$5 NLHE: KK raise pre flop. Ace on flop????

[brettstix]

$5 NL HE: KK raise pre flop. Ace on flop????

Stacks:
SB with 9375
BB with 4440
UTG with 4880
MP with 3975
PZ53 with 2000
BTN with 2330

Blinds: 80/160
Site: Full Tilt Poker
Dealt to UTG:K♠ K♥
Sklansky group 1
Preflop: Hero raises to 480 (pre flop raise 3 x BB)
MP calls [480]
4 players folded.
Total folds this street: 4
Potsize: 1200
Flop: Q♣ 8♥ A♠ Hero checks (At this point I spend so long thinking about my best option I almost time out, panic slightly, and check. What a chump. Was possibly too late at night for me to be playing.)
MP bets [1,200]

18 player 2 table sng. Did not see villain until final table. No stats however his play has been fairly solid to this point.

After the call from villain the remaining players fold instantly and the Ace hits before I get too much time to think about his calling range. I couldn't put him on AA. Maybe QQ or even AK. 8's????

I think I should have bet the flop to get some info but not sure how much?

 

[absoluthamm]

Your pre-flop bet was good, but on the flop I probably would have bet out about 600 to probe for some info. If he came over the top with a raise then I would just probably just fold. I wouldn't put him on something as high as Aces because he may have raised you pre-flop, and 88 would be pushing the line with calling, depending on his style that is.
He also bet the pot, so I think he may have more of a chance of trying to get you out of it, maybe with Qx or Ax. So you should try to come over the top and maybe push him out of the pot.

 

[iron90]

probably carries a villain Ax, who was the best bet to see that ground was, and if the villain rereaise your folder

 

[Melkor]

This hand proves why it sucks to be OOP. Obviously nothing you can do about it. Is this at the final table? Do 4 get paid?

There is a few of options here. We can be turned off from the hand by the A hitting and we can check fold. It is fine, especially given stack sizes as we would be committing a lot by c-betting. If it is checked behind we check-call the turn and then check the river and determine pot odds to see whether we call a river bet. This can get good value out of a queen and middle pair that tries to take it on the turn and we give an ace little value. The problem is we may be folding the best hand to an aggro bet on the flop.

We can check-call and reevaluate the turn. Giving control of the pot away kinda sucks but we can slow down a queen that tries to represent the ace while inducing a bluff. We have to fold to a turn bet though. It does let us see another card and allows some holdings to give us another bet.

We could also represent the ace and try to take it down on the flop with a c-bet. This can still get value from a queen and may slow down an ace to let us see two cards. Our stack size means its risky though and we could fold out queens and only be left with aces. It is the more aggressive approach and is positive and we will happily take it down now.

I personally prefer the cautious top option here because the likelyhood of an ace is strong and it extracts value from hands we beat. I would call a small flop bet, one that is about 1/4 of the pot as this is a queen often but anything bigger I lay it down.

Check-raise is not an option I like here simply because it is so risky and calling a flop bet achieves the same thing except we don't shove and get called only by an ace.

 

[JoeDi]

Your either gonna call or fold here thought i think re-raising is gonna be your strongest move. Your preflop bet of 3x wasnt enough to push out a KQ, KJ or even suited QJ Q10.. Really depends on how people are playing.. You have him covered so i would check raise and hope he was playing a queen or pocket pair.. One of the toughesst reads especially with your stacks only being about 10-12 x the blinds..

 

[brettstix]

Thanks for your thoughts. I folded this hand putting him on Ax. It paid top 4 and I finshed up third. The eventual winner cracked my set of Queens with a TERRIBLE call on a one outer crippling me.