Huge Decision Facing Flop Allin with AA

[Mad Genius]

[phatlad]

[eliteprodigy]

What is left in your stack after calling the original 60 bet? If its 200 or less I call it off. You can always buy back in. Its really tough to play this hand without a further read on your opponnents but some players are crazy enough to make plays like this with an overpair from that board, a 1010 per say, maybe even JJ. I think your AA is good here. I dont see the short stack with 145 calling off 20 on a 22 44 or 66. The big stack may make this call but in all honesty I dont think he would push it so hard, maybe make it 180 to go. He may be on overs with the flush draw or an overpair. I think you take your chances here and pray your good. You've invested 80 into the pot and your going to win a nice one if you take it down

[iceman5]

[Tokenizer]

I wish I could make the correct laydown here everytime. Truth is I probably call this bet more often than I should. Just last night I lost a large pot to 22 after raising $8 with KK and the board came all low like this. My problem is that at the $100 NL level you'll see all kinds of players make large bets/raises on this flop with JJ or QQ even if you showed a lot of strength preflop. I've seen 88 lose his stack in this spot. It's those horrible calls that keep me in here when someone might have a set and I end up paying them off more than I should. Not sure how to fix that leak in my game but I *do* have trouble dropping large overpairs to total garbage boards.

[k3nt]

OK, I'll try some thinking just to see where it goes.

First off, if the Button is on a flush draw, didn't he make a huge mistake going all-in? He has no chance whatever to fold the UTG guy who is pretty much already pot committed. He does have a chance to fold you, but if you fold then he's gotten himself into the worst possible situation: an even-money bet on a 35% shot (or less; if UTG does have a set he has boat outs). (Also, do people at 2/4 really call a big PF raise with xx suited? (You have the A of hearts so AhKh is out as a possible holding. KQ??)

I think it's more likely that both of your opponents are on pairs that are either sets or overpairs to the board. Have they hit their sets or not? Absolutely impossible to tell. But my guess is that one of them has hit his set and you're way behind. Say a 75% chance you're behind, 25% you're ahead.

Of course, it matters a lot who hit their set -- the big stack or the small one.

And of course, if you are behind, you have backdoor straight and backdoor flush outs in addition to your ace outs.

So, um, um, ummm...

Nope. I don't know what to do in this situation.

[Danhdan]

It's interesting that you called in this situation rather than raise UTG and show strength to the button to ward him off...if he still went all in, then you know you are behind. Problem was you would probably have to call if you made a raise and were reraised all in by the button anyway.

I think you have to lean towards folding on this one, but I think that UTG has only an overpair(maybe 99), and the button wanted his money, saw your call, and raised all in w/ his overpair(JJ-QQ), to try and force you out of the pot. Just a guess though...either one could have a set here with my vote going to the button with 66 or 44.

[McMonkey]

Calling this is like putting a large bet on Black or Red, you could be ahead here, or you could be behind, you could catch up, you might not. You could analyze this from every angle, but the ultimate conclusion is that with no read on either player you have no idea if they're total fish betting/raising with A6o or actually sitting on a strong hand like 66, 44, 22.

Personally, I fold this almost every time and save the $235 for another hand. You're going to see the showdown and see what they bet with. Take the information you paid for and use it to get your money in when you have a better idea that you're ahead.

[Smokin'Al]

[Mad Genius]

Well. I disagree with most of you in that it's an easy fold. I just called UTG's bet on the flop because I really didn't see any advantage to raising. I'm either way ahead or way behind to UTG here and either way all the money is going in. I thought the advantage to smooth-calling was that it would draw the button in if he had an overpair himself, whereas if I raised he might let go of something like 88-JJ. By smooth-calling it shows uncertainty in my hand and when button raised me all-in I really wasn't too scared. UTG called as expected but as someone else pointed out UTG didn't seem likely to have a set since with his shortstack it makes a lot more sense to checkraise. I called fairly quickly, although it's probably closer than I thought it initially more. Turn was 4, river was 5, and I took it down. I'm not trying to be results-oriented but I really don't think I can fold there after smooth-calling UTG's bet. If I raise and button still comes over the top it's an easy fold, but being that our stacks weren't deep enough for me to raise and still fold to a re-raise, I think all my money was going in there.

[eliteprodigy]

Nice hand, good call.

[Danhdan]

[Mad Genius]

[k3nt]

OK, I've been thinking about this situation, and what you (MG) said about it. Here's my interpretation of what you're saying, with a little extra thrown in. Let me know if this makes sense.

UTG does not have the set (most likely) because he would normally check-raise with a set. So you're ahead of him, at least 8 times out of 10 (say).

If you re-raise him, it's very possible that he folds and the button folds too, and you win a pot, but not a very big one. So you flat call instead, looking for a bigger pot. Any time you make a smaller bet looking for a bigger pot, you're taking on additional risks.

Here, your additional risk is that the Button's all-in tells you nothing about what he has. So you're flying a little bit blind. If you had raised on the flop iinstead of just calling, then an all-in on an overpair is out of the question for the Button. The button only re-raises you again in that situation if he has a set (or is a complete moron). But you didn't re-raise; therefore, the Button can now reasonably re-raise all-in with a set OR with a lower overpair than your aces.

So although button might have the set, you can not be afraid of that possibility because you intentionally flat-called rather than raising in order to induce an overpair to come along for the ride. Your flat call is a lot like a check on the river -- it has a real chance of inducing a big bet. Once you got that bet, you had to call. You made the riskier play on the flop on purpose, and you knew you were taking that risk, so now you have to live with that risk and make the call.

The real question in the hand, then, isn't whether or not to call the all-in. The real question is whether it's a +EV play to only flat call the initial bet on the turn, knowing that it may well lead to this situation where you have to call a huge bet without knowing whether you are ahead or behind.

In my view, it probably is a +EV play (although somewhat terrifying), because most of the time they don't have a set. You're inducing a bluff, as it were, and you're getting more $$ in the middle when you will have the best hand most of the time.

If you make this play 10 times, you will probably see an all-in re-raise 5-6 times from the Button, but the Button will only have the set maybe 2-3 of those times. (Guessing only at those #s.) With the extra money from the UTG, it's an easy call and a +EV play in the long run.

OK, that was long and probably spelled out too much stuff at too much length. But am I more or less making sense?

Thanks for any replies. And thanks very much to MG for the post and analysis! A very interesting situation.

[Mad Genius]

Yep K3nt that's pretty much how I saw things. If I smooth-called I thought at the very least button would call if he had overpair but if the overpair was good (say JJ or QQ) he would raise thinking he was good. If I raised I knew I was committing myself to the pot and since I would probably not be able to fold my hand after committing the majority of my stack I figured I would at least give button a chance to put his money in drawing to 2-outs.