Hey all. My second time at Hollywood on Friday night, and the following hand came up.

SETUP:

Hero (HJ, ~$200) - Been playing for a couple of hours, I have a very TAG image. I lost a couple of hands early when I didn't show down, but at this point in the session I think I had worked my way back up to about even.

Villain 1 (SB, ~$100-150) - Young player, sat down recently. He's been shuffling chips like he's been around a bit, but hasn't played many hands. I'm assuming he's a decent player until proven otherwise.

Villain 2 (MP. ~$100-150) - Older, talkative guy. Very loose, mostly passive. Seems to have no concept of position, will call a raise with pretty much any hand he'd limp with.

PREFLOP:

Hero is dealt AKo in the hijack position.

Villain 2 limps, MP+1 limps, Hero makes it $7 to go. Villain 1 calls, Villain 2 calls.

Comments: I actually was going to make this $12, but for some reason only threw out 1 $5 chip instead of 2. Nobody else knows this wasn't intentional, however. My standard raise had been $10-16.

FLOP:

Pot is ~$20
Flop comes A73 rainbow.

Villain 1 checks, Villain 2 checks, Hero bets $10, Villain 1 calls, Villain 2 folds.

Comments: Nothing special here. With a strong hand and a dry board this is typical for me.
Since there are no draws, I'm a little worried about villain 1 - he could have a lower A, A7, maybe A3s, 77, 33, or maybe AA. He could also have a pocket pair that missed the flop and doesn't believe I have the Ace.

TURN:

Pot is ~$40.
Turn is a K. It matched either the 7 or 3 (forget which). So board is now A-K-7-3, three-suited. I did not have the A blocker.

Villain 1 checks, Hero bets $20, Villain 1 calls.

Comments: Again, I think this is pretty standard. I just jumped ahead of A7, but otherwise the K didn't change much.

RIVER:

Pot is ~$80.
River is a 7. So board is now A-K-7-7-3, no flush possibility.

Villain 1 thinks for a while and then checks. Hero...???

Comments: Maybe this is standard for some of you, but I had to think about this one a while. The question is whether I can get three streets of value from a weaker hand. And if I bet and get check-raised is there any way I can call?

Let me know what you think.

Of course you can get value - all aces now think they're tied. A4 is now AA77K.

I would have bet $15, $30, $50. Fold to a river raise.

bet more pre.. u already said it was a mistake but ye more pre.
more on flop hands that call 10 call 15 dont mis out on value. a good player will see your milking him btw on that flop. (tryin to induce a raise on that flop is just bad.
turn bet more your missing value.
river bet your hand. you said hes decent hes not often floating flop and turn with just a seven.. what seven combos is he limpin pre anyway? just bet and tank fold if he shovs or call wateva x

Raise more pre (don't make stupid chip mistakes!).

Bet more on flop usually.

MUST bet more on turn!

I want to get stacks in at this point, and since he is just check/calling - I can't. So instead I'm going to bet as much as I think he might call - usually 2/3-pot size bets get called by everything that called the flop!

EASY bet on river, you are beating EVERYTHING except 7x and 33! If he had a 7 he probably wouldn't risk checking it on the river against you since you seem scared to bet everything here, so I doubt you've been betting a lot without a hand at the table!

Good point. I honestly hadn't thought about it that way - seems kind of obvious now that you mention it, though.

Here is where it is important to categorize your opponent as a suspicious player type or not. Suspicious players are those who are more likely to view a big bet as a bluff, call more often when draws miss because you might be bluffing and that kind of thing.

Against a suspicious player, you can pot the river and he will interpret it as you trying to steal his half of a split pot. Against a standard player, we should just make a normal value bet.

Readless here, I'd just go with a regular value bet, maybe $50.

Your preflop plan to raise to $12 was solid, but look at this:

If you raise to $12, preflop pot is $36. Your 1/2 pot flop c-bet would have been $18, your 1/2 pot turn c-bet would be $36, there'd be $140 in the pot and you'd be looking at betting $70-90 here. That one red chip mistake winds up costing you your equity in an extra $70 or $80 in villain's money. That's a huge mistake. It pays to be more careful with your actions.

Thanks for the info. I actually didn't even notice that I hadn't put out the correct amount until the dealer announced my raise as $7. I was about to correct him, then looked at my chips and saw that I had made the mistake. I'm still a bit clumsy with my chips in general - I've only played live 6 or 8 times, having spent the last 12 years living in an area without any live poker within a 6 hour drive.

And in reality I did bet $50. The villain thought for a little bit, then called and mucked his hand when I showed the winner.

I didn't think he was likely to check with a 7, which is why I made the bet, but I was concerned during and after the hand that I might be better off checking back the river and getting to showdown since I wasn't sure that I should expect him to pay me off often enough. As Bradley mentioned, however, any weaker Ace now thinks they have a share of the pot, so I'm sure it is profitable to bet in the long run.

And as for 7's that he might actually hold, I thought A7 was a possibility. But I just didn't think it was likely that he wouldn't have taken that line with it, so I thought it was worth a bet.

Grunch,
Your sizing on all streets seems a tad small. I would also question whether or not this is a correct board to Cbet. If Hero has an image of Cbetting a high frequency, then I would agree that the Cbet is correct, since you'll get light calls. Otherwise, it's hard any hand without an ace calling you. Btw, tons of value on bet/folding the river.

Get into the habit of double checking your bets now while you don't have bad habits to unlearn.

I think you played the hand pretty well, other than the preflop red chip mistake. If you were playing in my game, I'd say you played it very well. Places other than Vegas, from what I read here in this forum, you missed some value and probably could have gone $15 on flop, $35 on turn and $80 on river.

I like his flop c-bet and it's size. 1/2 pot flop c-bet with your entire range on ace high dry is profitable for your whole range against 2 villains. In a somewhat tough game with decent players, it's an effective way of balancing your c-bets. In a good game with fish, I'd go bigger.

bet more pre (understand it was mistake but still)
make it maybe 15$ flop, so you can do about 30-35 turn and maybe get value out of like $50-55 river.

i think you can still bet this and get value. chances are there are not many 7s in his rage at that point. what would be have been coming down with? maybe K7 but imo unlikely.

make the bet and if its a substantial raise, more than just a min or close to it, i think you still call but could understand a fold.

Bet. Basically calling his raises or shove here

OP, in ur analysis u said villain might have AA, how?

People like to get weird and slowplay with AA at times. I didn't think it was likely (which is why I included "maybe") but I would consider it a possible hand.

It's almost impossible for several reasons
1- Blockers
2- Preflop action