blonde poker forum

Final of live trny 8 left 3 paid,  I have about 12 BBs slightly below average - opponent has 10BBs.

UTG puts in a 5k chip and announces raise after he has put it in.  Immediate ruling is that it is only a call of 2k.  I'm in middle position and see AA.

What would you do?

Hmm, I'm stuck on this one... I think I'd probably raise to 5k assuming he'll call it because he was prepared to put his chips in anyway.

Don't you think that this shows a very strong hand?  Albeit he is quite likely to have a pretty good hand anyway - so might well be the right move.

Intersting one.

A raise shows lots of strength in this spot, probably more than you want to show tbh, but I still do it.

Up to 5k exactly (making sure you announce raise concisely ;) ) If you can do this with a 5k chip, all the better.

The guy has plenty room to re-raise you, and may be a little off kilter having being corrected. I find this usually makes people more likely to stick all their chips in a pot. We already know he may have something

May well get our ideal scenario when you hold AA, heads up pre-flop action for someone's whole stack.

That's what I was thinking when I wrote it, but if you just call the 2k you could get a few more limpers and get beaten by something silly. (I don't have much faith in Aces - as you can probably tell)

I like the raise to 5K, which he's either going to call or re-raise (assuming he has some sort of hand to want to raise TUG). 

How about a min-raise of 2K as well?  That might induce the re-raise from him, and anyone acting after you will be aware that the original 'raiser' is likely to raise it up so they are less likely to join in - giving you the single opponent you want and hopefully all the chips in the middle pre-flop. 

Out of interest, what did you do and what happened?

I think i call. If you raise you show a lot of strength and you are going to get postflop action from this guy (he is likely to bet the flop imo).

push all in instantly - try to make it look like i'm trying to steal the pot.

None of the other players at the table will call as they think the short stack may call as he tried to raise in the first place. I have less than average chips so i don't really want to get too cute with AA and let too many other players in the pot - i'll take my chances that the short stack calls but if not i've added 5k to my stack which is 20% more than at the start of the hand uncontested.

I chose to flat call.  Pretty certain that was wrong and making it 5k would have been correct.  He has a good hand and even though I'm showing a lot of strength - effectively reraising - there aren't many hands he can fold for the small extra bet.

My thoughts were that I really wanted to double up to have any chance of making the money, but flat calling isn't doing very much to assist this.  The blinds aren't going to move in post flop without something, so gaining nothing there.  If he has AK, he wont continue because the pot is small.  If he has a big pair, whether I get his money depends on the flop.  He calls the raise with all these cards.  If he misses with AK, I get 3k out of him anyway.

As it was I got very lucky and hit the dream flop.  He had AK and the flop was King high with 3 spades, I had the ace of spades.

But he effectively had the betting lead and would fire on the flop so the pot would be built. You could raise his flop bet without giving away too much info about your hand because it looks like you're testing him.

Once you raise pf, he wonders what you have and probably check-folds any flop he misses imo.

which is why i prefer the raise preflop - the number of times you try to get too cute with a big hand in the hope of getting paid and flat call only to get all the chips in with the original raiser turning over top pair top kicker, you hold an overpair and the big blind turns over 9-3 of spades.


one of the reasons why i'd probably push all-in pre-flop, he's already indicated he's got some kind of hand trying to raise. By going all in and trying to make it look like your stealing the pot he doesnt have the check-fold option as all the chips are already in the middle.

I'm all in here. If he has a raising hand utg, then there is a good chance that I will get a call. I don't like wasting a premium such as AA, but if all I collect is the blinds and the limp, then that is no problem eitehr. You will have increased your chip count by over 20% uncontested.