Bit down on the bullet now, I had a taste so sour

Poker Ironman Frank Peng allegedly left Vegas yesterday - he was still at the Wynn at 2130 last night, 30 minutes after his previously-stated deadline of 2100. His goal in staying late was "to avoid the traffic", which I imagine he achieved. Thanks Frank, for the company, the dinners, and the excellent guest blog yesterday.

There's a lot of poker stuff I've been meaning to get to, and a backlog of interesting HOTDs to talk about. But several people have written in regarding my play of pocket aces, so I figured today would be a good day to get to that. Especially considering what happened last night. Warning - this will be a poker-intensive post and of not much interest to the non-poker crowd.

Here's an excerpt from Dave K. - "You have mentioned being sucked out on a lot of times. I've been a little confused by whether or not you've been all in before the bad beat. You gave an example in one of the recent posts about AA losing to 22. How much money was in pre-flop and then post-flop?"

In the instance above, I was in middle position and had been playing tightly. I had about $150 in my stack at the time. Two limpers called the $5 blind in front of me, and I raised to $25. The small blind called, and the two limpers called, so the pot was now $100. The flop was Kx2 rainbow, and everyone checked to me. I bet half of my remaining stack - $60. Everyone folded except the gentleman with the set of twos, who called. The turn was a Q, and I was put all in for my remaining $60, which as you know, I called.

Looking back on that hand, I would stand by my decisions throughout the entire hand. I also can't fault the play of the pocket deuces - he had about a 7-1 chance of hitting a set on the flop, and ended up getting paid about 8 to 1 on his $25 investment.

Here's another (much longer) series of thoughts on the subject from Joe M. - "So I just read your Wednesday post and wanted to discuss with you the way you played the AA and how you said you always hope an A flops so that you feel more confident with your hand. I think cold-calling $20 raise is the wrong move (aka slow-playing AA is the wrong move) because it lowers your expected return value of the hand.

Here is my reasoning and please tell me if it makes sense:
With AA, the only way you are to win is if
A) you hit an A and someone else hits smaller trips, two-pair, or top
pair with a good kicker
B) Everyone hits nothing worth fighting for
You will lose in every other situation (not counting the odd chance of you hitting a straight, flush, full-house, or quads)

So basically what you are doing when you are cold-calling is you are letting people get in the pot who have a chance of hitting two-pair, trips, flush and straight draws, etc. Now when they don't hit, they will fold to any bet you make, so you will only win what was put in the pot pre-flop (usually). But if they hit, you are gonna pay them big (you know, lose big or win small with AA).

My opinion would then be to instead re-raise with AA always pre-flop (to at most half-your stack or maybe even all-in depending on what the raise was).
This does 2 things:
1) It should weed out players who are trying catch.
2) Those times where weak players do call and they don't catch, your
flop bet will then net you more money in the long run.

If you lose, well you really don't lose any more money than you normally would have, because let's face it, AA is hard to lay down. But if you win, I think you will net more in the long run because people are putting more in the pot. And there is always that chance that everyone will fold pre-flop and so you take it down right there without a fight (which is a lot better than getting AA cracked).

What do you think?"

OK, here's what I think. First of all, I don't believe that ALWAYS doing anything is a good strategy. No-limit poker is a highly situational game, and to play AA the same way in every game is to guarantee that you will not get the maximum value out of that hand. And that is what my goal is when I have that hand - to extract the most money I can from my opponents. As a generally tight player who does not play many hands, I am looking for a large payoff when I get the best starting hand possible.

It is generally not possible to extract a lot of money from someone when you bet in such a way that it is clear to everyone that you have AA (or KK). So, unless the pre-flop pot is already big enough (say, $75 by the time the action gets to me) that I feel I've gotten good value for my hand, I would not put in a monster raise that would force everyone out. And yes, that allows people in who can they hit their two pair, set, or whatever, but with AA, you want callers. Just one or two; but you want them. I guess I would look to the pros that you see on TV when they get that hand - they sit there and try to figure out how to get the most chips as they can out of it.

That being said, I do believe that I need to make an adjustment to my play of AA. I have made the mistake twice now of flat-calling raises with AA when there are people behind me who have not yet acted. My thought process was that I didn't want to scare the initial raiser out of the pot, and it would be unlikely that anyone behind me would call. However, twice now it is the people who have been calling behind me that have busted me. So from where the sun now stands, with AA I will re-raise any bet if: A) there are two or more people before me who have raised/called a raise, and B) if there are any people left to act behind me, possibly excepting the blinds.

I've got to run - so without further ado, here's the HOTD:

HAND OF THE DAY:
------------------------

The thing that makes me sick about this hand is that I'd just been talking to Frank about people falling in love with their big pocket pairs, before we hit the Wynn for a while last night.

So I have AA in second position, and UTG raises to $20. I call, breaking my as-yet-unformed rule of not re-raising with people behind me. Two other people call.

Flop: QQx

UTG checks - I bet $75.

One caller, everyone else folds.

Turn - some rag, I don't remember.

I bet $100. Again, I get called. And this is where my decision-making process goes awry. I'm trying to figure out why I'm not getting raised if this guy indeed has a Q. The guy was also one of the most speculative players at the table - he'd call with low pair, trying to hit trips or two pair. So I actually believed that he also had a pocket pair, and was calling because he figured no-one would actually bet a Q if they had it in their hand.

River: K. I again bet $100, and was called. He flipped over QJ off and took the pot.

This hand is one that I initially felt that I played horribly both pre-flop and post-flop. I'm still convinced my pre-flop non-raise was a bad move, but post-flop I'm just not sure about. I know that most of my poker-playing readers would disagree strongly with my continuation bets into a caller with a paired board, and they might be right, but I am not so sure. As mentioned before, my caller was a speculative player, and he did not raise any of my bets. It is likely that he would call the same bets with a pocket pair such as JJ, thinking that he likely had the best hand. Of course, it is likely he would also call those bets with a Q and a kicker he was unsure of.

The thing that I have noticed in almost all inexperienced poker players is that they constantly fear the worst - they are always afraid of straights, flushes and pairs on the board - always believing their opponents have these things. I am convinced that you cannot live your poker-playing life running away from those hands. Other than his calling, I did not get any feedback from my opponent that he felt good about his hand, so I kept betting. Ah well.

I was left with a little over $100 and that went down the drain on a failed bluff attempt. I then moseyed over to the Venetian to check out the grand opening of their poker room, but it was so crowded I left. I don't like to have to stand in line to lose my money.

Play well, everyone, and don't forget to raise.