V1 (UTG - $500) - Been playing together for a few hours. He is somewhat tight, and very passive. Doesn't make much noise unless he has a hand.

V2 (MP - $300) - New to table. Fat mawg with glasses. No reads except seems to be limp/calling a lot.

Hero (CO - $250) - Regular, chatty. One of the only aggro guys at the table. Probably appear loose because I've been getting good hands and raised a few times recently. But I've shown down a couple premium hands if anyone is paying attention.

Three limpers to hero in CO who has AA. Raise it to 17. Two callers to the flop.

Flop: 8c 2c 3s ($55)
Check to V2 in MP who makes it 40. Hero calls, V1 folds.

Turn: Kh ($135)
V2 bets 50, hero tanks a bit and calls.

River: Jh ($235)
V2 bets $35, hero calls

Should I have folded turn, or even flop?

Wait, fold the flop to a 3/4 pot bet with AA on a very mildly wet board to a relatively unknown player??? I would have raised the flop to $100 to define my hand. I think a set would likely c/r this kind of flop so you very well could be facing a flush draw... As played an easy call on the river.

lolwat? No

First, I hate donk bets from unkowns, I generally tend to be a little more conservative until I get better reads, but in this situation it is an autoraise

On this board there is nothing he could have that beats us other than sets. This is usually a hand like TP, 99-QQ and maybe a fd or sd once in a while.

Raise flop to 110-125 , to make him make a commitment with his Overpairs, quite a few cards can kill your action. Raise/call. Shove turn

The Villian's line totally sucks for him. He didn't even breakeven if he was set-mining.

No, don't fold against to his ridiculously small bet-sizing.

PF and flop seem fine. Raise turn small, I'd probably min raise here or go 2.5x. R/F river $100.

Why would we want to raise flop? We allow villain to get away from mid pairs as well as stopping him from continuing bluffs.

Turn I'd flat as well, don't see much value in raising as he folds a lot of his PP and 8x which we may be able to get value from.

River we can jam. Villain has less than a psb behind and his sizing looks like a blocker type bet trying to get a tiny bit of value.

As played yes river is an all-in.

Since you said villian is aggressive, you can also raise call the flop. While you fold out his bluffs, you give him the opportunity to shove all of his draws

Flush and straight draws missed. As Villain played this it seems like a draw that may have hit a pair and he is block betting. Like jx clubs or kx clubs. I would surely call river, if not raise.

You have ~$100 left on river if you flat villains river bet. Never folding here. It's a question of whether you can shove for value on river AND get called by worse often. His sizing makes me think he doesn't have a strong hand. You could even min raise river if that's the most he calls.

Never folding on flop or turn as played. Flop I will raise if I think I can get called by top pair a lot or if villain has a Ton of draws. Only way you can fold flop is if you were up against a nit or someone who only donks with two pairs+ on flop. Turn is a flat, no point in raising when that is a huge scare card for villain if you're still ahead.

Raising flop is only good if we expect villain to often call down or reshove with 8x and smaller overpairs. People keep forgetting that draws are only a tiny portion of anyone's range, even if they are loose. They'll have a pair way more often than they have a draw so keep that in mind when choosing to flat or raise

Hmmm I don't see many holdings V could have where flatting the flop is better than raising. If he has a flush draw we obviously want to charge him more. If he has an 8 or an overpair, he could very well shut down to an overcard or flush card on the turn.

Can anyone articulate why calling the flop is better than raising?

Raise flop.

As played raise turn.

As played shove river.

Given stack sizes...small raise on flop and shove turn....

As for arguments against raising flop....this is 1/2....there are a TON of hands that you can get value from on flop. Draws, top pair, overpairs, pair +draw, etc...

As played, call river...don't see too many one pair hands that will pay you off unless V is a complete idiot.

I'm ok with stationing the whole way vs. someone I don't know. Especially with that river price.

Be aggressive with A's, raise flop, get it all in asap. There's more value to this than this single hand. It maintains your aggressive image and puts monster premiums in your aggression range. If everyone folds, you win a medium pot with your marginal hand (1 pair), a good result. Show your hand to promote fear against your aggression. This will force people to feel like they need to flop 2 pair plus to play back at you.

If you get called down by a flopped set/2 pair, or get called down light and sucked out on, that's just bad luck, nothing you can do. I probably would try to avoid showing my hand in this situation, because people seeing your A's cracked will inspire them to take shots at cracking your perceived tight range since you are "unlucky". I always want to maintain a lucky image at the table as much as possible.

Yes, he has more pairs than draws. We have the nut pair. Two Aces. Why wouldn't we want to get more money in the pot when our hand is better than our villains and he has shown interest in the pot? This is poker101. Don't level yourself, it's 1-2 NL

Our opponents will stack off light, we are playing 1/2. For most V's TP or any overpair is the nuts, and when they fire 3/4 pot OTF they usually are not folding to a raise

At 1-2 a majority of our profit will come from prison rape value owning our opponents. Getting MAX VALUE. They did not drive all the way to the casino to hero fold an overpair at the 1-2 game. 80-90% don't know how to range us. They are level 1. They haz TP or overpair, monies goes in pot.

If you aren't raising flop you are missing tons of fat value. Plain and simple.

So while the hand is over and you are patting yourself on the back for winning a 200$ pot not realizing V has $150 left and this should be in your stack as well. Some players will have his $150 in their stack, some won't

You don't want to give villain the chance to play perfectly with hands you are ahead of by raising the flop. If villain is bad enough to b/c the flop with 99 though, then by all means raise.

Thanks all. I flatted the river and he had 23o. I think I would have raised flop if it was a smaller donkbet which is more typical for draws. I was also probably influenced by the fact that I've had a few coolers with overpairs recently.

I said good hand and was nice about the loss. Yet the villain started justifying his call with 23o by saying that I raise too much in position and that I won't get credit for a hand when I keep doing that.

Needless to say he kept calling with trash hands versus other opponents too, eventually lost his stack, rebought, and lost it again.

Nonetheless his comment about not getting credit for a hand when being aggressive preflop stuck with me. But that's a different discussion.

You don't get credit for aces. This a pretty good thing I'd say.

I wouldn't have played the hand this way, but I don't hate it.

I'm not sure whether folding the flop or turn would have been worse, but both would have been pretty bad IMO. I doubt you'll find much value in raising the river, so calling is fine.

If I decide to just call on the flop, I'm slow-playing to some degree and disguising the strength of my hand. In that case, I'm going to make a pot-committing raise on the turn.

Do you hold the A?

So we have a villain who thinks you open too wide and he counters this by limp/calling 23o out of position.

I'm not sure of the issue here.

Raise flop.

As played raise turn.

As played shove river.

Agree about it being great that he doesn't give me credit here when I have Aces.

I should not have brought it up-- it is truly a separate discussion as it pertains to my preflop range and cbetting when I've been raising a lot pre flop and the table isn't giving me credit.

There are only two reasons to raise a donk bet.
1. Villain has a hand he can't get away from. For example, if I have aces and villain donks a K high board, with some evidence he likes his hand (raised pre, bets a lot of money) I would raise.
2. I want villain to fold. For example, if I have nothing and villain donks a K high board with a weak bet, I raise.

Net of everything I think this flop is a call, there are just too many 8-something hands in his range that I don't want to chase away.

Makes me a little nervous he fires at that king OTT. Didn't slow him down a bit. AK/KQ would be a beautiful dream, wouldn't it? Maybe he's passive and trappy enough to limp these pre; let's leave them in. OTOH he doesn't seem like the kind of guy to barrel a draw. The odds you're up against 2p/set just went up. Don't blame you for calling here.

I think the max value line would be to call flop and raise turn, and being the aggro-monkey I am, that's what I would have done, I think. The bet sizing OTT has something to do with it. But I don't blame you a bit for calling.

That's a sucker bet OTR, but I can't help wondering what he would have done if you had raised him. A lot, like a buck fiddy.

tl/dr I really think you should have raised him somewhere in there, either turn or river.

so you don't want to raise the flop because he has too many 8x hands that will fold TP, but you want to raise the turn or river when the K and J peel?