Standard loose live 1 2 game. Not many reads on opponents. V1 slightly bad/aggro. I've been quiet but previous hand reraised pf with A Q, got one caller, cbet, folded to raise on dry flop.

Effective stacks $330.

Hero is in sb with ace king suited. 4 limpers. Hero raises to 16. Bb folds. All 4 limpers call.

FLOP ($66)

ace ace ace (!!)

Hero checks. v1 to my immediate left bets 25. Folds to me.

Hero...???

Fold pre


Ap v description would be nice. Aggro left him bluff.

on a serious note you have stone cold nuts. this is all about the villain. better description of villain would be helpful. If he is really aggro im chk calling hoping he hits a fh. If he had it already it should be going in no matter so I don't think you need to raise this flop.

I rarely slowplay, but the time to start thinking about it is when I've got quads.

Call here, check/call turn, lead river the most you think he'll call

^this all day

call and lead turn

This. You can either lead flop and hope someone has a pp then check turn and bet river to get value. As played check call or even check min raise if he's that bad and can't fold

When villain bets $25 into the three players behind him on a trips flop, I see a high likelihood that he has a pair in his hand. If he is aggro and in early position it would seem logical to conclude he has something lower than 88 and was hoping to set mine cheaply.

Like others, I like the ch/c, ch/c lead line. If you lead out I think he can see you as JJ+ and fold the turn. If you ch/r then he may see you as JJ+ and fold the flop. Ch/c hopefully allows him to see you as KQ/KJ; hope that a high card doesn't peel on turn/river and allow him to feel invested before leading out.

Kind of funny how this hand once again demonstrates how everything becomes tougher when we're out of position. We flop gin against a probable boat and value extraction still isn't the easiest thing in the world.

I would just bet/bet/bet and hope someone can't fold a pocket pair.

I like this line. From Vs point of view, what the hell are you going to check and call with other than an Ace? Even though you have a virtual lock it isn't all that profitable in the long run. Maybe V will try to run you out of the pot after you bet.

Best value line, imo. AP, you are now stuck calling a small bet by V and either having to lead or check/call the turn, and given the bet size OTF, I don't think you are getting much more from this V.

Much prefer bet/bet/bet. As played, call and lead turn. They usually fold but what are you going to do? Your check/call on the flop will look suspicious if anyone has a clue.

Aren't you betting basically your entire range here? If you check this flop, no matter what you do later on, alarm bells have to go off. Just bet and if you get raised then check raise all in on the turn or lead river if he checks behind.

I like c/c, bet, bet. It's especially good if, say, an 8 comes on the turn and he has TT or 99. Then he has to think he's good.

If a K,Q, or J comes then pray he has it, otherwise we lose all value. in those cases, assume he does have it and overbet the pot to put stacks in. AI on the river no matter what. Make it look like your trying to push him off a chop.

It's unlikely that he puts us on the case ace here, but if we b/b/b he has to wonder whose PP is higher and will play it more carefully, which is not what we want. C/c flop gives us a much bigger range and gives us a lot more value.

If v is aggro, call the flop, check call the turn and jam the river. tilt him.

If v is fish/rec/passive, call the flop, bet the turn, bet the river.

Even though most poker players make more calling mistakes than betting mistakes it appears like your plan is to check and pray someone bets. I see no reason to change your plan now since it's sort of working.

To me the obvious strategy was to bet, bet, bet, and then DON'T SHOW YOUR CARDS if they fold.

I don't see how check calling the flop widens our range. What are we raising limpers from the sb here that doesn't bet this board except quads?? If we check call, are we hoping he's so dumb that he thinks we are going nuts with 33 or kq on later streets?

The truth.

Check/call all day, bet river what he will call. ****, GII if you think he's stubborn as hell.
Villain dependent though... Just think about what you were repping when you initially raised... So there is merit in bet bet bet (you rep what you were repping).... But checking here I think gets more action than scaring them out right away... No?

Thanks very much for your comments, all. I guess the variety of opinions expressed shows that it's quite a tricky (and obviously rare) situation.

More info on V1, as requested. Young male, recently joined table, seemed somehow slightly agitated, talking a bit about sick spots where he folded draws and it turns out he woulda hit, physically 'fired' bets into the pot aggressively, can't remember detail but I saw him make a slightly odd/failed bluff on a previous hand. This all influenced why I played the hand so passively.

*SPOILER*

After V1 bet flop, I gave him a quizical look and a bit of a speech: "Dude, do you have the ace? No way man, I don't believe you. Hhhhmmm." Call.

Turn is a six. I check. He checks. [My logic - having tried to look as weak as poss, I wanted him to keep attacking with all his 'bluffy' holdings.]

River is a 2. I check. He quickly checks. He shows K 10. He is visibly surprised when I show my A K. He says he totally didn't think I had the Ace, he thought his K high was good. I ask if he would have called any bets from me, he said no way. He says good job he didn't have a PP or he'dve gone bust.

On reflection. I think I played hand quite badly and too passively. I don't mind my check call flop/ check call turn line but I should have bet the river, making it look like I was trying to steal...

(In this casino there was no Bad Beat Jackpot in place. If there had been and it was big, should you ever let that affect your strategy...e.g. go slower in situations like this in the hoped that V with a pp will quad-up? I can imagine that if you are VERY shortstacked and the BBJ is big, that might actually become correct!)

(Incidentally - a similar but slightly more common situation is flopping a boat. Is there an accepted wisdom about how to approach that situation - bet bet bet, or go slow and let them catch up?)

Thanks for comments!

Depends on the boat. We hold AA and the board is A22, pretty hard for someone to have a 2 in a raised pot. We raise w 55 and the board comes 522, much more to get value from.

As a general rule, I prefer "big hand, big pot" over "check to let them catch up". I want to stack someone. I would rather win 100BB one time and get 3 folds than 20 BB 4 times.

/from the "pulled numbers out of my butt" department

Lol at that speech. Might as well turn your hand face up

This is funny, I actually hit part of the BBJ in a very similar hand and lost value and still kick myself for it.

$2/5 game, and at this casino the qualifer is Aces Full of Jacks, also important to note that you do NOT need to have a PP for quads.

I open in the HJ with AJs for $20, CO 3bets me to $55, all fold to me I call. Flop AA4, check/check, turn 2, I bet $85 he calls, river 8, I bet $110 he calls, rolls over QQ and we both celebrate the win.

I had about $650ish total behind on the river, and if I had thought longer I would have just shoved. I was pretty sure he had JJ-KK, but basically for him it would have either been, call and win the pot, or lose and win the BBJ, so a no-brainer call.

Still kick myself for that.

"After V1 bet flop, I gave him a quizical look and a bit of a speech: "Dude, do you have the ace? No way man, I don't believe you. Hhhhmmm."

Hate the speech. This means Ace 99% of the time. If I hear this in your spot, I'm hard pressed to put more money in even w like qq.

I think it's important to realize that getting as much as we can in early keeps him feeling like his hand is good. The more streets come, the more likely he is to believe that we have the ace. It's about maximizing when he has a mid pair or kq, not about checking and hoping he catches some piece to win a medium sized pot.

Also, you leading and playing this aggressively allows him to make a bigger bluff raise rather than you picking off a little stab. He is more likely to not put you on the ace if you play it fast since "nobody would bet out there".

Exactly. Make it look like we want value but not three streets worth with 33. He's totally calling if, say, he has KT and the T pairs. Whereas he might fold KT on the flop which would suck.

Also we probably aren't check calling here because our opponents probably aren't betting. Unless they have a PP they have nothing. If they do bet, it means they have a PP which is great -- now if the turn care is a J we can totally pretend we hit the J and get him to stack off with QQ.

I guess the problem I have with raising is that he only calls with PP and KQ; whereas if he turns something he's never folding a full house on two streets of betting.

Basically I think the line where a J turns and he has KJ (and we overbet the pot twice) gets us a ton of value while all of these other lines do not. But we have to have a turn card out there for it to work.

Lead turn if the turn is something like a K/Q/J/T because a) he can possibly have hit the boat or b) if he has a ppair he won't believe that we floated him with like QJ and spiked a J.

Check turn on any other card because a) if he has a ppair he will still think it is good and bet for value and to protect from overcard hitting on river b) if he has nothing leading will make him fold and we want to give him an opportunity to try to buy the pot or check and catch up.

Bomb river because a) the never fold boat theory, b) repping quads is going to make it pretty difficult for him to believe we have quads, c) we don't want to risk checking and him checking back, and d) we don't want to let him off the hook by not losing a bunch if he has a good boat.