the PF plan didn't work out and I really appreciate the feedback. Excited to keep learning good poker strategy from y'all!

you lose to 3 hands here... 34, 22 and 55
no way he didn't raise his button in a straddled pot with AA or KK.

just call the turn and call any river.

i dont hate folding flop