should I have gotten away from this

[luckystraights]

I've just finished my first game of the day, I've taken a bit of a break and didn't expect to play at all today, but felt good so decided to sit in a sit-n-go.

I've been trying to regain my discipline and working on overcoming some of the pyschology that has begone to effect my game negatively recently.

Anyways, I'm in a hand with AQ, I end up hitting trip aces and loose to AK. As I played the hand AK flashed to the front of my mind, but should I have really folded AQ with trip aces in this spot, from my experience an online player would play trip aces the same way if they had a 3 kicker, I'm looking for insight again please?

either way I won't be playing another sit-n-go tonight, hands are still shaking from this hand.

heres the hand :

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1716216

[luckystraights]

Some thoughts of my own :

The call / raise threw me a little and I thought of two pair, when my opponent made the same weak bet on the turn, I didn't consider a set or two pair here, as two pair she would have bet higher I think here and if she flopped a set she wouldn't have raised on the flop, so I was confident I was up against an Ax style hand.

Between the turn and the river, I knew I could be up against AK, but I also knew and perhaps this was my mistake here and in similar situations an online player in this situation would do the same move with AT / AJ.

maybe I should have realized that I've only seen two flops in 30 hands, she should give me some credit for a hand, so to re-raise me and then post a big bet on the river she's not afraid of AJ / AT.

Past experiences seems to be tainting my decision making a little, I've lost big because I've given my online opponents far too much credit in the past, I guess I should not generalize too much about my opponents and concentrate more on the current situation

I'm still struggling to work out wether the fold was the correct move here, I put most of my stack on the line but did so knowing that I was only likely beaten  by one hand... oh heck I'll leave it to the pro's to pick over this :p

Thanks again

[Martini]

When I first read the description I thought it was one of those cooler hands where there were two Aces on the flop and then I would agree that it would be hard to get away from but when I looked through the hand history I see the red flag of when Villain bet/re-raises you on the flop. I see that as showing even more strength than a check/raise. At that point I think you need to decide if you are ahead or behind. Why flat call the re-raise? You called off another 700 into the pot on 4th and 5th street. If you were willing to toss 700 more into the pot, it would be a much stronger move to re-re-raise on the flop. You have a lot of fold equity at that point because the decision is back on Villain now and they need to decide if they are good and it will likely be an all-in by the river with that much action on the flop. If they come back over the top of you then you may well be beat. They could have had a set or two pair and you'd be drawing thin. I wouldn't have put them on AK by the pre-flop action but that was beating you as well.

So bottom line is: Yes, I think the re-raise on the flop was the sign to get out. That said, if you are going to the mat with AQ you should be the one leading the betting, not calling.

[luckystraights]

I agree I shouldn't have called the re-raise, going over the hand as I read it in play I should have folded, it smelled like AK, it was AK and I paid him / her off.

I've only lost AQ to AK once before though, so two times in 11k hands ain't bad, but I should have gotten out here, my mistake. Ah well, I feel better now, this situation seems more clear cut to me then some of the others I've been stuck in recently so I'm happy to put it down to a lesson learned and move on.

After re-reading your reply. I like your suggestion to re-raise her re-raise on the flop, its something I would do with AK to see where I'm at, but didn't consider it here, perhaps knowing I was beat which is so stupid to call in that case as you pointed out, I should have come over the top here to see how strong she is, even if she only called I should have realized that at best I'm splitting the pot and should have folded to any more aggression.

[demon604]

I pretty much agree with Martini's post.  You can't show weakness with premium hands once you've been aggressive.  I have noticed with some of your hands lately that you do seem tenative to make real aggressive raises and always have 2-3 callers, this case was different but a x2 BB re-raise could bring more people in.  While AK and AQ are strong preflop hands, they are still drawing hands and you need to bet aggressive enough to force people who want to bet their pocket 2's out. 

[luckystraights]

My pre-flop raise was based on my position, if I was in late position I would have raised up to 5xBB. I don't invest too much money pre-flop with AQ out of position in case I run into AK as I did in this case, I just didn't get out on the flop when I should have.

I've just come through a mind blowingly bad run, and have had a few bad beats and all-in's busted by suck outs lately too which is probably why I'm playing a bit weak. I'm just trying to get my game back together at the moment, once I'm happy I'm back on form, they wont be much weakness to pick at 

[luckystraights]

x2 BB re-raise could bring more people in. 

incidentally should I be basing my raises on the multiple of big blinds after the call amount, I seem to fluctuate between, my intent was to post a 3xBB raise pre-flop here.

eg,

BB = 10

Should my 3xBB raise = 30

or = 40 (call, plus 3xBB raise)

[Martini]

For a standard open raise, I would either make them all exactly the same or randomly distribute them around what you want your standard to be. Worst thing to do would be changing your bets based on your hand. If you have limpers in the pot and you need to thin out the crowd then you need to adjust your bets accordingly.

[luckystraights]

For a standard open raise, I would either make them all exactly the same or randomly distribute them around what you want your standard to be. Worst thing to do would be changing your bets based on your hand. If you have limpers in the pot and you need to thin out the crowd then you need to adjust your bets accordingly.

my raises are always best on position, but I've noticed that I sometimes class a 3xBB raise has 3 x the big blind and sometimes class it has 3 x the big blind plus the big blind I would call, I was just wondering whats the norm. Thinking about it now, I think the BB + BB raise X would be the better method.

[Jambine]

Raising 3 or 4 x BB is just an estimate.  Think in terms of your bet compared to the total pot.  That will give you a much better idea of the value & strength of your bet.

As pointed out above, you need to consider where you are in the hand before every decision.  When you are narrowing down your opponents possible holdings, you should reconstruct the whole story up to that point.  Ask yourself if his actions fit with the hands he might have.

BTW, I don’t know if I could have laid down that hand either.