Well, this is actually tournament style HU (50 on Stars), but when I posted the hand in the SNG section, someone suggested that I'd get better responses here. I think that's probably right, too, as I see no difference in this situation and a cash HU game.

It's only the 4th hand of the match, so very little in terms of reads. Villain seems a little aggro, but after 3 hands, that's a bit vague.

Anyhow, I have AcQc in SB and make it 50 to go with blinds at 10/20. Villain calls (even stacks). Flop comes Ah7h2d. He checks, and I bet 70. He check-raises to 340. My thinking at this point is really, ok, that's a fairly sizeable CR that doesn't really want to be called.

Turn Kd. He pushes. I call, he turns over A2 for flopped 2 pair. I don't improve and lose.

I guess I actually have 2 questions here: First, any way to get away from this?

And, second, what do you think of his play on that hand? If it were me, I probably would have made the CR a fair amount smaller, like 210 or so, then bet the turn at maybe 300 and the river at maybe 500. So, while I would've made a big score in his shoes, I wouldn't have ended the match right there.

The main thing is that once the CR is called, that has to mean that initial raiser has an A, and probably a fairly solid one. So, I wonder whether his very aggro play of the hand wasn't perhaps better than a more modest approach.

Opinions?

I guess my own is that I really can't lay down to the first CR, but I'm not sure about the all-in. If we're shooting for 60%+ win-rate, the real question is whether I'm ahead on the turn 60% or more of the time on the turn against an unknown opponent who has shown some aggro tendencies but also knows that once I call the flop, I must have at least an A or I suppose maybe a heart draw (which I personally wouldn't pursue for such a big raise, but he doesn't know that). I actually doubt that I am ahead that often.

No way I get away from your hand here. It's hard to put him on AK (no reraise pf) and a lot of people won't play A2 to a raise. The types of players that DO play A2 to a raise will overplay a hand like A9 with just top pair and therefore his range is so wide that you have to call as you're ahead of it.

The flush draw being out there is a lot more reason to call as his hand could so easily be a flush draw trying to push you off a weak ace or pocket pair. Once you call the flop and he shoves the turn, he could be hoping for a fold (which you should basically never do with most hands you're calling his flop CR with).

I don't think he played it too bad, there are quite a lot of bad cards for his hand that may either kill his action or counterfeit his hand so playing top and bottom pair hard and fast seems reasonable.

People are just so insane in HU matches that you have to up the % of their range that they're bluffing with quite a bit as well as the % chance that they're value betting a weaker hand. I've played a tonne of HU matches and people will show up with anything from two pair, a set, to a heart draw, weaker ace, complete bluff, or stubborn KK or QQ.

All that being said I think his two most likely hands are AJ and AT and you beat them both.

Another thing to mention is that your opponents (at this level) aren't thinking enough to think that because you call his flop CR you basically have to call his turn bet and therefore he should never bluff because you will always call, they just won't think that far. They'll think "hmm I tried bluffing and he called, maybe a big bet will push him off" or "TOP PAIR FIVE KICKER, IM ALL IN" etc etc.