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Passive Play With Pocket Aces


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During the WSOP, I took a shot one night at playing 25/50 NL at the Bellagio. The game looked decent, the stacks were fairly small and I wanted to see if I could make something happen.I sat with $5000 and had run that up to about $8000 in an hour while getting smacked upside the head with the deck. Every hand I showed down was a premium hand. I played aggressively but was never out of line. I hadn't been caught bluffing yet because I hadn't had to bluff yet, I was just a card rack.MP2 had just sat down to the table 2 orbits earlier. He saw me show down 3 hands, all winners. He appeared to be solid, but I had no reads from his hands to confirm this.25/50 NL @ Bellagio, 8 HandedMe: UTG+1 ($8,000)MP2: ($17,000)I pick up A :) A :D and open the pot for $175, which was the standard opening raise. MP2 reraises me to $500 total. Action folds back to me and I smooth call.Flop: $1075 (2 Players)Q :D 7 :) 2 :) I check and he checks behind.Turn: $1075 (2 Players)4 :club: I check, he bets $700 and I call with a slight hesitation.River: $2475 (2 Players)9 :D I check, he thinks for a few moments then bets $1700 which I call quickly.He tables K :icon_dance: K :D and I win the pot.My intent preflop was to trap him, obviously. I felt he had a big pair, most likely KK or QQ with AK a distant 3rd choice. I figured that any low flop would be bad for him and I could get a decent pot built, maybe even a double though. While this looks like a good flop for my hand, I am not happy. I now feel that there's a roughly 50% chance that he's outflopped me with a set of queens. This feeling is not helped when he checks behind on the flop. The turn card falls and I see no reason to declare my hand now. If he has KK, he will bet the hand for me. If he has QQ the same thing will happen. If I lead out now, he might raise with either hand and I will have a very tough decision. The same thinking takes place on the river. If he has either hand, he is going to value bet it, so I see no reason to bet myself.I probably extracted maximum value on the hand as it was played while never giving him a chance to move me off of my hand. If I retook the lead at any point, he would have likely folded or come over the top of me, likely forcing me to fold my hand. It may seem overly passive to play AA in a manner like this, but as the hand played out, it was very apparent that he could easily have me beaten and each one of his actions reinforced that feeling, from the flop check to the value bets on the turn and river. I knew that he would have to bet the hand on the turn and river, so there was no sense in me doing it. By allowing him to bet the hand, I allowed myself to lose the minimum, or in this case, win the maximum.

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Certainly when I read this hand, I felt like you were dead on the flop. It felt like QQ to me.I think you played the hand perfectly post-flop. By slow-playing preflop, you forced yourself into a check-call situation. If you raise, he's certainly coming back at you with KK and I don't think you can call. You gave him no opportunity to push you out of the hand. What is the highest X-7-2 board you'd raise with?Also, where on earth are you playing a game where the board doesn't come down K-Q-J of diamonds when you trap here? :club:

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Also, where on earth are you playing a game where the board doesn't come down K-Q-J of diamonds when you trap here? :club:
No doubt. Every time I try to get fancy with AA, I get screwed.Even as this hand played out, I'm always worried about the set so I probably would have tried to take it at the turn with a check raise. Granted, I only play tournament poker though.....at much lower stakes.I've been burned too many times trying to get fancy.
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What is the highest X-7-2 board you'd raise with?
The thing is, if I check-raise, he has to put me on a hand he can beat. The way that hand played out, if I CR'd him, he couldn't beat AA and he couldn't beat QQ, which were my 2 most likely holdings. If he thought he could move me off of the AA by coming back at me, he'd reraise, if not, he folds.If the board was J72, I would have CR'd him. I really didn't think he'd reraise me preflop with JJ or worse. Also, if that's the case and he has KK, now he's beating QQ, which is a hand I might have played in such a manner.He was angry with himself for betting the river, saying that he had a feeling he was in bad shape. I think it's almost impossible not to value bet KK there. That's why I felt safe knowing that the hand would get bet, whether I was ahead or behind.I was calling with AQ, I might have even been stubborn with a hand like JJ, putting him on AK because of his flop check, but probably not..
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there a couple of keys to this hand. the first is smooth-calling the 3-bet preflop. this only makes sense if you think he'll fold if you reraise. do you have any indication he's a good enough player to lay down KK/QQ here if you reraise to, say, $1800?secondly, there's the fact that you're out of position. this should lead you against slow-playing, because being out of position post-flop will cost you value when you're ahead and cost you more when you're behind. thus you should try to get as much money in when you know your hand is best, so that he can't give you tricky decisions later on. That the stacks are quite deep (~160BBs) makes the post-flop positional advantage even greater.thirdly, there's his 3-betting range. Is he only ever 3-betting here with QQ/KK/AA/AK? Some aggressive players might do this with 1010 or 99 when stacks are this deep, in order to knock out players behind them and ensure they have position. but it sounds like our read isn't that clear here, so we should probably give him credit for at least JJ+, AK.the problem is that the only one of those hands you're likely to win any significant money from post-flop is KK. because you opened from early position and you've been showing down good hands, he has to give you credit for a real hand. If he holds QQ, he has to be very worried about KK or AA, which means he probably won't pay you off significantly post-flop unless he flops a set. If he has JJ or worse this is even more true. If he holds AK he has to flop top pair to pay you off, and that's not happening very often since you have two of his outs. And if a K comes off you'll have to be worried he has a set, so you won't get full value then either.thus, i prefer reraising. if you reraise to $1700, he has to call $1200, with $2200 in the pot and 6300 behind. That's giving 8500/1200, or 7:1, which is almost just right for him to call. why offer him these odds? because often he'll pay you off even when he doesnt flop a set, making his call a mistake. sometimes with KK he'll push preflop, sometimes he'll smooth-call. with the pot already taht large, you can pay off a set on the flop as long as it doesnt come down KQJ because he's paying you off often enough to make playing the flop aggressively worthwhile.

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(1) I can't believe villian checked flop with KK(2) Do you realize by getting cute here you cost yourself a double up?(3) I'm ok with changing gears with AA now and again but I like to get paid and you played this way too soft IMO

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(1) I can't believe villian checked flop with KK(2) Do you realize by getting cute here you cost yourself a double up?(3) I'm ok with changing gears with AA now and again but I like to get paid and you played this way too soft IMO
1. It is an excellent check with KK. I could easily have QQ here and if I don't, he's selling his hand as a lot weaker than it is, which might induce me to bluff. He's not worried about being drawn out on, since the most outs I could probably have here is 5, if I had AQ. His check is deceptive and it controls the pot size a little bit in case he's behind.2. If I reraise preflop, he very well might laydown the kings to me. Certainly once that flop comes, he can no longer beat any hands in my range and I will likely not get paid anymore.3. I got paid almost $3000 with a 1 pair hand that went to showdown. That's a pretty decent hand. There might have been a little more value in the hand, but it's not as much as people are saying there is.
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(1) I can't believe villian checked flop with KK(2) Do you realize by getting cute here you cost yourself a double up?(3) I'm ok with changing gears with AA now and again but I like to get paid and you played this way too soft IMO
You are correct about the second point, but you're focusing too much on this specific hand. If the villain had AK here, our hero made himself 2400 he wouldn't have made by playing more aggressively. I'm assuming that Slick doesn't play his hand the same way every time and if put in this exact same situation, he might choose to play it faster.
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3. I got paid almost $3000 with a 1 pair hand that went to showdown. That's a pretty decent hand. There might have been a little more value in the hand, but it's not as much as people are saying there is.
Is the only reason though because there was no straight, flush, or boat possibility? Nobody had a reason to rush the hand. To me, this would be one of the very few times you can do what you did.
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You are correct about the second point, but you're focusing too much on this specific hand. If the villain had AK here, our hero made himself 2400 he wouldn't have made by playing more aggressively. I'm assuming that Slick doesn't play his hand the same way every time and if put in this exact same situation, he might choose to play it faster.
this is just wrong. there's no way he fires the bullet on the river with AK. maybe he bets the flop with AK, but once we call a flop bet, with no draws out there, and our original EP raise, he's not going to bluff again.
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this is just wrong. there's no way he fires the bullet on the river with AK. maybe he bets the flop with AK, but once we call a flop bet, with no draws out there, and our original EP raise, he's not going to bluff again.
You assume too much here. At that limit, players are very capable of firing 3 bullets with nothing, especially when they are shown weakness, which I was definitely showing by checking 3 times in a row.
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Is the only reason though because there was no straight, flush, or boat possibility? Nobody had a reason to rush the hand. To me, this would be one of the very few times you can do what you did.
this is correct in that you are lucky the board came so dry. if instead of Q-7-2, the board came Q-10-9 with two suits, things get a whole lot trickier and there is a much greater chance you lay down the best hand at some point, or that KK doesn't value bet twice, or that you get outdrawn. given the way you played the hand, you ended up with pretty much the only situation you could make any money: against KK, on a very dry board. given that, when you smooth-call preflop, you don't know that the board will be dry, i think it's the wrong play.
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You assume too much here. At that limit, players are very capable of firing 3 bullets with nothing, especially when they are shown weakness, which I was definitely showing by checking 3 times in a row.
but you look trapping as much as you look weak. raise from EP, call 3-bet, call flop bet OOP on a dry board (if he bet the flop with AK?) who does that if he can't beat ace-high? sure, players at this limit are capable of firing three barrells when doing so is a reaonsable play. this isn't one of those times.
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Is the only reason though because there was no straight, flush, or boat possibility? Nobody had a reason to rush the hand. To me, this would be one of the very few times you can do what you did.
This is the only hand that we have to work with. If the board had come out differently, the action would have gone differently. As it was, we were able to tiptoe our way to the showdown without being worried about draws that were present. If the flop was 223, he might have bet the flop, I'd check raise, he'd come over the top and I'd go all in. Smooth calling with AA (both in position and OOP) is more common than you'd think at the limits 10/20 and 25/50NL and above. If you feel that you have a good idea on what the other person is holding, you know how dangerous flops are or are not.In this hand, I was confident that I was in a dominating position preflop, so I threw him a little rope. The flop, coupled with him checking behind got me very worried about my hand and caused the action to follow as it did.Sometimes, the flop comes down something like 357 with 2 hearts and I check raise all in. The only reason that the hand played out as it did without me making a bet aside from my opening preflop raise is because of the non-threatening board and the action on each street.
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this is just wrong. there's no way he fires the bullet on the river with AK. maybe he bets the flop with AK, but once we call a flop bet, with no draws out there, and our original EP raise, he's not going to bluff again.
Villain didn't fire a flop bet, though. He checked the flop. I will disagree with you completely. There's almost no scenario where AK doesn't fire at this river, especially after checking that flop. The way the OP played this hand, I would think I could get him off his hand with AK.
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but you look trapping as much as you look weak. raise from EP, call 3-bet, call flop bet OOP on a dry board (if he bet the flop with AK?) who does that if he can't beat ace-high? sure, players at this limit are capable of firing three barrells when doing so is a reaonsable play. this isn't one of those times.
When I check the river, it no longer looks like I'm trapping, it just looks weak. I knew he was strong and I knew he'd bet.
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3. I got paid almost $3000 with a 1 pair hand that went to showdown. That's a pretty decent hand. There might have been a little more value in the hand, but it's not as much as people are saying there is.
this is results-oriented thinking. sure, you got paid, but only because a bunch of factors happened to line up perfectly. there was no reason to think that would be the case. and anyway, playing it differently might have got you paid even more.
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this is results-oriented thinking. sure, you got paid, but only because a bunch of factors happened to line up perfectly. there was no reason to think that would be the case. and anyway, playing it differently might have got you paid even more.
Playing it differently gets him a lot less when villain has AK and loses a lot more when villain has QQ. I think it's fair to say that the villain was on one of those three hands. Acid even said it was 50-50 after the flop that he was up against QQ or KK.
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When I check the river, it no longer looks like I'm trapping, it just looks weak. I knew he was strong and I knew he'd bet.
this is besides the point. the previous action would have been different if had had AK in that he's much more likely to bet the flop because his hand has little showdown value. and, anyway, he was value-betting, not bluffing, hoping you'd make a crying call with AQ or JJ or something. a bet with AK would be a pure bluff.
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this is results-oriented thinking. sure, you got paid, but only because a bunch of factors happened to line up perfectly. there was no reason to think that would be the case. and anyway, playing it differently might have got you paid even more.
It's results-oriented to be commenting on how the flop came down and how I managed the pot. If a different flop comes down, I stack him. If a different flop comes down, he stacks me. if a different flop comesdown, neither of us do any betting becuase we're both worried the other has outdrawn us.The fact of the matter is that I knew where I was at in the hand and I made the plays which I thought would result in me making the most money on the hand. With that board, if I check raised at any point, he knows that he can't be winning becuase I either have AA or QQ and he folds.I can't help what flop comes out. It's a trap play, smooth calling with AA. Whether you're in position or not, it's a risk that you're taking in hopes of making a bigger profit on the hand. This hand was a weird case where I chose not to bet it at any point and I let the Villain do it for me.
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The fact of the matter is that I knew where I was at in the hand and I made the plays which I thought would result in me making the most money on the hand. With that board, if I check raised at any point, he knows that he can't be winning becuase I either have AA or QQ and he folds.
We've touched on this a bit during this thread. If you do raise on the turn and he sticks it, do you fold?I think if you change the results so that he's holding QQ or AK, everyone compliments you for losing/winning the most. It just so happened that he had the one hand where you might've stacked him.
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this is besides the point. the previous action would have been different if had had AK in that he's much more likely to bet the flop because his hand has little showdown value. and, anyway, he was value-betting, not bluffing, hoping you'd make a crying call with AQ or JJ or something. a bet with AK would be a pure bluff.
A bluff does not have to be a big bet. Read my other post titled "Bluffing the River" A bluff is a bet without a winning hand designed to get the winning hand to fold. If he thought that I had AQ or JJ and could move me off of it, those are the PERFECT bets to make becuase they look like he wants a call, which is what it should look like. The thinking could have very easily gone like this post flop for the Villain.Flop: Wow, I totally whiffed on that flop. I don't want to risk getting CR'd. There are no draws, so I'll just check and take a free card.Turn: Still nothing, but he's not betting either. Maybe I should take a stab at this, after all, if I had a big pair or a set, I'd definitely slowplay that flop.River: Ok, so I got nothing, but he's still checking. He must not be that strong becuase if he had a big pair or a set, he wouldn't risk me checking behind him. He probably has like JJ or AQ or something and is trying ot get out of here cheaply. If I bet $1700, I'm definitely repping a big hand and I think he'll fold his one pair hand.
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I actually like the play. As I said, it's way out of my league to play at these levels.The one thing I don't get though is the river bet. We are losing to 1 hand here, assuming that villain wouldn't have raised with 22, 44, 77, or 99 or any combination to make 2 pair. So that leaves us with only QQ to worry about. With the texture of the board, do we not re-raise the river here, or is this standard at these limits? I would want to either shove here, or at worst re-raise (which would probably induce his shove).Or are you so deep that you just aren't sure anymore so you take what you can get?

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We've touched on this a bit during this thread. If you do raise on the turn and he sticks it, do you fold?I think if you change the results so that he's holding QQ or AK, everyone compliments you for losing/winning the most. It just so happened that he had the one hand where you might've stacked him.
If I check raise the turn and he sticks it, I'm gonna be a little sick with myself. I think that it would depend on how he's acting after he raised. After all, if he has QQ, he's got the mortal nuts and isn't worried about a thing. If he looks nervous at all, he's gonna get called. I guess I'm just glad I didn't have to make that decision.If I change the results, then yeah, I get all kinds of praise or whatever, but I don't care. This hand took place months ago and is all done. I'm just trying to give people stuff to think about and to discuss. At least this one seems to be sparking some debate.
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nhI play it the same against a competent opponent, which is probably bad news for you. I think you gain and lose the optimal amount against his likely range by playing AA hand like this on such a board. Both of you played it well IMO. I don't think villain should be mad at himself for betting the river; overall it's +EV.

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