Play along with me....

[kennyg]

I agree with Norton and going for a check-raise. It's pretty standard..but since you two are so aggressive, I find it hard to believe he will let go of JJK or QQ so easily.

Actually...I would have led out on the flop...leading to the bettor to try and get a raise out of him, to get his stack. I do this play often...A lot of times it doesn't work because they don't hold a pocket pair but if they do...it works fairly well. Also.... I'm willing to lose my stack with KK vs AA.

[TheUnknownPlayer]

Ok, on the flop I check and my opponent bet's $40. I raised to $100. He called.

This clinched it for me. AA raises me back - especially with two hearts out there (by the way, I don't re-raise in this spot - but he would have).

The turn card is a 3c pairing the board which now reads 7h3h2d3c. Action to me - he has about $360 left. What do you do?

[Nortonesque]

I lead out for $150 here, to try to get about half his remaining stack in. The pot is around $230 I think, so this is a reasonable bet. This gives him room to go all in if he wants to try to intimidate, and if not I can get the last $210 on the river.

[TheUnknownPlayer]

[Danhdan]

[iceman5]

Im wondering why you are convinced he would check behind you if he had AA. If hes aggressive as you say, wouldnt he bet the flop no matter what he had? Or does he bet most hands and try to get tricky with big hands?

[TheUnknownPlayer]

iceman,

I'm the most aggressive guy I know at the table - but aggression doesn't necessarily equate to betting. If you are at war with an enemy for instance, cutting off their supply line so they can starve to death is as aggressive as going in with guns blazing. My stance that he would check AA behind me on the flop was simply to give me another opportunity to hang myself... his motivation would still be to extract as many chips from me as he could - which in my book is aggressive

[Mad Genius]

I am also a bit confused on your line of thinking on the flop. You said he would check behind with AA for deception value, but then when he just called your raise you became convinced that he didn't have AA because he would pop back with it. It seems like you think he would trap with AA but then you change your mind and say he would get overaggressive and re-raise with it. Why don't you think it's possible for him to bet and then smooth-call your raise with position? Againt a guy like you this might exactly be my line.

[TheUnknownPlayer]

MG,

Ok, in his particular mind, he already did trap me when I raised him. You on the other hand may not have felt that the trap was fully set - but that isn't him. In your mind (and mine too btw)
check-bet-raise-call
is the trap

He on the other hand can only see
check-bet-raise

As in chess, the better players see more moves ahead (this isn't literally accurate btw but it is a common and well accepted fallacy so if there are any chess masters out there - don't get anal on me

Regarding changing my mind by saying he would get overaggressive - the term 'overaggressive' was yours (and I agree that it would be an error for him to re-raise) but the critical point is that *he* would think it's time to spring the trap and that I shall be pot committed at this point. He would think his trap worked when in actuality he would be pre-mature.

[excession]

[TheUnknownPlayer]

[iceman5]

[Mad Genius]

TUP what was your chess rating at your best? I used to be pretty good back when I was in middle/high school. I think I was like a 1900. Probably nowhere near where you were though. We should play on Yahoo sometime.