I was playing 1-2 NL 9 handed at a casino in Oklahoma.

Before the flop UTG folded. I was UTG-1 and had an A-Qo and limped in. 3 other players limped. SB folded and BB checked.

The flop came A83
I bet $6. MP folded. MP-1 bet $25. Everyone else folded to me so I am now heads up to the raiser. About 10 hands earlier I had folded a pair of aces on the flop to a player who wanted to play for stacks. Thus my table image was tight. The player who made the raise was a 55yo man who played (on a scale of tight=0/Loose=10) about a 4 and (on a scale of passive=0/aggressive=10) about a 3. I had seen him play a suited Ax hand earlier and made a flush.

My read on him was he was wearing sunglasses. His body was tilted sideways with his face looking at me. He was very still displaying a relaxed pose.

What should Hero do fold, call or raise????

Thanks in advance...

I just wrote a nice, helpful reply but somehow it disapeared FML

cliffs:
-post stacksize
-limping AQ utg+1 sucks
-fold flop
[ ] read

Thanks for your help. Our stack sizes were about equal at about $125. I should have said "My read was not helped by seeing his eyes because he was wearing sunglasses".

Yes limping AQ UTG preflop was not good. Would a fold have been better or a raise?

Why fold the flop? Not questioning your judgement just trying to learn?

Thanks....

First of all, given the reads, villian is a tight/passive player. Passive players tend not to raise, if they don't have it. In this case, the most probable hands for him to have are sets (88,33) or 2 pair A8,A3. You wrote that he was confident and calm. That's another sign of you being beat in this hand. Also, you mentioned that villian is capable of having Ax there. Might as well be A8s or A8o or A3s since it was a limped pot. The board is dry, no flush or str8 draw so we expect villian to raise his value hands as opposed to semi-bluff. That being said, I don't think villian is valueraising anything that you beat. I don't see him bluffing here ever, esspecially after reading that he knew you were tight.

You are responisble of putting yourself in a tough spot, because you didn't raise pre. AQo is strong enough to raise UTg+1 on most of the tables. As your table seems to be quite passive pre it makes even more sense to raise.

Thanks for your help. I agree with your logic and it just goes to show that a player can make mistakes in a hand and still win the hand. I ended up going all in and villian folded.

I thought about calling him on the flop but then I reasoned he would probably bet the turn and I would have the same difficult decision. He splashed his bet forcibly toward me (weakness). I had a hunch he was bluffing. If you do the EV math and he is bluffing with a 66% probability and has 2pair/trips with a 33% prob. then:

EV = .66(I win the pot=$41) - .33(my all in bet=$120)
EV = $27 - $40
EV = -$13 = not a good play for me

If he would have folded to $120 then he probably would have folded to $60. Then my EV = +$7

Another way of looking at it:
Let's say he limps with Ax suited and any pocket pair TT-22 (prob would raise preflop with JJ-AA). He would prob raise preflop with AK or AQ. (leaving him with AJs-A2s). Thus there are 9 pairs x 6 combinations of having each pair =54 and there are 10 Ax(suited) x 4 combos of having Ax(suited) = 40.

Thus there are 94 two card combos he could have. 20 out of 94 would have me beat = 21% of his hands beat me.
EV = .79(I win $49) - .21(I lose all in bet $120)
EV = $39-$25
EV = +$14

Any thoughts or comments on this??

These are the calculations I'd use:

pot: 42$
Board: A83
Your hand: AQo
Villian's range: 33,88,A3s,A8o,A8s,ATs,AJs,AJo + random bluff 6combo

Unfortunately when u shove villian only calls w/hands that beat u. I'd doubt that he calls a 3bet w/ATs or AJs here. Although it's very unlikely that he bluffs here, I'll add 6combos of pure bluff.

Villian's range = 4,4%
Villian's calling range = 2,4%
That means villian will fold 45% of the time to your shove.
Your equity when called: mere 11%

13,860 games 0.000 secs 2,772,000 games/sec

Board: Ac 8d 3h
Dead:

equity win tie pots won pots tied
Hand 0: 11.162% 10.91% 00.25% 1512 35.00 { AhQc }
Hand 1: 88.838% 88.59% 00.25% 12278 35.00 { 88, 33, A8s, A3s, A8o }

0,45 * 42 + 0,55 * (0.89 * -117 + 0.11 * 140) = -29,90$

Raise pre.

Bet bigger on the flop.

Fold to the raise.

i call once on the flop. i think if he really had a big hand, he would make a smaller raise and try to keep us in the pot or slowplay. his raise just seems to me like a "see where i stand" type raise.
if he can bet big on the turn, he gets the pot.

Thanks for all the help. Wow, I made some bad decisions in that hand!

Interesting equity analysis by fishyy88. Did you use software to calculate the equity?

If we call the flop as suggested by one of the responses then what do we do on the turn when we are first to act - check?

Poker Stove is a free and very useful poker tool. That's a must have for every range vs range analisys.

If we call the flop we will definately check the turn.

All you did, when you shoved, was ensure that if you were behind you lost the maximum and if you were ahead you won the minimum.