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Slow played AA vs UTG raise

BionicApe

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February 17, 2015 - 6:23 pm

(This is my first attempt at posting a HH question here, so kindly cut me a bit of slack if I blow it, okay? I've been unable to get the TPE HH converter to work with HEM2, so I used the one at Deuces Cracked, selecting HTML for the output, but it's all kind of an experiment at this point).

I've been getting some crap about how I played this hand on another forum and wanted to get some more opinions. Some questions I'd like to address to you guys are: Is this a good place to slow play aces preflop? What considerations and conditions make slow playing aces a better choice than 3-betting? Is my raise size on the flop reasonable? Is my bet/bet size on the turn reasonable? Is my call on the turn justifiable?

I had played close to 100 hands with the villain and over those hands he had a VPIP of 33%, PFR of 13%, and an AF of 1.5, so generally loose passive. He had an EP PFR of 13% and I had seen him raise 33 and ATo from EP.

I had played one significant hand with him earlier where I raised K8s 2.5x from the cut-off and he called in the BB. I c-bet a bottom pair of 8s and he flatted; the turn went chk-chk; then he bet-out on the river making a pot-sized bluff with air and I called him down with my lowly 4th pair. He's certainly aware that I'm capable of calling light, but beyond that I don't know what perceptions he's garnered from my play. I did feel like I had been playing fairly well up to the time of the hand under discussion, so I'd think that would have earned me a little respect or something, but the underlying assumption might be a bit biased.

Merge Network OPS #28 $25K Gtd [Mega Stack] (80786341-1) No Limit Hold'em Tournament – t150.00/t300.00 Blinds + t30.00 – 9 players

lifesez441 (): t43019.00 M = 59.75
intervention10 (): t38087.00 M = 52.90 (Big Blind)
Shuck2rNON (): t10980.00 M = 15.25
OSUbeavers503 (): t19079.00 M = 26.50
Necks03 (): t27535.00 M = 38.24
habuteru (): t11214.00 M = 15.57
Randox (): t28385.00 M = 39.42
grindertrizzle (): t19376.00 M = 26.91
Hero (): t28145.00 M = 39.09 (Button)

Pre Flop: (t720) Hero is with A of hearts A of spades
Shuck2rNON raises to t600.00, 5 folds, Hero calls t600, 1 fold, intervention10 calls t300

Flop: (t2220) J of diamonds 6 of clubs 6 of hearts (3 players)
intervention10 checks, Shuck2rNON bets t300.00, Hero raises to t1500.00, intervention10 folds, Shuck2rNON calls t1200

Turn: (t5220) 3 of spades (2 players)
Shuck2rNON checks, Hero bets t3900.00, Shuck2rNON raises to t8850 all in, Hero calls t4950

I chose to slow play my aces here for several reasons: I have position on my opponents, I might induce a squeeze from one of the blinds, I have the best hand, I am going to have the UTG raiser dominated a lot of the time, I didn't want to push the UTG raiser out of the hand with his marginal hands, and the UTG raiser is fairly short-stacked (30bbs), indicating to me that he'll be willing to stack-off somewhat lighter postflop.

Are there any evident fallacies in that list? Anything that I missed?

On the flop, I had seen my opponent make the same minimum donk bet before with TPTK so thought it could very well indicate a hand like AJ, QQ, or KK. Of course, JJ was a real possibility too, but I wasn't certain if he'd make the same play with a flopped full house as he would make with TPTK, it seemed unlikely though. I base my flop raise size on him having either AJ or a big over-pair, I choose to make the bet on the large size not only for value, but also because I'd like to represent Jx, allowing him to feel confident about his hand if he happens to be holding a larger pair.

When he checks to me on the turn I make another large bet not only for value but again to make it look like I want to protect Jx. I'm a little taken aback when he comes over the top though. I got what I wanted, but suddenly what I had hoped for doesn't seem very realistic. It looks to me like he's got JJ, flopped a full house and I'm now pretty screwed. I'm getting close to 4-1 on my money to call, but with only two outs if he did indeed flop a full house I'm still far from getting the right odds to call.

Ultimately I did decide to call because I figure that sometimes he's going to play an over-pair or maybe AJ the same way since my aces were underrepresented preflop. I'm pretty bummed about it, but I figure that I have to call off 15bbs here even though I really, really don't want to.

Was it a bad decision?

BionicApe

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February 18, 2015 - 5:26 am

Been thinking about this hand and have come to realize I kind of put all my eggs in the overpair basket. I have a tough time believing he's going to come over the top there with AJ very often. It's pretty clear I was beat and thinking he had an overpair was probably just a case of wishful thinking. Even so, there were only four combinations of hands that I saw in his range that had me beat on the flop (JJ, 66) and seven on the turn (JJ, 66, 33). Maybe you could throw in A6s, that's not too far out of his UTG raise, but that only adds 2 more hands to his combos. That's such a small percentage of his total range that I was entirely incredulous that he had me beat.

Carlos

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February 18, 2015 - 11:58 am

I dont mind it. Unless a guy is a nit or extremely predictable, I'm not folding to him here especially when I have him covered.

Calling and losing to hands like JJ here is not a disaster. Folding and losing to hands like KK is.

folding_aces_pre_yo

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February 18, 2015 - 11:09 pm

slowing playing would be even betterif you think your opponent is opening up too much and folding to 3-bets.

as for post flop Id make the sizing on the flop and turn a bit smaller if he has a Jx or an overpair like QQ/KK he's sticking about either way apart from that think you played it well.

Kalculater

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February 19, 2015 - 1:16 am

Why would we want to make our sizing smaller if he is sticking around with those hands? If we are trying to get value from those specific hands you mentioned we can make it bigger to get value….

BionicApe

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February 19, 2015 - 1:42 am

Thanks for taking the time to respond folks, much appreciated. I'll give it another day or two before I pop up the outcome.

huge

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February 19, 2015 - 5:39 am

BionicApe said:

…

I had played close to 100 hands with the villain and over those hands he had a VPIP of 33%, PFR of 13%, and an AF of 1.5, so generally loose passive. He had an EP PFR of 13% and I had seen him raise 33 and ATo from EP.

I had played one significant hand with him earlier where I raised K8s 2.5x from the cut-off and he called in the BB. I c-bet a bottom pair of 8s and he flatted; the turn went chk-chk; then he bet-out on the river making a pot-sized bluff with air and I called him down with my lowly 4th pair. He's certainly aware that I'm capable of calling light, but beyond that I don't know what perceptions he's garnered from my play. I did feel like I had been playing fairly well up to the time of the hand under discussion, so I'd think that would have earned me a little respect or something, but the underlying assumption might be a bit biased.

[hand snipped]

I chose to slow play my aces here for several reasons: I have position on my opponents, I might induce a squeeze from one of the blinds, I have the best hand, I am going to have the UTG raiser dominated a lot of the time, I didn't want to push the UTG raiser out of the hand with his marginal hands, and the UTG raiser is fairly short-stacked (30bbs), indicating to me that he'll be willing to stack-off somewhat lighter postflop.

Are there any evident fallacies in that list? Anything that I missed?

I don't completely hate the slowplay with AA (I would with KK), but I don't love it either. Yes you risk driving everyone out if you 3-bet, but there are a lot of risks to NOT 3-betting: you risk failing to get it in preflop against KK or QQ (or JJ or even TT from UTG); you risk ending up 3-handed against 30BB & 90BB stacks, which seems sort of icky with AA – you usually have an easy decision to get it in vs 30BB, but with the 90BB stack you might like to play for pot control and not be able to because the 30BB stack shoves – plus you have reverse implied odds vs 90BB – I don't know, it all seems sort of messy.

UTG probably has a strong range and may not be eager to fold against what looks like a button power-play. If this is right you're really losing out by slowplaying. It's not like 3-betting from the button turns your AA face-up.

BionicApe said:

…On the flop, I had seen my opponent make the same minimum donk bet before with TPTK so thought it could very well indicate a hand like AJ, QQ, or KK. Of course, JJ was a real possibility too, but I wasn't certain if he'd make the same play with a flopped full house as he would make with TPTK, it seemed unlikely though. I base my flop raise size on him having either AJ or a big over-pair, I choose to make the bet on the large size not only for value, but also because I'd like to represent Jx, allowing him to feel confident about his hand if he happens to be holding a larger pair…

I think when someone does something noticeably wonky like min-donk-betting more than once, it's dangerous to think they're likely doing it with the same kind of hand. They know it's weird that they min-donked before, and they can guess that you probably remember it. I like your flop raise – it moves nicely toward getting the shorter stack in, and if the bigger stack cold-check-3-bets you you can start to think about getting away from the hand. I like your sizing fine but maybe not the reasoning you stated for choosing it – would you raise a different amount if you truly had Jx? 76s? Air? Also, if UTG has KK or QQ (or, sadly, JJ) the chips are probably getting in no matter what you do, and they're unlikely to draw out on you, so I think you can pretty much ignore them. Even AJ will *probably* get it in unless you go totally crazy overbetting. So I think targeting AJ makes sense, and whether or not to consider KJs/QJs/TT/99 as hands you think are possible and want to keep around is up to your reads. (Probably not though – you probably have to give up a whole street of value to keep them around)

BionicApe said:

…When he checks to me on the turn I make another large bet not only for value but again to make it look like I want to protect Jx. I'm a little taken aback when he comes over the top though. I got what I wanted, but suddenly what I had hoped for doesn't seem very realistic. It looks to me like he's got JJ, flopped a full house and I'm now pretty screwed. I'm getting close to 4-1 on my money to call, but with only two outs if he did indeed flop a full house I'm still far from getting the right odds to call.

Ultimately I did decide to call because I figure that sometimes he's going to play an over-pair or maybe AJ the same way since my aces were underrepresented preflop. I'm pretty bummed about it, but I figure that I have to call off 15bbs here even though I really, really don't want to.

Was it a bad decision?

I think you should bet smaller on the turn – 3000-ish still leaves a comfortable shove on the river. Again I don't like the reasoning of “another large bet not only for value but again to make it look like I want to protect Jx” … it's generally not great to change your bet sizing based on both your actual hand and the hand you want to trick your opponent into thinking you have. Would you make a smaller bet with air to represent a hand that didn't need protecting? And this isn't a protection-demanding board anyway – it's rainbow with a small pair, so if someone is behind it's hard to have more than a few outs. Sizing smaller won't make a difference vs KK/QQ, and probably won't vs AJ, but just might do better for you vs KJ/QJ/JT/TT, and might possibly induce a spazzy bluff-shove – all of that is probably unlikely, so I don't think it's a big mistake, but I would go smaller.

I don't think I can get away from AA here without a massively confident read that villain doesn't have KK/QQ/AJ/bluff. You're getting over 2.5:1 on the call – I can't believe you're not good there often enough to call. That's just a different way of echoing Carlos' excellent comment: “Calling and losing to hands like JJ here is not a disaster. Folding and losing to hands like KK is.”

huge

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February 19, 2015 - 5:52 am

Kalculater said:

Why would we want to make our sizing smaller if he is sticking around with those hands? If we are trying to get value from those specific hands you mentioned we can make it bigger to get value….

I think in this case you can't “make it bigger to get value” because the most value you can get is villain's whole stack, and you can probably get all of that by the river if they have an overpair. There's a pretty comfortable progression of getting villain's stack in after three streets of betting and it probably doesn't help to deviate from that sizing. As I said in my longer reply to OP, bet sizing probably doesn't matter against the overpairs you're hoping for, but there's a small chance that it would be better against some lesser hands.

BionicApe

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February 20, 2015 - 5:07 pm

@huge

All valid concerns. Slow playing AA isn't my default modus, in fact it seems like I often regret the decision, but then again, I often regret the decision to raise AA too, just the consequences of the former are usually a lot nastier. I think it's a necessary risk though for the sake of balance alone and it can at times be very lucrative.

I'm also not particularly worried about not getting full value from KK and QQ, it seems like the money is usually going to go into the pot against those hands anyway postflop as long as an ace or king doesn't hit for the respective hands. Yeah, totally agree about JJ and TT, many people aren't confident playing those hands postflop and I do give up some value against the players who might shove them preflop.

I'm not too worried about the blinds coming along for the ride. The small blind was actually pretty nitty and I figured the big blind would see a flop with us, but isn't going to wake up with a hand that beats me too often. I think giving the blinds an opportunity to squeeze was worthwhile. I don't know about you, but one raiser and a flat from the button looks to me like a green light to 3-bet mid premiums.

You're right about minimum donk betting too (min-donking). The players that practice min-donking do so habitually and I'm starting to respect it more and more, strangely enough. In fact, when I read your recent piece characterizing donk betting according to skill level, I started a response (but lost it because of some glitch) mentioning that min-donking deserved its own category. That's another discussion though. In any case, yes, it's very difficult to derive what that bet signifies. Without a doubt that read was pretty spurious, and I knew that at the time, but decided to go with it anyway because if I was right that bus was headed to Value Town. Turns out that bus done threw a trans-axle in Wellfucksville though.

I may vary my bet sizing based on the strength of my hand from time to time, but not consistently. My bet sizing choice in this case is based more on betting conventions and typical player expectations. A 2/3 pot bet looks a lot like a value bet that is charging a fairly high price to see the river card. Larger turn bets like this look a lot like they want to discourage draws and even if the board isn't particularly threatening in this case, jacks are always vulnerable to overcards. Over 20% of the deck consists of Qs-As, and even if my opponent misses when an overcard comes they are all more or less action killers for jacks. I really don't think I'm too far off the mark with this bet sizing on the turn. I didn't need to bet so large to get the money in on the river though. I'd probably take a slightly different line in the future, but I wasn't getting away from this hand this time.

I really appreciate the time and attention you put into your response and you make a lot of good points. I'm a pretty mediocre player in general and make mistakes all the time, but I don't shy away from criticism. So, thanks again for bringing a keen eye to bear on this hand.

BionicApe

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February 20, 2015 - 5:39 pm

And now for the exciting conclusion!

My opponent ended up turning over 76o and suddenly it all made sense in a gut-wrenching and nauseating kind of way. The river was a brick and my opponent scooped up a big pot with his flopped trips. I couldn't believe my eyes though, I was honestly shocked that he had 76o there and it shook me up pretty good. The villain chose that hand to change gears. He played deceptively, he played pretty well, and he got me. So kudos to him and whatnot.

I think the biggest mistake I made related to that hand was failing to realize just how much it tilted me. It didn't make me angry, so it wasn't really the blatant tilt I'm more familiar with, but it eroded my confidence enough that I was destabilized for the remainder of the tournament. Even though I came away from that hand with a healthy chip stack 60-70bbs I didn't end up lasting that much longer in the tournament. I played a big pot not much later where my opponent put me all-in with a straight on board and I couldn't pull the trigger to call for the split… really painful. Anyway, after that hand nothing went well for me, between a little bad luck and some questionable decisions I was out within the hour.

That's poker though, I reckon. Just gotta roll with the punches.

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