Tight Poker

[oivayaz]

This was a tournament that I have frequented and have good reads on most players, especially the two that will be represented here.

Villain 1 is tight aggressive, who over bets with good, but not great hands (AJ, jacks and less pairs)

Villain 2 is loose aggressive

I was in the SB, Villain 2 is BB. Everyone folds to Villain 1 in the cut off who raised 10x the BB (50) to 500. Button folds, and I look down at two red aces. I called, and the Villain 2 calls as well.

Flop:

2, 5, 8 rainbow

I stalled for about 15 seconds and then pushed all in. Villain 2 calls after waiting for a long time, where I was trying to look weak, since he isn't smart enough to know that weak means strong. Villain 1 is now priced into the pot to call the rest of his chips.

Villain 2 K8
Villain 1 10,10

Not that it is important, but the turn and river are 8s.

I keep debating whether I played the preflop badly, and should have reraised right then, or was I just caught in bad luck.

What are your ideas?

[ihatejacks]

It really depends on stack sizes and if Villain 1 will folds to re-raises or if he gets married to the hands he wants to overbet.

Sooooo what were the stack sizes and do you think Villain 1 would lay down his monster TT to a reraise?

[oivayaz]

This was at the very beginning of a tournament and villain 1 was about 250 short from a starting 1500 chip count. I do think he would have folded his tens if I had pushed for the rest of his chips, but he may have figured that he had no choice but to call

[ihatejacks]

In that case I think you can make a good argument for making an isolation min-raise. He already has 40% of his chips in so folding would be a bad move and you don't have to worry as much about villain 2 doing anything stupid (like calling 1/3 his stack with K8...). Then you just push any flop and he's committed to calling with any hand

edit: however, as you played it, you got all your money in as a huge favorite anyway so you can't play results oriented. Just cause you lost doesn't mean you played it poorly.

[oivayaz]

I never play results oriented, just curious how anyone else would have played it. Wanting to make sure I played it correctly, trying to get the most value out of my hand and all.

[ihatejacks]

If the other players are calling 10x the bb with K8 then getting all in on an 8 high flop then you definitely played it fine and just got unlucky.

[sfustsh]

I would have reraised preflop, especially from the SB. AA are great but they're not invincible, so we have to make our opponents draw to beat them.

But, since you just called preflop, you should go for the checkraise on the flop. Pushing all in will fold out hands you want to get money from, like AQ. If you check, your villain might make a continuation bet, since that isn't a particularly scary board. In that case, you win his continuation bet, but if you push all in, you eliminate the chance that he'll bluff.

This assumes, of course, that you have the best hand, but given that board it's probably a safe assumption.