What do you do with AA here?

[C8H10N4O2]

Playing a live cash game. Villain is a good friend and there is a ton of history and metagame between us. I'll try to sum up enough info for an analysis here.

We play each other aggressively. I have built my stack to 4.5 buy ins, and villain has me covered with about 7 buy ins. We are playing at a pretty soft table, but when we get isolated against each other, anything can happen. I often times raise big in multi way matches with PP. Villain is capable of playing any two cards and calling with any two cards, but has been playing slightly tighter than he normally does. He's created an image with the regulars that he's a crazy person, and often times gets paid off really well when he does have a hand, because he isn't scared to bluff big or bet with the nuts big either. Villain is also observant enough to know I have tightened up when a few new additions to the table arrived. I have been folding most hands and rarely raising pre-flop, but winning nearly every pot I get involved in. We're playing a 9 handed match (two-three people have come in and busted, re-bought and busted again and are now gone which is how so much money has found its way to the table) I'm in LB he's UTG. Everyone limps, I look down at AA. Standard raises in this game are 4-6x the BB. I raise 10x the BB, and Villain calls from UTG, everyone else folds. I showed one bluff early in the game for a big pot and tightened up knowing I'd get called with other hands.

Flop is K58.
I check, villain bets 18x the BB, just slight under the pot. I call.
Turn is 7
I check, villain bets just slightly under pot. A call leaves me with 1/2 the pot size, so I figure it's re-raise all-in or fold.
What do you do?

Few more notes about the metagame...
Villain will bet sets and two pair hard. Usually bets flush draws hard as well, but in all honesty, I don't get the feel he's on a draw in this hand.
My read of the situation based on previous hands this night and our history, is that villain has a set, AK, or a complete bluff. In the previous history, he's called that exact raise with 22 and busted my AA. Because of my stack size, I know he is willing to call with any two somewhat respectable cards, either connectors, suited connectors or suited 1-2 gappers, or pocket pairs. The only way I can put him on two pair is 78. Physical side, he shuts down after the bet, and I can't get any solid info to put together what's going on. I don't put him on the nuts here, and I think he would have re-raised me with KK pre-flop, so really, he either has AK, 55 or 88, and very rarely, 78, or a bluff for which he is known.

All right, I'll shut up and let someone chime in. I'll tell the results after a few people respond. I'm just really curious what people would do here.

[DeadBabySoup]

personally, i would have bet the pot on the flop. by checking, you gave him control of the betting, so it's hard to know where you are in the hand. that said, i think he hit a set. if he had AK, he probably would have raised preflop. it seems more likely that he would limp and call a big raise with a small pocket pair. either that, or he's on a bluff or semibluff. but i'll go with my first instinct and say he hit the set.

[C8H10N4O2]

I totally understand betting the flop, and with most people, I will bet it. However, on the flop I was attempting to set up a trap for him, because he is capable of bluffing his entire stack. That being said, in hind-sight, I should have check-raised his bet on the flop to get more information. I didn't play this hand particularly well. I think the size of his bet on the flop stunned me honestly. All right, I'll wait around for more comments.

[emoneypitt]

My guess is that he hit 55, possibly 88 but 88 is more likely to get raised pre. If it's 87, that's just gross. He knows you most likely raised with a monster to try to clear the table and is probably hoping you do have AA because it's so hard to lay down unless you have an obviously disadvantageous board. With the way you played the hand, I probably would have just laid it down on the turn. There's too many hands that could beat you at this point to risk it with just a pair.

One more possibility: He could have the other AA as well. If it's a table where a lot of action is happening preflop, I definietly could see a UTG limp in with AA. Not likely but his betting pattern could indicate it. Perhaps he was trying to trap you as well in this hand.

[HeyKidMove]

This is a tough situation, but I would shove here. With the info you gave, I think his range is too wide to fold, and I don't really like a call. He could easily put you on 99-QQ here and be betting AK hard, or bluffing. You haven't really repped AA here, so I don't think that would be a hand he is putting you on.

[C8H10N4O2]

One more thing. Anytime I previously said I bet 10x or he bet 18x the BB... double that. I was tired last night and a straddle was so common that I figured everything based on a straddle and not the actual BB. So really, I raised 20x the BB pre-flop, and he bet out 36x-40x the BB on the flop, and then nearly 120x the BB on the turn.

But yeah, I like the variety of answers. I'll hold off until tonight to post the full results on what happened after the turn.

[acelacards]

Well my guess is that he has either AK or maybe something smaller like KQ. I think he's trying to force the pot from you before you either get a flush or make a straight. It's tough, but I would probably go all in. (and take my lumps)

[liladypokerpro]

Hard to say, since you two have such a history together, I'm sure he's pretty confident that he knows you as well as you know him. Given the action, tho not what I would have liked to have seen, but saw your explanation above so I digress... Given the action, I'd most likely put him on a bluff here... don't ask me why, but my first instinct said bluff, so that's what I'm going with in this response. Most likely because you checked the flop...If he knows how you play PP, he might think if you have anything QQ or less he can push you off the hand. Checking on the flop from an otherwise aggressive player might signal weakness, or entrapment... he may have thought the former... Just my hunch... as for what I'd do here, as played, I'd be re-raising all in.

Can't wait to see the result... should be interesting...

/

[phaul]

First just a point which makes a difference; you said you have 4.5 buyins and vill covers.

Flop is K58.
I check, villain bets 18x the BB, just slight under the pot. I call.
Turn is 7
I check, villain bets just slightly under pot. A call leaves me with 1/2 the pot size, so I figure it's re-raise all-in or fold.
What do you do?

Using these figures, we get an upper bound of pot : 40BBs preflop, 120BBs on flop, 360BBs on turn. This gives you at least 270BBs back, which makes a difference as he can now bluff river (with half pot a bluff would be a lot less likely).

Also, this reasoning is bad:

I should have check-raised his bet on the flop to get more information

I'm gonna quote some things you said:

We play each other aggressively.

when we get isolated against each other, anything can happen.

he isn't scared to bluff big

However, on the flop I was attempting to set up a trap for him, because he is capable of bluffing his entire stack.

All those quotes indicate a snap call, especially if he knows you've tightened up (which you said). Especially the last quote, if this is your plan you have to snap ship turn (assuming he only has half pot back).

I can only go off your info here, but all of it says ship to me.

I also prefer leading flop as he will call with a ton of worse hands (pairs/draws) and float a lot if he's decent. It also means that if it gets to showdown he'll note you checked flop with aces, making your range when you lead flop a lot weaker, meaning your cbets will work a lot less often in future. If I saw you'd checked that flop with aces I'd float an absolute shitload in future.

[C8H10N4O2]

Lol, this was a very unstandard play for me fwiw. I was attempting to set up a trap, and I made the wrong decision on the turn. Going into the river, if I called the turn, I would have had right at half the pot left in my stack. I thought about the decision for so long, and finally laid it down. Reasoning was that I thought the way we had been playing each other, he would know I wasn't check calling weak. I've made this play before several times where I just check call until the river and I'll check it to him on the river and he ships it in and I snap call and bust his bluff. Our previous match had had this happen twice. Therefore, I was thinking he knew I wasn't scared of the king, leading into the thought I might have made that pre-flop raise with AK and was going to call him down with it. Essentially, I gave him too much credit and folded. We had all agreed to show one card from any hand we won, so he let me pick a card of his, and I flipped over the J of hearts from his hand. The bet on the turn made me feel as though he was trying to get me to ship it, and I honestly figured he had hit a set of 8's, so I essentially gave him too much credit.

We talked about the hand after we both left the table, and he said he had decided I was playing 66-TT. So if any face card or ace hit, he was going to try to represent that he hit if he didn't connect. He also said he was drawing dead going into the river. I'm not 100% sure he was, but I wouldn't be surprised if he were telling the honest truth there. But I could see him making that play with JJ. He also said if I had shipped it on the turn, he would have had to fold, so if that's true, I honestly don't think he even paired up, much less had a pair in the hole.

So, all in all, I played bad. Lol. But really, I didn't until I made my decision on the turn and didn't go with the exact set up I was trying to create. Knowing my villain, I got him to do exactly what I wanted him to do, but on the turn, I backed out because I thought I sensed something that wasn't there. This was a standard play for me to set up a trap against the villain, and I had done it perfectly, and then failed to execute the play completely. I didn't buy in full at the beginning of the night, and I walked out with 2.8buy ins worth. But I should have been walking out with more. Unfortunately, I think it was the deep stacked play that gave me trouble. When I looked up into the pot, there was a decent pot after he bet on the turn, but I didn't commit to the hand with the rest of my stack because I was deep. I worried about overplaying aces with 4.5 buy ins lol.

So lessons learned...
When playing against this villain (this summer, it'll be nearly everyweek day that we play together for the first part of the summer) trapping can in fact be straightforward, and I should go with my initial read on the situation, and not talk myself out of things.

Playing out of position against an aggressive deeper stacked opponent while I am deep stacked takes more "guts" than I had last night... even though it shouldn't have.




Anyway, when I typed this up, I really tried to present the information as is, and not lead people into an answer after I knew the results.

Thanks to everyone for the responses.

[liladypokerpro]

Score:

Lady - 1

Gents - 0

LOL Just yankin ya


/

[travz21]

I was going to say some stuff similar to phaul. If you have all of this history you say you have, why aren't you following through with your gameplan once you get in this situation? You've been waiting for situations like this...you even checked the flop to set your trap. Therefore, I think you played this terribly based off the info you gave us.

If you know he plays you aggressively, that he isn't scared to bluff big, and that anything can happen when you two are isolated, I think it's a very big mistake to question yourself on the turn. Why even make these mental notes if you aren't going to use them in play? This is an auto push. If he has it, it's just pretty unlucky given the circumstances of your past history with the villian.

On the other hand, if he knows the mental notes you have on his play, he could absolutely be using that against you. So you can disregard everything I said if you want haha.

[C8H10N4O2]

I'm not sure exactly why you think you have to say I played this badly... as I already made that note myself.

I did however say that this was a very abnormal play by me, but it was highly situation and opponent specific, and I just didn't execute the play entirely. I have made this play on him before several times and it has rarely gotten me into trouble.

[texas_trucker]

In my opinion, trapping with aces is generally a terrible play, especially if you plan do to it out of position:

Most of the time, you'll end up winning a small pot as the other player might not catch anything that tempts him to go very deep in the hand. The hand will then very likely be checked down until the end or you might try a bet on the river, but you will still have given up control on the hand all along.

Then, there are two cases where you'll get action. First one is when the player has actually hit a monster and will be given the opportunity to walk out of this hand with a fair part of your stack.

The other, is basically the one that you exposed. You will be playing against an opponent who will clearly take advantage of any flush draws or scary cards to push you off a your hand. Anytime in this hand, you'll be playing on your heels without any solid info to orientate your decisions.


Finally, what bothers me most in your hand is the game plan that, in my oppinion, clearly doesn't add up.

In the beginning, you decide to put in a huge raise, clearly to represent a huge hand that doesn't want to get action from marginal hands. In that scenario, I think that you should keep betting the flop and probably the turn depending on your opponent's reaction. When you check, you essentially represent a hand in the QQ-JJ-maybee TT range. The problem then is that you have built a fairly big pot and got scared because of the stack sizes.

If, knowing your opponent, you still decide to trap him, I think that you want to do it using a slightly smaller raise pre-flop and then let him to the betting, essentially planning to c-raise him so that you can at least charge him if he's drawing to a hand. You'll be getting almost the same result that you wanted to achieve previously, but you won't give him the chance to scare you off with his stack.

[C8H10N4O2]

Texas Trucker, please play my opponent and this table for 50 hours+ and then come back. Or at least get some posts around here where I could think about respecting something you say. Thanks.