Limping With AA

[maxwn917]

Ok, I played this hand tonight, and then preceded to get berated by the BB for playing my AA badly.

PokerStars 0.25/0.50 Hold'em (10 handed)

Preflop: Hero is MP3 with , .
4 folds, MP2 calls, Hero calls, 2 folds, SB raises, BB calls, MP2 calls, Hero 3-bets, SB calls, BB caps, MP2 folds, Hero calls, SB calls.

Flop: (15 SB) , , (3 players)
SB checks, BB bets, Hero raises, SB folds, BB 3-bets, Hero caps, BB calls.

Turn: (11.50 BB) (2 players)
BB bets, Hero calls.

River: (13.50 BB) (2 players)
BB bets, Hero raises, BB calls.

Final Pot: 17.50 BB

Results in white below:
BB has 9d 9c (two pair, jacks and nines).
Hero has Ac Ah (full house, aces full of jacks).
Outcome: Hero wins 17.50 BB.

He was very angry that I played my aces this way. I admitted to him that I understood that it was a riskier way to play them, but I had a feeling that if I hid my hand strength, i could trap either the BB, or one of the two extra loose players in between me and the button and make them pay. It worked beautifully, and I got heads-up with BB, who was the most predictable of them all. 18% VP$IP, 6% raise, but a showdown muppet, who couldn't laydown a hand once he decided it was the best. I had seen him bet unimproved AQ and AK into threeway pots and raise the turn with them and bet the river and then call a raise on the river. He was basically incapable of laying something down if he decided it was good at any point. So anyway. I played the aces pretty unorthodox and took him for a big pot. He then went on and on about how dumb I was. When I commented on his brillance with the 99, he said "I made a read and played it, and you just played badly and won. Such is life." I just had to laugh, because the main reason I played it that way was on my read of what he would do. He also said that he put me on A8, which just struck me as ridiculously stupid. Anyway, comments and thoughts. I would like to say that I usually don't play AA like that, but this table just felt like an exception, so I ran with it.

[MecosKing]

Yeah A8 is a pretty solid read, maybe with the . Actually, if i didnt know any better, i wouldve put you on precisely , openender with a 5 high heart draw, which you limp-reraised with to disguise your hand, to do some advertising, and of course, to get some pretty massive fold equity in that seventeen way pot. Either way, id figure an 8 was involved there somewhere.

I like BBs play there, im not gonna lie- Reraising a limp-reraiser with 99 out of position in a multiway pot is a pretty strong play- jamming beaten pairs in big pots is good because see, what happens is if you can manage to get enough bets in there early, as in cap PF and cap the flop, well now you are goin to have odds to chase your set draw till the turn, and if you cap the turn, you have now given yourself proper odds to call till the river. Then if you miss again, you are getting proper odds (about 82:1) to make a crying call on the river also, so overall, it seems to me to be a pretty innovative, yet undisputably solid way to play the hand.

Nihan!

[briachek]

limp raising preflop with AA in my mind is just too risky to do in limit, especially low limit. You can't raise enough and all you do if trap everyone into a big pot that now they have odds to chase any draws

[redhouse]

Sure - it turns postflop play into a bit of a crapshoot, but with hands like AA I always like to get money into the pot early. With all due respect to Briachek, his strategy will win smallish pots most of the time. Yours will win big ones, albeit slightly less often.

Having said that, I wouldn't have limped here - not because I don't want to jam the pot, but because there are only two players to act before the blinds. I can't be sure my limp-reraise strategy will work here. Plus, if the last two guys decide to limp in with suited/connected cards, its a major disaster - AA going into a six handed pot without making them pay for it.

[briachek]

I get sucked out plenty with AA when I raise it. I don't need to get more people in the pot. I don't think you give enough credit to the low limit muppets out there.

[redhouse]

My point is it doesn't matter if you're giving them odds postflop. The mistakes (and hence the money) are coming preflop. Aces win roughly 49% of the time in a 5 handed pot. If I'm getting 4-1 on my money with a 49% chance of winning, i'll take it every single time. As far as tying weak draws to the pot goes - I don't mind that either. Lets say a gut shot draw is now calling when he normally wouldn't. I'm still getting 1-1 on my money, and he has only a 16% chance of winning. He may be getting +ve EV because of the freakishly large pot, but my EV isn't too shabby either.

Basically, what I'm trying to say is that the aim isn't to win the most pots, but to win the most money. If I'm the favorite, I want money to go in the pot.

[briachek]

so are you saying that you always limp in EP with AA on semi-aggressive tables?

[TightWad]

[redhouse]

[briachek]

[Tiburon]

Playing it badly? You limp/re-raised AA. It's art, especially if you have a bunch of twits at your table who will raise with hands to your right. From that point, you played straight-up TAG poker. It took some balls to cap that flop, but you're holding a nut flush draw in addition to your overpair. You figure if someone's playing [Kh} X of hearts for 4-bets, may Jebus be with them.

If you felt someone else would raise, it's a great way to get more bets from them. If they didn't, you would've been in a bind.

I totally agree with redhouse. If you know there are maniacs yet to act, limp/re-raise is awesome.

[maxwn917]

Sorry I haven't replied all weekend, but I have been away from my computer since Friday. I still think that my play was good for the table I was on. I rarely play them this way, but my feeling was that with the players behind me, I would get a raise about half the time, possibly a little bit more. About 60% of the time I didn't get a raise, I would be playing a three way pot against the BB and the first limper, with position on both them. Sometimes I would lose those pots, but I had confidence in my ability to get away from it, if the signs from both of them pointed to two pair or better, or to at least minimize the losses. The rest of the time, if I missed the raise, and took a mulit-way pot with 4 to 6 others, I would just have to accept that it didn't work and play very cautiously if I didn't hit a set.

When I got the raise, things went about like I wanted, with the only mistake being I think I made was in not raising the turn. I just knew that guy had a pp from about QQ-TT, although it turned 99 was in his range too. I knew he didn't have the flush, and the odds were against JJ when the second one hit, so I should have raised there, I think. I don't know what I was scared of, as he was much too tight to have hearts, because he wouldn't have capped on preflop without AA-99, AKs, or maybe AQs, and I had the A of hearts. That left pps from KK-99, AA is extremly unlikely, KK-QQ was pretty unlikely, because he just called the raise at first, and then capped after I reraised, which I don't think he would do with KK, and probably not with QQ either.

That left JJ or lower. There's no real reason to slow down after the second J hits on the turn if you didn't slow down on the flop, because I don't really lose to Quad Js much worse than a set of Js, and the turn makes it less likely that he has JJ. So I think I should have raised the turn and possibly capped if he three-bet, because I just knew what he had and yet I was too wimpy to act on it.

Basically, the J seemed like a scary card at first, but it really wasn't because I was still losing to everything I was losing to on the flop except a hand like AJ, and this guy just didn't not play like someone would cap it on the flop with AJ. So basically I think that If I was gonna cap it on the flop in the face of the the flush, and in face of the bb probably having a pp in the range of JJ, then I still need to raise the turn. Not sure if I explained that well, but I tried.

[Drade]

[TightWad]

Only other hand I do it with is KK, but less often. I've seen Roy Cooke and others say he occasionally does it with hands like AKs or AQs (since if you wind up with a multiway pot, you're still good with that)...but I never limp either hand.

I think the limp-reraise might have more merit in a game against observant opponents, in that it might give you a bit more protection when limping with more marginal hands in EP, since observant opponent would be less likely to make a position raise against a tight EP limper who may be trapping with AA or KK. But I think this type of concept has a lot less merit in the low-stakes online games most of us are used to.

-TW

[redhouse]

AA and KK are the only hands I normally look to limp re-raise with.

<Hijack>
I have in the past been advised to jam with suited connectors in multiway pots. eg. 89s, 7 handed. The (supposed) logic is that these win their fair share anyway, and this is a case where you want to tie weaker draws (like low pair -> two pair/trips) to the pot. I've never tried this... I normally see the flop and start jamming the pot if i do have a draw. Any thoughts on this? Anyone tried this successfully? Unsuccesfully?