Live 20 game and it folds to the cutoff. He looks at his cards, grabs four chips, goes to put them into the pot, then realizes no one else has opened yet, goes back to his stack for four more, raises, and looks kind of sheepish. He plays OK post-flop, but does miss some value bets. Preflop he is not an "any acer", meaning I have not caught him showing up with A7o or some such at showdown when doing so would have been drastically inappropriate.

BB is incredibly loose. Has called late position raises from the SB with such holdings as T5s and 67o. He will also pay off with any pair, always. SB is basically unknown.

Hero looks down at A 4 and his button....hero raises....

BB comes along, CO calls and looks like his hand has been slapped out of the cookie jar.

AT8 rainbow

checked to me and I bet, BB folds, CO raises, I go into call down mode....

1. Even with the live tell, is this too loose for a re-steal with a super-loose big blind? Or does the big blind's badness make my play better?

2. Putting in more action seemed like lunacy, since if I was ahead it was best to just keep him betting into me. Folding the ace also seemed like lunacy. Is this a good call down in what's become a pretty fat pot?

I love pre-flop. Even though I am behind on the flop I usually 3 bet and check the turn.

Stantard resteal. Preflop is fine. I agree with cgro, 3 bet the flop, check the turn unless you hit the A or 4.

Lol. Explain pls.

Agreed i dont' see the value in 3-betting.

Why? 'Me got Ace,me call' is for them, not us. I mean, really, from your description he's not a nut-job so he's got a better Ace every time and it's going to cost you $100 to see it. It just seems like a lousy spot to me and I'd need a darn good reason to continue (he's gotten fancy on me in the past, there's some chance a turn raise will 'work') but mostly I just acknowledge the facts and fold.

My darn good reason is that villain gave off a fairly reliable tell that most people don't give w big aces. Unless he is king of reverse tells then I am calling down.

i put him on QJ; call his bitch ass down

No one thinks Villain may have T-8? Seems possible for a hand that thought it was limping behind several others and then became a steal. Also, if this is correct, Hero has five outs and is getting 12:1 to call the flop c/r. The turn provides 3 more outs if it improves neither hand, giving Hero 7.5:1 (if Villain leads out on turn) to draw to 8 outs. Add this to the possibility that Hero already has the best hand, and a call down seems reasonable.

T8 makes the most sense but I am not thinking to hard here just show down.

chop/2 pair outs

I suppose a-8 may be possible, which would mean that the "cookie jar" look was "oh no, I've run into a bigger ace."

I'm assuming that you mean that he was simply going to call at first and then realized no one was in and decided to raise? Intending to limp along w/ say, A-J or A-10o is typical of live players and so is not paying attention and realizing at the last second that no one is in yet and he ought to raise w/ those hands instead. But, ok, OP says he plays decent post-flop so what hand is c/r'g us? If it doesn't contain an Ace wouldn't a raise somewhere be better than just calling down? And if we put him on 2 pair is calling down UI the thing to do? It'd be helpful if OP had indicated what villain thought of him but I look at it this way: Villain is in for 3-bets pre, sees the Ace on the flop just like we do, plays ok post-flop and c/r's us. As I said before I don't like that unless he's gotten fancy on me in the past.

I wouldn't like where I'm at if I'm OP and probably just dump the hand. It looks to me as if it's OP whose hand just got slapped out of the cookie jar instead. That's ok, it happens all the time, but I'd rather not turn it into a slap upside the head.

Howard, this guy was in the CO so unless he is a megafish he never has AT or AJ, and when people are in late position that pay alot more attention to what is going on. As far as what he might have here, I think he could easily have either T8 or even air. In both instances we should call. There is always the chance that he was hollywooding pf, but I see nervous live players do this all the time. Also, recognize that he will realize that he gave off the tell and figure that we are in resteal mode.

Ok, this is all reasonable and the different points of view are what make this forum so helpful and enjoyable to me. Tx for the input.

agreed.

He had T 8 Nice read guys, nice read. I called him down on two bricks and felt horrible about it cause if he's still betting the river honestly what on god's earth do I beat.....as stated though, I had odds to make the flop and turn calls against that hand, and once I get to the river that's a lay down I just can't make.

Jesse, theres alot of sd combos you beat by the river that could be played this way and none of them have sd value so he should be barreling off here quite a bit. I mean if he has T8s here then J9 and 97s should be in there as well.

I'm surprised so many of you guys gave CO credit for a big hand. I was thinking the CO would C/R in this spot into a PF 3 bettor (often putting said player on a PP) when an A flops with almost anything from KJ gutters to any T or 8 or even with complete air. I know I would most of the time if I felt I could run over the opponent. But lots of people call down A high unimproved if you C/R a coordinated flop and bet the whole way.

3betting pre and folding on flop when hit would be ridiculous. auto calldown at least

I'm not understanding. Where do you get the notion that OP is likely to be run over?

I'm just saying that a lot of thinking aggressive players will try to run over the original preflop 3 bettor by C/R'ing or B/3B'ing flop hoping he was holding high pockets when an A falls on the flop (even if they hold absolute nothing). If OP had been isolating and 3 betting a lot during the session with A high, then it's a different story.

This was the first time in the session I'd pulled this stunt. Mitch, you're right that if T8s was in there he could have been triple-barreling some missed draws and the like (sorry that I don't remember what the turn and river were, I really just went into brain dead call down mode...I think they were true bricks, like a 5 and a 2 or something). Next time I'll river a 4.

This is 20/40 not 200/400. These guy just don't think like that from the start. Adjust to them after they start adjusting to you, no reason to assume they will put pressure on you just to put pressure on unless they are a maniac which is not the case given OPs description

Folding the flop is definatly something to consider b/c you are supposed to hold an ace so why is he c/r'ing you when your card just hit? This is just not a time where he wants to c/r w/air here and based on his description he doesn't seem like the type of guy to do that