Um, I think you are overestimating how strong a hand aq2 is on this board vs typical 4bet ranges and also the number of hands hero had that should fold to 2 bets but call 1

Raise is an option but it's highly aggressive and non standard

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This, especially without the ace of diamonds.

I have nothing to add, I just wanted to chime in and say bravo, all!

One of the best threads in a while.

Naked A2KQ with all black cards isn't bad off (40% HU against a 3% range) but a raise wouldn't be for value. Once he decides to call the pot is 14.5 bets, he should invest one more bet taking slightly the worst of it just to increase the chance of winning by a few percent.

This is a fundamental limit poker principle--take slightly the worst of it on one or two bets to gain a few percentage on winning a big pot. See HEPFAP. See SSHE. I don't know why it's less well covered in O8 literature. Cappelletti talks about it quite a bit although his book is a mess of barely curated articles.


For argument's sake let's stipulate you're right. In a strange game where betting on the flop is capped at two bets, I should call pretty liberally getting better than 8:1. .

But this is a normal game, and the cap here is five bets, so hypothetical-Matusow's raise threatens me. "Are you willing to risk putting in three, four, or five bets here? Because the bettor and I both seem to like our hands, so for all you know we could get in a raising war."

Closing versus not closing the action is yet another critical limit poker concept. (Not implying you don't know that, just emphasizing these are building blocks of strategic thinking in limit games.)


For that matter, any A2 backdoor draw for a likely quarter plus a small piece of equity such as this bad flush draw plus middle pair probably land the sweet spot where 14:1 is a no brainer call but 8:1 requires some thought. I'd probably still call with a 2-bet cap betting but it's close.

If a bread-and-butter limit raise here is nonstandard or considered highly aggressive, that makes me think fundamental limit poker concepts are not well understood within the LO8 population.