A Big Fold
At my last session of a local $1/$2 game, I went on a pretty big rollercoaster ride, running my initial $100 buyin up to $200, down to $50, back up to $150, back down to $60, and so on. I’d gotten a little punchy at this point as I couldn’t seem to make more than one hand every other hour, and all my big starting hands went to crap quickly.
One hand stood out as strange for the evening. A tight player (female, who’d hardly been playing anything but the nuts) raised to $12 a few positions ahead of me. I looked down and found AQ off in the small blind, which at that point looked huge for the lack of hands I’d hand. I hate raising with AQ, and often I’ll just limp or call a moderate raise with it, and that’s exactly what I did here. The big blind also came in, a player who’d been seeing a lot of flops with marginal hands.
The flop came down KKQ.
I had about $50 left at this point after calling the initial raise, and I knew if I checked, the raiser would definitely bet no matter what she had. I figured I was going to stay with the hand regardless, so I made a perhaps iffy play: I went ahead and threw all my money in. Obviously I’m crushed if either of the other players has any K, pocket KK QQ or AA, but I was willing to gamble at this point, and didn’t really put too much thought into any other than I’d finally made a pair.
The big blind folds.
The initial raiser angrily and without thinking folds her AA face up.
The whole table kind of looks at her like, HUH?
Of course, folding AA to aggression on a board of this nature isn’t totally crazy. A lot of hands beat her, but what happened here was that she was playing the board, not the action. If I’d made a hand that could beat her, trip Kings or QQ full, I would most likely not have thrown all of my money in so aggressively. I might have value bet or checked.
In other situations, with more money behind and different betting, I like the fold here. But otherwise, against a too tight player who read the board and not me, I got lucky that I didn’t go broke for being silly.
Tags: cash-game, folding-aces, tight-playRelated Stories
POSTED IN: poker blog
2 opinions for A Big Fold
jereme
Dec 7, 2007 at 9:17 pm
Hmm, i probably would have called your all in. As you said, it is a little suspect if you had QQ or AA or KKK.
Sometimes you are awarded for brash aggression though. I tend to lead out on flops regardless if I have anything or not. Some times it pays big and I get every one to fold to my pure bluff and other times I lose big and get caught looking reckless.
Side note, I HATE AQ. I think it is one of the most poorly played preflop hands in Holdem.
Blake
Dec 8, 2007 at 2:25 pm
I would have called me in a heartbeat. I don’t know why she didn’t. I didn’t even stop to consider she might have aces. I got lucky.
I hate hate AQ also. I usually limp with it or fold.
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