Location: Winstar Casino
Game: Pot limit Omaha
Blinds: $2-5-10
Player 1 $1,600 vs Unknown regular straddle $2,400
Player 1 is in seat 1, unknown is in seat 6


It’s a 2/5 Pot limit Omaha game with a mandatory $10 straddle. This particular hand the player after the straddle posts a double straddle to 20, he is told there is no double straddles allowed and it is a blind bet. The UTG player calls, Player 1 has AsAh9s5s and limps in. Seat 2 and 3 call, it arrives at the $10 straddle who states “well lets juice this pot up for whoever gets lucky after the flop” and raises to $120. It folds to UTG who calls; Player 1 raises pot to $520 total. It folds to the original raiser who calls and the UTG folds. There is roughly $1,290 in the pot.
Flop comes KcJc8d, unknown checks to player 1, Player 1 shoves for $1,080. Unknown calls, the board finishes out 6, and 4.

Thoughts and side notes:
I (player 1) decided to limp with the Aces because they were bad aces, three to the same suit and cards that didn’t work well together and I’d rather see a flop before committing myself to the hand. The unknown is an aggressive opponent who is willing to gamble and raise with most reasonable holdings. Once it gets back to me I can either call and decide to disguise my aces incase an ace flops, or I can raise. I feel that raising is best for two reasons: I can either take down the pot preflop and win $320 without contest but also raising to $520 allows me to stick the other $1,080 in on any decent flop thus taking away his equity to call me down preflop ‘knowing I have Aces’ and try to catch up. Against his range I feel that its best to play for stacks knowing that he has to catch on the flop to continue.
After the flop comes down I don’t feel that I can ever check there since I would be giving up the aggression and can easily be giving him the key to the pot.
One last side note: Michael “The Grinder” Mizrachi was sitting in the 9 seat and I felt it was possible that the unknown was thinking that I was trying to show off for The Grinder and make a play for the pot.

Questions:
Was it right to try to isolate with the AA95 preflop?
Was it right to shove on the flop?
What, if any changes, do you think was a better play throughout any stage of the hand?

Before asking why Mizrachi was playing a 2-5-10 PLO game, He was in town for a $3,000,000 tournament and was playing in the cash games until day 2.

Its greatly appreciated to hear yalls comments!

I don't mind your preflop play. I think it was correct to try and isolate with that hand. You want to move those junk hands out. On the flop though I might have been hesistant to push there. It seems to me that with the statement the OR said that he could have been posturing with K K x x. I agree with not wanting to give up control of the hand but I would have been carefull. What was the outcome I am interested to know?

I can't fault how you played this hand if he did have a set it was a cooler. We shove flop and we lose when we get called and that is truly all we do in this hand. I wish i could justify saying "yah if he had the set of course he would let us hang overselves" but that is just sssoo much hinsight bias. Interestinbg note on if it was a check check flop: I would like to play this pot OOP on the turn if it did get checked because then it would give us the chance of firing on scare cards. I think shove is the only option and yah it sucks for us but WTF can we do? Play very passive and weak? NO! Too bad man bc for this hand to be posted i think it must have been a cooler and he stacked you off. By the way your thoughts about the hand and justifying your play that seems to be very spot on that you know you made the right move here

PF is very nice.

I'm worried about such a coordinated flop though. Flush draw and about a brazillion straight draws. However with stack to pot ratios being what they are, I think you are still OK to shove because you will be putting 31% of the money into the pot, and you should have that much equity at this point. Checking the flop might allow him to push you off the best hand on any scary turn.

Redhollywood: Let me get a couple more responses up here just to see what people are thinking on it, then I'll post up here what he had. The only reason I disagree with your thoughts on has posturing with KKxx is that unless he has something along the lines of KKQJ or KKT9 it wouldn't be a very smart call because you have to hit the flop hard in order to continue, so to me it seems more logical for him to have something along the lines of 6789. That was my thoughts at least.

I think that anything but shoving the flop is weak passive because it opens up the opportunity for him to shove just about any turn card 7-K and any club... I feel I'm still ahead of his range the majority of the time and I can't give up the aggression and turn it into a guessing game on the turn.

I appreciate all of yall's comments, just trying to continue to better my game ever opportunity I get!

I understand what you are saying about him possibly having 6789. It was just a thought about him posturing. Its hard to read a situation when you are not actually in it. You have experience playing with him as I do not. I just have played with the guys before that like to pretend that they are building a pot when they have a monster hand and then people think he is loose and he eats them up. I agree with your shove on the flop, you have to do that to maintain control of the hand.

Just realized that I have two accounts on here, both this one and pokerat89. Just wanted to clarify incase you were wondering why I was responding under a different name.
He ended up having KhKsQh3d.
Thus he was willing to put in $540 pf with almost exculsively bare kings and was only able to call a flop bet if he either hit his king, Q3, a flush, or possible flush draw.
I ended up running the hand against Justin Bonomo ( found him on bodog poker) and figured I'd post his response here:


"I really like how you played the hand for several reasons.

AA95 is not a hand that plays well out of position against one or several callers of your raise. Limping is just find and is pretty standard for me in early position spots like that, especially in aggressive games, and this sounds like one for sure. When the action is back on you, reraising is definitely better than calling. If you just call, your hand will be very hard to play postflop. You'll be making a ton of incorrect folds, and rarely will be able to get your money in without flopping a set. Aces have a lot more value than set mining, and you lose that value by just calling. Definitely, definitely pot it the second time around.

Once you get HU on the flop with so much money in the middle, all your chips have to go in. You are a significant favorite vs. his range of hands, and even if you weren't, there's so much money in the pot that it's worth trying to win. When you check, only bad things can happen. There really are no strong outs for you, and free cards are much more likely to help your opponent than yourself.


Even though you lost, I think you played the hand perfectly.

-Justin Bonomo"

Just thought I'd add in those closing remarks and hope yall got some thoughts out of it all!