My bad streak continues and I'm starting to wonder if my play is going to crap because of it.

Here is an AA hand I just experienced on $100 buy-in Empire 1/2 blinds. Everyone lose their stack here?

No reads. I posted early..this is my second hand. We have even stacks of $100

I get AA. UTG+1 raises min. to $4. I reraise in MP with [Ad] to $10. Folded to him he calls.

FLOP pot $25
[6d][Tc]

He bets $5 into the $25 pot. I raise to $25. He takes some time and calls.

TURN pot $75
[kh][6d][Tc][2h]

He checks. I pray he has AK and move in for $70. He calls instantly. River is no help he shows trip 10s and takes it down.

How did I play this hand?

Kenny

There are certain times when you just have to pay the man off. He had you beat from the flop on. It happens. Remember this, you lost your money by being the aggresser not by calling it off and yes there is a difference. He bet $5 into a $25 pot wanting you to reraise. If he had A-K he prolly would have re-raised you there. On the bright side, be glad that you just sat down and only had 100 in front of you. Nothing worse then playing for a few hours, building a big stack and losing it all with this type of hand.

Only thing I might have done differently is raise more preflop. You raised to 10, which is a standard 4xBB raise and fine if there is no prior raise. But since there was, I'd have been more inclined to make it 16 or so. I see people min raising with mid-pp all the time in EP and you really want to make them pay. On the flop, I like your raise, but once he flat-calls it, I guess you have to be a bit worried. His range of hands includes AK, KQ, TT, 66, although if he was bad enough I might not rule out AQ. I guess you could have slowed down on the turn, but then you are susceptible to facing a big river bet, so I'm not sure if checking it is better than betting.

This is what I don't like about Party. After the flop, you've already committed 35% of your stack, and you can't even throw out a pot-sized bet on the turn without putting yourself allin. If you had 100xBB each, then I would say bet 2/3 of the pot on the turn and fold to an all-in reraise, but unfortunately you weren't in a position to do that, so I guess the allin is the best move.

NL is a game that is meant to be played with deep stacks. These 50bb max buy-ins should be changed. With those types of structures even a hand as weak as TPTK your more than likely going to get all your money in before the river, deeper stacks means easier to outplay your opponent.

If there is anything that would have tipped me off to your opponent hitting his set it would be his weak bet followed by the call, like Mad Genius said. The weird thing about it is that usually when people use a weak lead they come back over the top of you instead of smooth calling. I definitely don't think someone would play A-K that weakly though, so you definitely shouldn't put him on that.

Because he min raised preflop and his post flop play was strange, I was suspicous that he had KK or TT. I think I wouldve checked the turn behind him and tried to play a smaller pot. When you do this though, he is going to bet the river and you have to be willing to call. What you hope to accomplish is one of 2 things....either he'll make a smaller bet trying to get you to call (when he has the set) so you lose less........or he'll go all in with something like KQ and you win a huge pot.

I think the way you played it, he ONLY calls your allin with a set.