Daily Hand Quiz

Call. Don’t give him an excuse to fold just yet, not with aces. With a lower pair, maybe JJ-1010 or lower, I’m raising. But here, there’s no way I’d be OK with seeing him get away from this hand before the flop.

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I would raise here.
Both players are just too deep for a slowplay.
Corkins could have any two cards, which also means that there are no safe flops for AA. I think the pot needs to be built to a size where he is likely to play for your entire stack postflop without having you beat.

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a slow play with pocket A has a 20% chance of failing, which is meaningless right now and I want to play all my chips regardless of what I believe my opponent might have.A slow play might work, but I like the 3x raise best, because I believe the chances he pays are good. Should he muck, I might take a stand again next hand regardless my hand strenght and represent a new game pattern which might reduce the aggressiveness of my opponent for a while.

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agree with drhoho here.

The stacks sizes really makes calling with aces OOP not too great of an idea. Since our villain has the button with a deepstack + a wide range he can play the flop better than us, so we want money to go in when we are sure we have the best hand.

I would raise this hand here 80% of the time.

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I like the small raise, both to get money into the pot with the best hand, and to show him I’m capable at playing back at him. Some players like this will raise every time until you put a stop to it, no safer time to do it than with aces.

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easy call for this particular situation, given the heads-up history so far. You can’t worry about losing with this hand, and raise to protect it. That would get him to fold, probably 50% of the time. You NEED him to see this flop, AND hit it. Hitting it will be hard enough as 2/3 of time he will miss. If he has a pair, one time in eight he will hit a set, don’t worry about that, and hitting two pair if he has two unpaired cards is even less than that. But if he hits one of his unpaired cards, (his most likely holding), you will be able to step it up on the flop betting and then play it really fast. You can only hope you get to play for all your chips with him having a lower pair and some sort of draw.

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Ok here’s the thing.
He’s raised you three out of three times, are you a calling station or a slowplayer?
He figures he has you dominated, and it’s time to make him take that thinking to the next level.
Raise him here, but make it a small raise, that way it looks like you are vainly trying to push back at him, however an aggressive player will see this as a change to enforce his alpha dog image and will either call you or come over the top.
on the flop you are most certainly going to check, just to show your K-J type of hand didn’t get help, and that’s where he’ll either push or bet, the point here is your trap will be more effective in this way than if you flat called pre-flop. If you do that, then calling a bet on the flop thereafter represents hidden strength that he would best be wary of (but whether he will see that is unknown.)
you need two things if you play it this way:
a flop that doesn’t help anyone (or helps you) – but this is ideal even if you call,
and him to put you on the wrong hand, and that can definitely be achieved by minimum raise pre-flop with AA. Especially if he then comes over the top and you THEN just call.

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I will make a 2. post today…

I didn’t write what I voted before, due to the fact that the options are not well defined. I assumed that “raise small” ment less than 3-bet.
Hence I voted raise big, but I really just meant make it 225k. I min. raise is silly, he will probably call a 3-bet anyway, as Joe B stated. And he doesnt necessarily have to hit. As long as he doesn’t think you did, he migth raise you on flop thinking that you are c-betting. That is rigth, I would raise the flop semi-weak 40% of the time here, depending.
There are tons of ways an agressive player can get in trouble, but only if the pot is significant compaired to your stack it will double you up. A 3-bet reraise to a rather small raise must seem like a rather cheap flop to him, if he thinks he can outplay you postflop. Still it would make the pot 450k, leaving you with 1m. That way any move postflop will commit him to doubling you up.

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Interesting problem, because in that one the cards basically don’t matter. You have the nuts, so you don’t need to worry about his hand range now and anyway he could have anything from 23o to KK as he is on an auto-raise mode from the button.

Anyway, I think you have to make a decent raise, because it would be the most deceptive move.
Your opponent is probably going to wonder why would you make a big raise with a monster given your history and he would probably put you either on a total resteal or on a hand that is good right now but that would not mind ending the hand right now.
So he might elect to call to take advantage of your supposed weakness after the flop, or even make a play back at you, figuring that you could not stand a big re-raise.

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I think a lot of the people advocating RE-raise here, whether small min re-raise or a larger re-raise, are ignoring or downplaying the fact that a top pro, Hoyt Corkins, is our adversary, and that the RE-raise might just make him play the rest of the hand quite cautiously. OR FOLD. Given the 4 times now in a row button raising, Hoyt is easily raising here with just about any two cards, like 9-6 offsuit. Re-raising would probably get a fold what percent of the time? I say at least 50%, and AA is to strong to risk that.

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I see that Hoyt Corkins won the event but I haven’t been able to find a hand history to see how that one turned out. As the shorter stack I would be inclined to want to trap with hands like that but there are good situational arguments for playing it differently. If any one knows how it turned it out, please post.

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Against Hoyt Dorkins…I call and hope he donks off more chips. I’m just jealous cuz that a-hole knocked me out of the LAPC. Anywho, as a short stack I would have to call and hope to induce a continuation bet. Doubling up would be sweet but I don’t see Hoyt gambling too much with such a ferocious lead until he hits some of the flop.

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I would reraise. Against a loose and aggressive player like hoyt corkins he likely to gamble and see the flop OR continue his aggression and raise me back. Your reraise would probably suggest to him you have some sore of ACE such as A-10s or A-J, where hed probably gamble with 2 live cards – hard to think hed give you credit for AA or KK in a heads-up situaation. PLUS hoyt loves to make BIG moves before the flop, he does it all the time, so raise a little bit and say a prayer that he does it one more time !!

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