hi bobby,
($51 in pot) I bet $24 dollars, is this bet about the right size? would you bet more? Would you check hoping to raise a bet from the button?
theres two trains of thought here, one is that when you flop big hands you should bet big early to build the pot and get your opponents committed to the pot earlier before the board gets too scary. The other is that as you are 6 handed, you will miss more flops then you hit, and therefore you want to make these small bets with made hands so you can make them when you have nothing, because if you are playing a standard style, you are gonna have nothing more often then you have something, so your bluffs are cheaper. Of course, the problem here is that you then make your opponents re-bluffs cheaper as well.
I'm definately in the former camp, so I'd bet $45 or so here, but I wont say betting less is a mistake.
Does this bet scream strength or weakness?
min raises almost always scream strength.
Has he picked up a club draw with his ace?
I doubt it, sklansky 101, they prolly wont reopen the betting to get blown off the hand or pot stuck with a hand that will most likely need to improve to win
Does he have two pair or does he like his Ace with a strong kicker?
I'd prolly expect bigger aces to slide it up on the flop or preflop, people tend to play AK a lot faster then say 55 preflop.. but you cant just rule something out because its not what you personally would do, so you have to attribute some liklihood to it.
Has my half pot bet induced an attempt from him to take the hand away with a strong looking min raise?
almost certainly not. If he is min raising here, he isn't doing it to take the pot down here, he knows yer calling, he would be doing it to try and take it away from you on the river, but I think a bluff is a very small % of his range here
If you are pretty happy that he has one of the four hands above how often should you raise in this spot to make it profitable in the long when you are right?
if you are happy with this range, you should be super happy to get it in, you are a solid equity favorite over this range, even if you include AA/1010. Throw in some badly played draws, and its more then OK to shove it in.
Given that he may have a strong hand or a decent draw is trying to keep this pot smaller than it needs to get weak?
yes it is, because if he has either of those hands, he isn't raising the turn to pass to a fold, so all you are doing is limiting your winnings when he has a worse made hand or a draw, and maximising your losses when he has a better made hand (because your gonna call river pushes anyways). Maybe with the worse made hands he shoves it in on the river anyways, but he prolly wont bluff the river when he misses the draw, so you miss out on the value there. If you have more reason to think your opponent is a perennial bluffer, then calling the turn to let him hang himself is more then fine, but you dont have any clue yet, so dont get too tricky. Keep it simple.
If you simply chucked the rest in everytime would it be such a bad play?
no
Is the min raise that strong a bet anyway? I have seen some very good players say this is now becoming more of a weak bet than strength.
if you just assume the min-raise is a sign of strength until they prove otherwise, you wont be going too far wrong.
How would you play this from here?
ship