$1/2 NL (8 handed)

Vs 1 & 2 (UTG, UTG+1): Weak-loose, limping lots early and routinely folding to raises.

Hero (MP, $450): TAG image, probably bordering on nit. Played very few hands in 3 hours at the table, just doubled up 1 orbit ago showing down KK against V3's 94 on 42269 board. Only other hand shown down this session was A9s on button on AA4J9 board.

V3 (HJ, $600): Maniac, playing 80% or more of hands regardless of action in front of him.

V4 (CO, $600): Solid reg. Suspect he's a reasonably profitable ABC type player, but haven't played with him much.

Action

Vs 1&2 limp. Hero limps behind w/52 (VERY out of character for hero to limp at all, especially with 5 high, but he's newly deep-stacked and figures to have a lot of deception value if he hits).

V3 limps, V4 raises to $18. Blinds and Vs 1 & 2 fold, hero calls, V3 folds. (Pot $43).

Flop: 722

Hero checks, V4 bets $32, Hero raises to $82. V4 thinks for a bit and calls. (pot $207, Hero has $350 left).

Turn: T

Hero leads out $125. V4 tanks for a few minutes, says "there's only two hands you can have", folds and shows AA

So the question is this: Was there another line I could have taken that would have got more/all of his money in the pot (bearing in mind that I wasn't sure his hand was quite that strong until he called the check-raise)? Should I have slowed down on the turn in the hope of getting a big river bet called, or was I just unlucky to be up against someone good enough to lay down AA there?

I don't like calling the raise pf. We hit a FD almost the same frequency we hit a set, but then we still have to make the flush and hope no one else has a 6 or higher flush.

Flop - I would def. be calling his cbet, raising only gets him to fold all his overcards, and maybe some pocket pairs. Your nit image would also suggest you have a two. Raising him let's him play perfect by folding hands he's behind.

I would have let him continue doing the betting for sure.

First off you had two opportunities to fold this preflop, and you should have taken them both. You shouldn't have limped in MP, even deep stacked, and you definitely shouldn't have called a raise OOP, especially against a good player and he showed you exactly why. Even if you do make your hand, the fact that you are deep doesn't matter because he's never stacking off with AA.

All that said, a good line in this spot is just to come out firing on the flop. A good player may not barrel AK on this board, and will probably raise an over pair. Then you can flat his raise, which should get him to put you on a 7x/PP type range. Now you can check the turn and he'll probably make a huge bet. You can either shove over that bet if you feel he's pot committed, or get a little more deceptive and then call, open shoving the river.

If you checked the turn, you'd have gotten more money from AA.
You could have slow played

Calling $18 PF with 2 5 h? Seems like you got lucky!

52s is just never going to hit often enough and still get paid unless up against a bunch of stations stacking off with top pair in limped pots to massive overbets. Fold the first time around. Definitely fold to the raise pre. You have barely enough to call pre and that's assuming he has a super tight range and will stack off EVERY TIME when you hit against his overpair which is unrealistic.

#1#2#3 Solid lesson in why playing crap hands without raising preflop AND being OOP AND slowplaying is not profitable.

#2 Donk the flop.

#3 I am completely unbalanced as far as check/raises go (But this is LLNL so being super unbalanced is perfectly fine and actually more profitable!). 98% of the time, i'm only check-raising draws. I will nearly always donk my monsters for value and to disguise the hand.

The two bolded quotes are your big leak here, and it's why you should not have played this hand preflop.

I get that you think you have deception value or whatever, but you don't; look at what happened. When you played your hand for big bets, Villain didn't know you had 52, but he still knew you had a hand that could beat his AA. He probably thought you had A2s or sevens full.

So your "deception" basically is irrelevant. You got the same value as if you really did have 77. Meanwhile, though, with 52s, you'll be missing or flopping second-best too much to make this profitable.

Your line is fine post flop. At some point you're going to have to put money in so may as well do it as early as possible before a card comes and kills your action. Also one of the biggest reasons why small SCs suck (even 43s) is that flushes are very obvious and scary to even fish and when you get tons of action, you're often against a bigger flush or a hand that has lots of equity. Also villain is terrible for showing. He just give you the green light to bluff him. On this board he clearly put you on 77 or 22, maybe A2s. Call in position with a reasonable wide range heads up and steal pots from him by repping sets. But also realize he won't pay you off. Do this often enough and he will pay you off

So you called for deception value

But still didn't get paid off

I guess calling for deception value is a bad idea.

Thanks all - some extremely helpful responses here. A couple of points:

I agree entirely, but V3 and also the BB were exactly the sort of players who would stack off, so while 52s obviously should be an automatic fold, I don't feel like it was a massive mistake to limp with it. Once V4 raised and BB folded, though, I'll admit that calling the raise was a stupid play.

Absolutely! I suspect I had a nit image in that session, but almost none of the regulars at this casino seem capable of calling two big bets postflop with much less than the nuts, and I've been picking my spots to exploit that for a while now.

I accept that (a) my preflop play was terrible and (b) my image/hand range/general strategy is in need of refinement. But postflop on this specific hand, I'd be interested to know the consensus on what the 'right' way to play it is, as similar spots will come up again (possibly in situations where I've done everything right preflop! ).

Slimshady1999 says my line is fine postflop, Playbig2000 likes check-calling, and Koss prefers bet-call flop, check-shove turn. I'm inclined to think Koss's play is the most +EV, although the fact that I now know Villain had AA may be clouding my judgment.

Thoughts?

C/r is very scary to most players, whereas leading this flop will look like 7x or a mid pair and get raised a lot. Lead, hope for a raise, and don't stop betting if flatted. C/r turn is good if you get raised.

Fold pre twice, this hand is just awful.

Postflop, flop raise should be bigger. You're going to get called by overpairs because no one folds OPs to flop raises, and get called by diamonds because no one folds flush draws

Turn sizing can also be bigger for value

You played it well. When you flop trips, just raise and then bet a lot. If he wasn't a reg, you'd get his stack. Also since he is a reg, take this line as a semi bluff against him now more often to force him to pay you off when you have trips.

Ch/shoving turn would be sooo sooo horrendously bad because he's going to check back so often.

Donking flop would be a good line unless you're sure someone else is going to bet

Check Raise should set off huge alarm bells to most players, even at 1/2. Then leading into him on the turn pretty much confirms his suspicion.

Since he was the original raiser, you should at least give him the chance to C-bet. If he checks back the flop, then you can lead out on the turn. If he C-bets the flop, you can easily call there and V might put you on a flush draw or a 7.

"Limping for deception value" = weak passive fish, not TAG

If you want deception value, you have to deceive how you would play a better hand, raise!

If you don't get 3! out of the pot pre, you're stacking AA, that's deception! Would I do this with 52s? No! It's just spew

Limp/calling for deception value with AA or KK in early or middle position can be profitable, if there are LAGs behind.

But what sort of value do you hope to hit with 52 suited? The only hand you are going to be comfortable with is hitting is 2pair+. If you hit the straight, many times it will be the low end of the straight. Same with the flush, many times you will be beat by a bigger flush, or a 4 card flush on the board you aren't going to want to commit any chips with only 5 high. Reverse implied odds are defined by a hand like 52 suited.

guys who limpcalls 52s generally checkraise only when they have AA beat. so it's an easy fold for a competent player if you haven't shown bluffy tendencies. besides, what if villain was bluffing, or has JJ or less? you stop him from continuing. so given your image, you shouldn't checkraise the flop.

the line to consider is check/call flop, check/call turn, then check/raise river large (or all in)

this will take the max from his range as a whole. ofc there's the "risk" that he checks back river, but that's the price of playing OOP (thats why people are saying fold preflop). and actually since you give him a check back opportunity on river he may level himself into calling you.

Spot on.