I hate these situations. I have been very active the past orbit or 2. Not maniacal but I sense people are becoming suspicious of my play especially the main Villain in this next hand. Now I finally have Aces and I want to fold them.

Hero: Young mid-20s Sitting on about 475. Play has been very TAGish. Have 3-bet more than anyone else at the table. Have also folded for an orbit or 2 when card dead. Have only shown down 1 hand that I can remember.I have A10, raise pre in cut off I believe and get 2 callers. 883 flop 3 handed I c-bet get 1 caller from one of the looser guys at table. Turn is a 10. I fire 20. V calls. River Q I fire 25 for value and get called by 10,9.

V1: Foreigner, drinking, probably early 30s. Sitting on about 450. At the table with 2 of his buddies. This guy and 1 of his buddies are the only real action at the table. He is opening quite frequently. Doesn't seem to care too much about position as he is playing just as many hands OOP calling opens. Villain seems semi-competent but very far from a superstar by any stretch. V1 is clearly the most active player at the table. Have not seen him get out of line yet although some of the hands he has pushed hard on wet boards were never shown down. I know this type of player is clearly capable of a bluff though I have not seem 1 yet.


Leading up to this hand Hero has played the last 3 hands in a row opening 2 of them and winning all 3 usually on the flop or turn with aggression while not having much. The 1 hand I didn't open I just called with AQ V1 actually opened that hand and we took a flop 4 handed. JJ4 board and it checks around to me. I fire 2/3 pot and everyone folds. V1 was last to fold and reluctantly tank folds giving me the eye like "Ok kid, you really always have a hand?" I can tell he is getting quite suspicious.

Next hand Hero finally gets dealt AA. Ahhh! Perfect timing. Folds around to me in the cutoff and I raise to 10 just praying I'll get atleast 1 caller. Hopefully a raise since a cutoff/button open is always less credible. Instead I get 3 callers. LOL Button and both blinds. V1 in BB.

Flop is the not so beautiful 457. While we are waiting for sb to act I notice V1 grab his cards give them a peak then look directly at the board then back at his cards. I try not to worry about tells like this too much but I just couldn't help notice it and it set off an alarm. Almost as if he's thinking "holy ish, do I really have what I think I have, before I start dumping all my money into this pot I wanna make sure I didn't mis-read my hand." I decide immediately if v1 applies any pressure at any point during this hand I might have to dump it.

Checks around to me I fire a 25 c-bet. Button calls which I love. He has been the 2nd most active player and I know I am waaay ahead of his range. SB folds and V1 makes it 65. Now I feel like I am in a horrible spot. V on the button has about 200 behind. Me and V1 are kinda deep 450ish. This is not a situation I want to be in with this kind of board with 1 pair. If Button V folds and V1 just pops my c-bet I am flatting and reevaluating turn every time since I definitely put a decent amount of semi-bluffs and spazz in his range since I have been so active the past orbit. Although I am not afraid of what V on the button has I just don't feel comfortable being in this spot. If I flat then button V decides to jam I really start to hate life.

Also I should note V1 and the V on button are buddies. They are not soft-playing each other at all. But I also haven't noticed them trying to outplay and trick each other either. Which gives more credibility to V1 having an actually made hand here. I don't have pokerstove but I imagine I'm maybe a coinflip against V1s range which should include a decent amount of flush draws/combo draws.

How am I proceeding here against the 2 loosest players at the table after being so active for the past orbit winning 3 pots in a row with aggression. Now finally having the bullets.

With your image, I like a raise to 15+. You'll look like you're shifting gears and you and V1 probably have the table slightly tilted with all your aggression. A LP raise after you've been this active is going to get called a lot more so you're missing some value and messing up SPR by only making it 10.

Flop is a gross spot that I know all too well. It sucks to be in between the action and not know what button is going to do. I'd honestly feel just as lost as you did and evaluate all the same factors. We can't assume they put us on AA but if button shoves, we are in a disgusting spot on a terrible board for our hand. I think I would of ended up flatting the 65 like you did and expect BTN to fold. When he ships, I probably fold simply because we are so deep against V1 and I'd be pretty clueless as to what we beat if V1 starts to tango as well.

I call the 65, fold to shove, hate life because I play bad. I'm pretty lost when I get in these spots as well. This is why I advocate a bigger raise pre since it allows us to pot it bigger on the flop and make evaluating and committing or not a little bit easier.