Ok, many questions on this hand. First off, what about my preflop raise? This hand has become a raise or fold situation preflop. Should I just fold it in ep or call? By raising, I limit the amount of people in the hand, but I also knock out the dominated hands that I could make money off of. Comments.

Party Poker 2/4 Hold'em (8 handed)

Preflop: Hero is UTG+1 with , .
1 fold, Hero raises, 1 fold, MP2 calls, 1 fold, Button calls, 2 folds.

Flop: (7.50 SB) , , (3 players)
Hero bets, MP2 calls, Button calls.

Not a bad flop I guess. the other two were semi-solid players and unlikely to have a 2 or 5.

Turn: (5.25 BB) (3 players)
Hero bets, MP2 calls, Button raises, Hero calls, MP2 calls.

I asked a friend what he would do when it came back to him, he said he would 3 bet because it seemed like a weaker ace trying to buy the pot. He felt it was a raise or fold situation for me but I chose to call. What do you think about this theory?

River: (11.25 BB) (3 players)
Hero checks, MP2 checks, Button bets, Hero calls, MP2 calls.

Calling on the turn, I had decided to call it down as long as it stayed one bet.

Final Pot: 14.25 BB

Results in white below:
Hero has Jc Ac (one pair, aces).
MP2 has Qd As (one pair, aces).
Button has 5s 5d (three of a kind, fives).
Outcome: Button wins 14.25 BB.


Turns out I was pretty much dead the whole time. Could have avoided it by folding preflop but I was doing a lot of folding and was trying to push the hand this time. All comments welcome.

I fold AJo many times from EP but generally play AJs and lots of time I just limp with it hoping to see a cheap flop. The good thing about limping with it is that if you hit the Ace you are usually good with your kicker and can get some bets from those folks that limped in with their A rags. The trouble with AJ is that if someone raises behind you, particularly a solid player you could be in a world of trouble and in this situation I would much rather flop a J than an A. AJ is a difficult one to play like most hands from EP.

On your particular hand I would put the button on a set or two pair with some type of Axs and with the MP also calling your bets he is very likely to have one of the aces in his hand thus a set looms even larger here for the button. I think a fold is in order here after the button raises you as you could very well be drawing dead or maybe have 3 outs with your J. Having that other solid player in there as well calling bets does not bode well for you either as solid players generally don't call UTG raises with weaker aces than AJ. There is no way a raise here is justified with your holding in my opinion.

I would suggest you try limping more with AJs from EP and see how that works for you. Although I recommend an extremely tight standard of play preflop I can't go so far as to say muck AJs, just try not to get too tied on to it in spots like this. And keep in mind that when you flop particularly an A and two other solid players are calling and then raising on the turn, top pair and mediocre kicker usually isn't going to get the job done and you will see this type of situation were one of them has hit a set or at minimum top pair, top kicker. Good luck.