$2 NLHE 6-max: AA on drawy board

[Casey55]

pokerstars, Hold'em No Limit - $0.01/$0.02 - 5 players
Hand delivered by Upswing Poker

UTG: $1.20 (60 bb)
CO (Hero): $2.11 (106 bb)
BU: $2.09 (105 bb)
SB: $2.00 (100 bb)
BB: $1.81 (91 bb)

Pre-Flop: ($0.03) Hero is CO with A♠ A♣
1 fold, Hero raises to $0.04, BTN 3-bets to $0.18, 2 players fold, Hero calls $0.14

Flop: ($0.39) 9♠ 8♦ T♠ (2 players)
Hero checks, BTN bets $0.57, Hero calls $0.57

Turn: ($1.53) J♥ (2 players)
Hero checks, BTN bets $1.34 (all-in), Hero calls $1.34



I believe I should have went for a standard 3bb raise pre-flop, as played I decided to call and keep villains worse hands in the pot.

The flop in theory should be better for the caller's range, the caller should have more nut hands in his range and the BTN's 3-betting range can typically be a bit more polarized rather than just linear in this spot.

I decide to check because the board is bad for us and we are OOP. Villain does something weird here and over-bets pot.
I am not sure how to interperet this, do we think of this as a polarized range or do we think of this as he is trying to tell us he has a good hand?

With the As in my hand I decide to call, I think villain's range he could be sets, Over-pairs and combo-draws. Because I am beating the over-pairs I decide to call. On the turn I think we fold here in theory ? since we are now losing to the over-pairs we were beating;

JJ is now a set, QQ has made a straight, AQ is straight, KQs is straight, QJs is straight. it seems we are beating basically KK here and that is only 6 combos of hands. I guess we also block the good NFD combos. The way the hand played out on the flop I felt my hand was under-repped, I had a difficult time folding it because I knew it would be tough for villain to put AA in my range and I hate folding the bullets but I think this is a massive money burning spot in hindsight.

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[fundiver199]

Preflop
Dont use a different raise size, just because you have aces. You have shared other hands, where you opened to 3BB, so just do that always with any hand, you want to play. Also this is a mandatory 4-bet for value. You are not playing at a level, where it has value to prove to someone, that you can sometimes have aces, when you just call their 3-bet.

You also shared another hand, where you played aces very passively preflop, so this seem to be a general theme. And this is something, you need to work on. You are simply not visualising these situations correctly. You think, you need to "keep your opponent in", but thats a totally wrong way to look at the situation. AA is not an unbeatable hand, and therefore the goal is to either get value or deny equity.

The only time to slowplay in poker is, when you totally crush the board and wont get drawn out on. Like if you have JJ on a board like JJ3 or QJ on QQJ. Then its ok to check and allow your opponents a chance to catch up or bluff. But in any other situation just bet or raise, when you have a strong hand. Its literally that simple especially at a limit like 2NL.

Flop
As you say an absolutely terrible flop for aces, and I like your decision to check. Normally I would then look to check-call, but when the opponent overbet, I prefer to lay it down right now. He is setting it up for a turn jam, and I dont want to stack off AA on this board. So I would rather get out now and potentially allow him to bluff me out of a small pot rather than bluff me out of a big pot on the turn. You did this to yourself by not 4-betting preflop, and whenever we find ourselfes in a weird spot, where we should not be, its ok to pull the emergency break and get out.

Turn
I would have preferred to fold on the flop, but if I did make the call, I would certainly fold now, since this was probably the worst card in the deck for you.