I was having a hard night earlier on, repeated buy-ins but managed to be slightly above b/e later on in the night playing quite nitty/TAG ($200). Newer guy to the table (Villain) ($200) was quiet and seemed tight at first because he played very few hands, but this got me a little perplexed:

Table was quite loose, calling w/ middle/low pair in showdowns, calling w/ obvious draws out there, calling $20-something PF raises w/ questionable hands, etc etc etc, so when I got the rockets (AcAh) from EP (maybe UTG or UTG+1), I decided to bet $35 for the hell of it to see if anyone would bite, sure enough someone did but I didn't expect that it would be Villain in LP who called (only caller).

Flop ($73) As7d5d
Hero bet $45 and Villain thought for an eternity and then?

What do you place him on? Critique on my play?

That's nothing wrong. You should look to play for stacks. You are committed and if he calls he's getting committed too. He may try to flush or whatever, but doesn't matter. You've got the nut hand at this point and look forward to shove on the next card no matter what. If he's coming over the top on the flop you move in the middle, else shove on the turn. If you lose with a set you'll be losing lots of money, else you don't play you sets correctly.

AT,

Your play is fine in my opinion. You have the perfect flop. And when you have AA and an A hits the flop then a straight draw can always be there. I think any hand that hit villain is a misplayed hand on his part. If he has 77 or 55 then he set-mined for crap odds. I think his play is suspect if he puts you on AK as well and calls with small pair.

If he has any two flush cards he also misplayed it in my opinion.

If you lost this hand then it sucks. Just make a note on villain and move on. You will make back that money playing aces over time.

I would make it less <<< lrr. AA is only good HU but if your table is loose pre I would look to 3bet/commit some one's stack. It's really debatable because w ur image I'm not calling your 35$ unless its MW/trying to out flop you (increased implied odds)/ IP. I've played big pairs like this and IME it's really hit or miss + when u flop a set and cbet flop ur going to get a lot of folds because ur obvy repping at least AQ+ unless villain hasd 2 pair plus which is small%. In this spot I think a deceptive line is necessary to stack villain like 3bet pre, c/c flop and c/r safe turn.

I dont understand the question here, you want to know what villain is thinking? Fish tend to snap call with any hand they deem good, which is usually total and utter garbage. So when a fish actually has to think about a flop call, I put him on like bottom pair bottom kicker, maybe some random PP like 88, maybe nothing at all like KJ high. Anyway you have the nuts so obviously you're never folding riiiiiiggghhht?

See this is the problem with fish and why they never get paid off. They always look for some super fancy line whenever they finally hit, and make the minimum. This is especially bad if your standard line is to cbet TPTK and such. This is one of those spots where you're either gonna win big b/c villain caught a piece, or he whiffed and you're not gonna win ****. You wont get paid every time you flop a set, so just hope he has a reason to call a cbet or get it in or something.

Half pot is optimal here IMO.

Bet larger on the flop, if only for the fact that you should be betting more here if you didn't have aces. Usually between 3/4-pot. Because of stack sizes I'd stay lower, like 55-60.

If he has an ace or set 43 or 60 isn't going to make a difference. He's calling. Btw 35 is a horrible raise size with only 200 behind. It creates the awkward situation you're in now. Now you have to reach the turn with a pittance left, or do as you did and cbet too small, thus leaving yourself vulnerable to spewing 2/5th of your stack with air, or unbalancing your bluffs.

betting bigger on this flop turns our hand faceup - unless we're essentially willing to do this with air and almost pot commit ourself.

Stacks are going in by the river already, so you don't need to work to build the pot.

$35 is waay too much preflop for a 1/2 game and basically broadcasts your hand. Most villains don't think about the unfavorable implied odds you are giving them, but rather call to "crack them aces"

I do. You should be willing to bluff your air the same way you do the nuts. Sizing your bets based on the strength of your hand is a big leak. You size based on things like board texture, position, stack sizes, and reads on your opponent(s).

This is why 35 preflop was a mistake. Nothing we do now is right. The small bet is wrong for many reasons, but your point in valid in this specific instance. I still think that betting large is the "better" mistake than betting 43, and it should be balanced with our air. Our raise from EP shouldn't really be air anyway. Our EP range in full ring should be tight enough that every hand has decent equity unimproved.

i know we should be betting bluffs the same way we bet our nuts. Which is why I'm advocating betting smaller with both in this case. You don't need to bet big on this flop, since the STP is like 1.75, it's easy to get the money into the middle.

This is 1-2. Nothing short of literally turning our cards face up actually "turns our hand face-up." Balancing ranges and playing our value hands exactly as we play our bluffs is worthless against level 0 opposition.

Ideally in full ring 1/2, how many callers would you want to face your rockets? How much would be a good bet if $35 was too much (despite the table dynamics)? I had no prb being pot-committed given my hole hands and the flop.

Result:

He had QQ or KK that's why it took forever for him to fold

You got someone to call a $35 bet preflop, so as far as I'm concerned, it's fine.

I check the flop. My guess is that it is unlikely that villain called with a drawing hand here (something like KQs), so I ain't too worried about those. Stack is $165 with pot already $70, so we'll still have no problems getting stacks in over the final two streets (a $50 turn bet will make a $170 pot with $115 left for a fairly easy river shove). So I give him a chance to bluff / think his pair might be good / catch up.

GcluelessNLnoobG

way too much pre, unless you are balancing this with the same bet with weak hands and the other players are aware of that. All you are doing here is annoucing you dont want any speculative hands in and you allow good players to play optimally against you.