Hi All,

I'd like your opinion on the following hand... I got black pocket aces on the button and I faced a tough decision when the community cards came out. Everyone folded around to MP, one caller at which point I raised 4x the BB. SB and BB folded and MP called. One note is that MP never raised pots preflop.

Now note, I had beaten MP out of a pot about 20 min earlier when I re-raised preflop with J9 and went all in on the flop when I hit a 9 and he called. He wasn't happy that he lost to J9. On previous hands this guy always seemed to call bets but would never lead into them. Anyway...

The flop came K 4 2 all hearts. Now remember, I have spades and clubs so this board is a little scary to me. MP bets out $20 and I just call (looking back I should've raised to see where I was at but I put him on a K that he was trying to protect and he probably thought I was a donk.) After calling the $20 bet the turn card came another K and MP bet out $40. At this point I should what? Call, Raise or Fold?

I put him on a K so with this board I would now lose to any K and any flush he had. I put him on a K though (75% there) and 25% of me was thinking he just had a flush draw as he would've checked call a made flush. What play would you have made?

How deep are your stacks? I think I raise the flop especially if he thinks you're a maniac. Its very possible thatt he bets TP and pair + FD hands there while slowplaying made flushes. This bet is not to see where were at but to get value out of these hands.

Now when he bets on the second king were not beating very much except the ace of hearts (with or without a pair.) I think that in a vacumn this is a fold but if I had more info I might feel differently.

I had about $300 and he had about $600... It sounds like I played the flop poorly but made the right call on the turn? My problem was I didn't see him folding to any bets, he seemed confident in his hand and I think I still could have had gotten value from him on the river

Don't raise flop or turn. Fold turn.

Also, raise more pre.

Raise more preflop. Given your description of this guy, he will probably limp/call against a late position raise from you every time up to as much as 10x or even 15x the BB.

Calling his flop lead is better than raising. On the turn, I'd call again planning to fold to a big river bet, especially if a heart comes, but even if it doesn't. Given your history, he will lead the flop and turn with Kx thinking you were drawing to AhXx on the flop, which widens his range up quite a bit beyond the monsters like flushes, sets, two pairs, etc.

But if he bets again on the river instead of checking to you (where you check behind), then fold. At that point, you would have put in $60 post flop, and $20 preflop. Calling the flop only to fold a blank turn gives up too soon, I think, because villain will be betting with too many worse hands that he THINKS are best because he wants to make you pay to "chase" another heart. However, on the river, he will only be value betting bigger hand, like high flushes or better, since a 4th heart scares him unless he has a heart, and no heart means that he would think you missed your "draw" and he would want to give you a chance to bluff at it rather than bet only to have you fold ace-high.

Sure, you might be way behind, but I don't think you can give up until you see the river and see whether he bets there, and how much it is.

Yeah, these are FYI hands. You just caught a bad break with this Flop. If your opponent wants to lead out then be happy to c/c until River and then fold or check behind especially if the bet size goes way up ... unless you get a read that you can bluff at a 4th heart. (and even then you may get a call if he is steaming at you).

Never bet 'to see where you are at' ... bet for value (best hand or semi-bluff draw) or bet to force an opponent out of the hand (cbet/bluff). IMO the smallish bets are to get you to raise so he can attack ... with or without a hand. Sometimes its ok to let 'little brother' win/control the pot. Of course if the money card hits the River (A) then you really see some fireworks from this guy!! GL

PS ... There are very wide spread opinions about raise sizes on this site. I am of the opinion that you remain very consistant with your opening bets, but vary your raises by hand strength, player already in the hand/left to act and table position. However, I do also agree that if you have a good feeling that you will end up with a 'certain' player in the pot, then go ahead and feel free to increase the raise size a bit when you high value hole cards.

OMFG, all these "raise more preflop" posts are so wrong-headed.

How can any of you guys seriously advocate raising more preflop without even knowing the stack sizes?

If effective stacks are relatively short, I see no problem with his 4x raise over 1 limper. If effective stacks were super-deep, then I would join the "raise more preflop" circus.

What Tom Dwan's Son said. Not what ATsai said.

Villain isn't folding for more, so raise more pre for value.

How would you know that? OP didn't provide any details on Villain that indicates that he is totally inelastic to calling larger raises.

As a general rule, most live 2/5 NL players limp-call large raises with mediocre hands, but that doesn't mean that every Villain will ALWAYS call a larger raise with his trashy J9o.

More importantly, it is completely unnecessary to raise more than 4x if effective stacks are short. If effective stacks are only 50bb, for example, my priority is to make sure that Villain limp-calls 90% of his range instead of just limp-calling with 60% of his range.

LOL. I see now that Hero only had $300 to start the hand. 60bbs deep, a 4x raise with AA over an MP limper seems totally fine.

Now I think all the guys from the "raise more preflop" circus should just move on from knee-jerk "raise more preflop" reactions.

4x is ok, not horrible, and not much less than what I would make it, but based on description he's going to call a bit more pretty much all the time.

id call turn here everytime I honestly feel like he has the ace of hearts here just by his bets to me, it really looks like that plus hes steaming, on river if a heart comes check check or fold to bet since your not beating anything anymore except pure bluff but because your stack is so shallow he could of flopped a flush and be milking you, this is one of those causes imo where if u had a bigger stack ud know way more. but im DEFINATELY calling the turn here

What he said.

I would call based on our limited info that he called a 3-bet, then a flop ship with a hand worse than J9 on 9xx (did you even have top pair? more info on that hand would be helpful for reads). Seems like he gets it in too light.

Why do people like raising for infos?
Is this some kind of bad mentality that comes from tournamemt players?

Who said that? No one is advocatingg raising for info.

I noticed some major flaws in your thought process while reading your post, specifically the desire to "raise to see where you're at." Don't do this. We raise to get called by worse or to fold out better. If you don't know how strong your hand is relative to that of your opponent, why are you shovelling more money in the pot? A call on this board is fine in my opinion.

OP said it in the original post. Terrible logic imo, thankfully he didn't act on that desire.