$1/$2 NL. Hero ($350)..Villain ($280)

Villian is the best player at the table (besides me )
He is solid tight aggresive type player who patiently builds his stack pretty much like I do.

I raise to $8 with AA in MP. He reraises to $20 on the button. I flat call him.

Pot is $43. The flop comes 863 rainbow. I check and call his $35 bet. I almost positive he has KK (maybe QQ). He has never reraised me before in over 1500 hands we have together. I play to check raise the turn probably all in.

Pot is $113. The turn is a king. I check and he pushes $225 all in. UGH!

Anyone call this? Why would he make a huge overbet with a set of kings? Ive never seen him make a huge overbet like this
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On a side note....in case you think youre having a bad day. Check this out.
Cutoff open limps. I raise to $10 on the button with 88. SB and cutoff call.
Pot $32.. Flop T82 Checked around
Pot $32..Turn 6. Checked to me and I bet $20. SB pushes all in for $225. I have him covered and call.
He has 67s. River is a 9. He hits an 11-1 gutshot and the $485 pot sildes his way.

On here I say fold...

honestly though, on the table with the time ticking I would probably call. i think. ugh.


IMO..if he's a good player...he knows you have something really good. like a lower set or aces...he expects you to call.

I dont think he has KK here, this bet makes it look a lot more like QQ. I dont see why you dont check raise the flop?? Is this guy really that good a player that he is going to fold KK or QQ to a check raise on this flop?? If he is isnt it even less likely that he is going to lose his stack after you call. For me when I'm playing against other players that are good agressive players, I am more scared when they call then when they raise. If he is that good a player he knows you are too, when you call his preflop re-raise and check call his flop bet, he is going to start to smell trap.

i like kennys thoughts here.

If he's as good as you say, then he has to think you have a strong hand to have smooth called his bet on the flop.

i can't imagine why QQ would make this bet. the only two hands that make much sense (short of him making some sort of really really weird play at you) are KK and the other AA. and even the other AA seems weird.

i think you have to fold.

Ok so you say its a fold, but what about my play up to that point?

When he reraised me to $20 preflop, I thought he had KK and wanted to stack him. I think if I reraise him preflop to $75 or so, he could fold KK. Very few people reraise w/o AA or KK. Some do it with QQ or JJ but its rare and Ive never seen this guy do it. Even less people will 3 bet without AA. Why tell him what I have by doing that?

I could lead the flop but thats going to look strange to him and he might just call me down.
I wanted to let him bet the flop and then bet $80 or so at the turn so I could check raise him all in. I dont think he could get away at that point.

If I lead the flop, he probably raises me and then I could reraise all in I guess, but I still lose if he has KK and I lose alot more, but I cant be tricked into folding (if he didnt have KK)

This hand really confuses me since I think its always best to get as much into the pot as possible with AA early in the hand before you start second guessing yourself, but with deeper than normal stacks, I think playing it like this will win more money in the long run.

if I just blast him back he could very well fold KK preflop.

By the way, I folded and he showed so I know what he had. Ill let you know after I get a few responses on my preflop and flop play.

When I make the smooth call with AA or KK...i always go for the check raise on the flop.

You're play was different for sure..but mixing it up isn't a bad thing. The problem is...if that card is a K Q or a J...you are in a quandry. I just check raise the flop and hope he thinks you have a lower pocket pair then him. Unlikely..but..that's my play.

being that confident on your read(which you have a good amount of info on that guy) i like the fold, the overbet could be purposely to make you think something is up and call. also is it possible he puts you on a lower set (you only called the preflop raise) and were slowplaying a hand that beat him, he thinks you might be forced to call.

we never have to think of this stuff at the .25nl tables.

i like the smooth call with AA. it's a play i've been making more recently in the right circumstances. i wouldn't mind seeing a raise on the flop with your hand, as without any draws out there he might not be able to put you on a set (and obviously your aces are very well disguesed).

Still, if you think he'll still bet the turn hard, then i like the check raise all in.

Regardless, i like the way you played the hand. barring a king on the turn it's going to be tough for you to not win a big pot.

Also, i still say there's no way i can put him on anything but KK at any point throughout the hand. if he's making this play with anything less than that, then he deserves kudos for big balls.

I agree and yes apparently he does have big balls. He showed 99.

No big deal because he doesnt know what I had. But he would get stacked against 95% of online players there because theyre not folding AA. So it was a really bad bet that worked only in this exact circumstance.

Tough hand. I'm curious how many good players would do that play with KK, it's very fishy. He would have to put you on AA, set to expect you to call, and since you didn't reraise preflop and just called the flop, I don't see why he would think you have AA.
That's just a stupid play on his part imo, the only hands that would call him are better than his hand.

The other gut shot, I've been having those for the last 2-3 days. And I lost two nut flushes to straight flushes in the last week, with 1 out that my opponents caught. I know I shouldn't get too upset over these, but it's not easy to do...

Well, maybe. As you presumably know, I'm for the re-raise to $100 PF. By the way, I think he definitely has KK here (if he has AA, too, then he has to consider the possibility that you have KK, so I just don't see this--anyhow, I'm willing to assume KK here). But let's go for an EV analysis:

He has KK 6 times vs. 1 instance of AA. If you have 1500 hands with this guy, I can only assume he has a read on you as well. Ok, so with a stack-depth of $280, what do we really have here? If you flat call, I think he's going to put you on possible JJ/QQ or AA.

So, let's just say you have a guaranteed $23 with the re-raise (assuming true 0% chance of a fold). But, actually, not quite, because there is 1 AA hand in there, where you split the pot. So, you win only 6/7 of the $23, so about $20 on the re-raise.

I honestly don't think you're going to stack this guy, although you may be able to squeeze more out of him than the $20. Flop is in any case clear, and he responds to your check with a $35 bet. But, you've also given him the opportunity to set on the flop--and let's assume that you ALWAYS lay down to any K on the flop, right?

Hence, again 6/7 of the time, he has KK, and his odds of setting are 7.5:1, as are yours. So, basically, you lose 1/9 of your equity in exchange for his $35, which imo is probably the end of the line unless he sets. Well, that's clearly +EV (losing a little over $2 in exchange for an extra $35).

But how confident is he in his hand if a J or a Q flops? That's also about 1/3 of the time that he doesn't set, and it's very unclear to me whether he's going to proceed or not. If he's quite good, then he's going to have a lot of trouble on a flop like that, quite aside from an A flop. Essentially, if any Q or J shows up, then he's got to assume that he's either beat by your AA or by your set. So, that reduces the $35 equity by about 1/3.

Anyhow, barring a set, I seriously doubt whether a player like that (who also has to know your play) is going to proceed further after the flop with his KK (barring the set).

So, I'll have to say that the flat call does give you more equity than the re-raise PF (although I'd still re-raise, largely because I'm a believer in targetting the fish and not getting into this kind of battle against the good players. I'd rather just play "best hand wins" against the good ones and devote my attention to optimizing my strategy against the bad ones). But I really think you should go ahead and take it down on the flop if you want to get a little tricky here--i.e., checkraise at least something (I'd be inclined to make it big, but if you're going to play tricky, then I guess minimum is probably the way to go. I doubt he's going to call anyway, honestly).

Anyhow, the fact that you're even considering calling the turn makes me wonder about the actually equity of the whole play... Is there really a 0% chance that you're going to call any kind of bet if a K shows up on the flop?

And, to make an already long post even longer, I don't see the point of this whole maneuvering really. If the table has some fish, just take their dead money. If it doesn't, I still don't see big pairs as the particular spot to be attacking good players. I'd rather focus on stuff like picking up some little pots (indeed with any 2 sometimes) when the opportunity arises--which it will because good, tight players are laying down a lot of hands.

Ice, you have really graduated to a higher level than I have if you can make that kind of fold. On the call, you're putting in $225 to win $338. You've basically got to think that there's over a 60% chance that he holds exactly KK for folding to be correct, assuming that you're ruling out a lower set.

Mathematically, you know there are more ways for him to make QQ or JJ, so you really have to have a huge degree of confidence to fold, even a larger degree of confidence than is reflected by the 60% number alone.

Like I said, I will probably never make that fold in my life, because I'll never have enough confidence in my reads to put a guy on exactly KK with a 60% probability. Those reads have probably made you a ton of money, but I think that this fold might have been a mistake.