AJs and a wonderful flop. .50/1.00 NL

[kennyg]

Gaming Club $.50/1.00 NL $100 max buy-in
Opponent - $100
Me - $120

Opponent has been fairly tight and has been folding to a lot of my raises on the flop and turn.

Couple of limpers. The cutoff (my opponent) raises the miniuim to $2. God I hate this play. I think I said it while the hand was going on. Anyway, against my better judgement I decide to call [Jh] to see if I can flop a monster and make him pay for his small raise. Couple of people call.

FLOP: $9.50


Check to my opponent who leads out for $4.
I raise to $12. Everyone folds back to the opponent.
Opponent calls the raise with a slight hestation.

TURN: $33.50


Opponent checks.
I bet $20.
Another slight hestation by the opponent but he calls the $20.

RIVER: $73.50


Opponent has about half his time run and eventually leads out for $18.

It's $18 for me to call and the pot is $91.5


So what do I do? Call or fold? What does my opponent hold? Any thoughts on how I should have played the hand differently? I'll post results and comments about the hand later. Lets get a good dialog going, all comments appreicated!

[Rhound50]

I raise, if he has been slow playing a set so be it, if he was AQ you got busted by a 3 outter. If he called you with a gut shot, than he is a moron. Other than that you have him beat. Again the river bet doesnt looks like a set, with $100 in the pot he would have bet more, my gut says he would have done the same thing with AQ. I raise to $68 another $50 is something he can call. The $15 bet on the river smells like a blocking bet to me, you have shown stregnth so he has to think if he checks to you you probably are going to bet at him. He may also be playin AK and if he is he calls your raise on the river and you get paid off.

[Mad Genius]

Wait.

FOLD?

FOLD?

How can you consider folding this for $18?

Folding here would be a crime.

Calling is fine but I might raise here some of the time. The $18 looks like a blocking bet. Raise to $50 and he will probably call if he just has a pair of aces.

[Bob314]

I agree that this seems more like a blocking bet. The flush draw didn't get there and like Rhound said, the only straight draw was gutshot, so I don't see how he can be milking you here. I don't know if I'd raise $50 on top though, that might be too much. Maybe just $40 on top?

[Danhdan]

As Rhounde50 said, it looks like a blocking bet here, and you should make him pay. Maybe he makes this bet because he thought you were on some kind of draw...possibly he saw you betting a draw aggressively earlier during your play with him?

Anyway, it feels as if he has AK or maybe even A9 on the river(which would be strange considering his tight play and raise preflop), and also AQ. I feel like you are going to report that he had a set of nines here on the river or set of Q's on the turn, and just couldn't let go of a pocket pair here or maybe even KK and then we can all say "What was he thinking?"

I think he must have some strength because he stayed in so long against you here and was folding to all your flop and turn raises earlier, so I'm not completely convinced he doesn't have something obscene. In this instance, I think the blocking bet might have worked mainly because of all the cards in the playing zone here. Still, I would like to raise here anyway, but this is a tough one...and since I haven't seen his cards yet, a little more information cheaply on this player might save us a few bucks in the future and let us make a play on him later. I call him in the hopes of understanding his betting pattern better.

[acesover]

[Suhleafs]

[kennyg]

[iceman5]

[wolvish]

[Nortonesque]

[rdale]

[kennyg]

[Mad Genius]

Well I said I'd call some of the time but raising wasn't wrong either. I missed the part where you said he was tight too. In that case I would always just call. I still can't believe you were considering folding here. You are getting better than 5-1 on your call here and I am sure you will be winning here more than 17% of the time.

[kennyg]

I said I would consider folding if he bet over $30... obviously I can't fold on a 5-1 call when I theres a good chance he's holding AK....