Trying out a new raising strategy (basic idea: raise pretty much all of the hands outlined in other posts recently from any position and raise max, maybe a few more in LP), I thought I'd try to post as many of these as possible to see what you guys think (and also to get a better grip on how these raises are actually doing).

Today's hands are over-proportional with AA, although I'm satisfied that my raising range isn't too terribly AA heavy (a little less than 1/3 should work out to be AA--raising a total of 5.10%, of which the AA hands make up 1.62%).

On the AA hands, I'd be interested to hear whether you guys think I'm playing them too meakly (had to let most of them go, I felt), but I've also been known to overplay them and would of course be interested in trying to find the "golden mean" in that regard.

So, here's hand #1:

I'm on the button with AcAdQsQc and $420 or so in chips. 3 limpers and I raise max to $13. BB (with $183) and short-stack in CO (very LAG player with only $31 left after calling the raise) both call.

Flop comes A98 all spades, so I have top set on a flush board, and the pot is $44. BB checks, LAG moves in for $31, and I call.

This is really the only actual decision in the hand, as the other option would be raising. But I think I like calling better (?). If BB has the flush and wants to check-raise, I'm not sure exactly what to do. I also think it would be pretty ballsy of him to draw to a straight on this board where, sure, I may have AA, but I may also have a lower flush to which he's drawing pretty much dead. So, I think he really can't proceed with anything but a flush. If he check-raises pot, I'd probably just lay it down actually (?) as roughly 2:1 underdog against the flush and given the possibility that CO has 2 of my outs for catching up taken away.

Instead (sigh of relief), BB just folds and LAG turns over T866 with no spades at all and really near nothing. Turn was a 9 to fill me up, and river a 6 to fill him up lower.

Yeah, that's a good point, although it also puts me in a bad way if he should happen to have the nut flush.

I'll have to think about that one. Another question: What if the flop were 4- or 5-way?

3-way I'm a lot less worried about ANY flush from this guy (who seems solid, although I hadn't played many hands with him), but I also think it decreases my fold equity on the possible re-raise if he has a moderately good one.