> Hand Advice - AA in BB

I'm dealt AA in BB. UTG raises to 3x, all folds to me. I have about 250 hands on villain and he's running 13/10 with a 65% fold to 3bet. His EP PFR is about 5% so I put him on something like 88+ and AK. I'm thinking he's gonna be happy to call a standard 3b but I'm only getting his stack in if he has KK (or AA obviously but v unlikely). We both have full stacks at 100BB.

So, I raise it up to about 10x and he calls. Board come 3 low card rainbow. I bet half pot thinking he's gonna float me with the majority of his range. May even get a raise out of the top part. He flats me so I now put him on 88-1010 plus maybe AK if he's not repecting my bets.

Turn come another low card in the 4th suit. No straight draws around. I bet out for half pot again and he types the following into chat before folding "Nice AA Mr Passive!". He then went on to quote my Agg Factor as being 1% and this being his reasoning for folding. Obviously he must have the same number of hands on me (250) so I'm not sure how viable it is to use AF with such a small sample? I also know that I would have bet that way with most over pairs.

Obviously my point here is how do I get this tight player to put more money in the pot with what looks to be a middle PP. Obviously I'm not getting any more against the AK part of his range. And you can argue that the lower pocket pair probably get limped in EP by this player. So I really have to put him on 88-1010 (maybe JJ ??) by the way the hand played out.

Do I simply check the turn. If he bets out there's a decent chance he's got a set because wouldn't he check behind anything with showdown value? If he checks behind and I bet the river, is he gonna feel more comfortable with his middle pair and make a crying call?.........or am I just never getting more than 1 street of betting out of this player? should I have checked the flop and delay c bet the turn?

Cheers

Matt

Hey Matt

Yes this is an interesting hand indeed, with the info you have provided, (would have been nice it you could tell me if its was full ringed or 6 max), but the range you assigned to the villain would be the range I would have put him on.

Now let me start by saying I think you played the hand well, and i dont see that you did much wrong in this situation. Villain obviously has info on you which is why he laid it down on the turn. I could go into different ways you could have played the hand, but you probably got the most out of this situation. Bear in mind that your opponent is also using his info on you, and due to this fact, probably loses you a bit of money. But it is worth making notes on villain that he uses some HUD while playing. You could turn this into your advantage later in the session, especially as hes told you your AF in his display. So this is 1 way to make marginal situations pay in the future

With regards to AF, yes sample is small, but you/ we have to work with what is avaliable at the time.

Now knowing what we know about villain, there is an arguement that you could have made a smaller profit pre and post flop with your bets. I dont think you should be checking, to induce a bet from villain as we know he is a tighest player and isnt gonna invest after you pre flop re raise unless he has KK, QQ and by you betting 50%, post flop gives him the opportunity to re pop to find out where he is. The fact he didnt means I would assign him with a lower PP range 7-10s, which means by the turn you probably are not gonna get any more out of him.

Maybe its worth considering a 12x pre flop and a 66-75% post flop bet, as we think that he has a mid-strong starting hand, and was probably a good flop for him too. But by you leading out you have obviously slowed him down. But by delaying your C bet for the turn, probably still does not make you any more money, but gives villain a chance to see all 5 CC's, as we assume he will call your turn bet. Or if he bets on the turn, you would really need to re raise this spot which agains shows what your holding.

So to recap, I think you played the hand well, could have got more money pre and post flop out of the player, you got info that villain uses HUD and sees you as a passive player. I dont think you get any more money from the streets no matter which way round you played it.

Remember at this point you still only have 1 pair, and i would be happy to take the pot without showdown.

Nice post, lets see if someone else sees it differently, continue to post hands and it will be to everyones benefit.

If you wish to send me more interesting hand histories then please feel free to do so.

Herc

I mostly agree with Hercules here Matt. I don't think there's a huge amount more you could have done to get more out of your opponent - knowing now what we do about how he views you.

I like the betsizing pre-flop, would probably be inclined to bet more on the flop. The problem with the half pot bet, is it kind of screams that you want the call. Yes, you're giving the (desired) option to repop you there, but he may be more likely to do that if you've made a bigger bet.

It's one of those spots really that you can go over again and again and not really answer the question. Overall, I think it's played well enough, you've took the hand down AND you've gained some information about how he views you - which is definitely exploitable later in the session, or if you come up against the player again.

thanks for the replies guys. Just one point on bet sizing. I can see how he's still likely to call if I add a couple of notches to the pre-flop 3b. But against regs I tend to use 1/2 pot for all c bets purely to not be exploitable. So I would put the same bet in against this type of player with complete air on a "one and done" type betting situation. (although maybe not on this board as I guess I'm getting floated so often here). On a foot note I'm almost always gonna double barrel this player in future

So if i suddenly wake up with a larger cbet than usual (especially to a reg who might notice this) I could even lose the flop call. Against a fish who doesn't really notice bet sizing I agreed a 2/3 or even pot sized bet would still get paid off here.

Just my thoughts obviously, feel free to disagree as that's what makes these discussions useful