I was playing late in a 20$ buyin today and I came across an interesting hand. I was dealt 5 5 in the sb and it was folded to the button who raised 2x the big blind, I called because I had a healthy chipstack and it was I thought it may be a postion raise. the BB folded

the flop came
5:club: A A

at this point my opponent bet out three times the pot and my question was this, do I reraise or smooth call.


up to this point the said opponent had been tight aggressive and had been known to try to steal blinds.

the rest of the hand will follow replies. THX

Reraise and hope he has an ace/flush draw. You're not fooling anyone by smoothcalling here.

exactly. There is no such thing as smooth calling an overbet that large. That screams strength more than a push.

You should have led out at the flop, and PRAY someone had an ace.

Yeah, for an overbet, you've caught someone on a) a naked scared ace, b) a flush draw who thinks he can buy it, or c) a psycho on a bluff.

Having a sneaky boat against either of those three hands is a highly profitable situation.

Don't call the last bet on the flop... Re-raise or push, depending on the stacks... but don't call an overbet here.

Note that if you had led out and he had an ace, he'd probably raise you all in... which is fine too.

lead out.

you really don't want to checkraise here, and you really don't want to smoothcall an overbet... its a tough spot to be in....

so lead.

I don't think checking is a bad play here. Often you'll want to lead out with a small set, but when you flop the small boat against an aggressor, I think you may want to give him a chance to bluff. This is especially true if you thought he was trying to steal the blinds...good chance that he'll keep trying to steal.

If you lead out you're hoping he has an ace, but if you check you give him a chance to lose some chips whether he has an ace or not. Certainly you want to lead into him IF he has that ace, but it's not terribly likely that he does, so let him bluff.

That being said, you should probably check/raise. Calling is pretty suspicious. More importantly though, you don't want to give him a free card since he could hit a higher boat (if he has ax, 66, etc). So raise him, and hope he moves in.

Check out this relevent article:

http://twoplustwo.com/magazine/current/miller1005.html

Or you are up against Sam Farha and he has A5 and you're screwed.


--cnm

well heres what happened in the hand.

I led out with my boat reraising his bet 2x to see where i stood. at this point he just called. By this point either he was being sneaky, stupid or was really on a flush/higher boat draw.

the turn came the K and at this point i bet 3/4 the pot to see where I/he stood. He reraised me 3x and i went all in.

On the river the 6:heart: fell and i was eerily confused to see him holding the
6 A , beating my 5/A boat, needless to say, I was very sad, and I soon after busted out, right on the BUBBLE.

You guys had some deep ****ing stacks. By my calculations you started the hand with 167bb at the minimum. That's pretty wild for late in a tourney. With that in mind, I think you need to reraise more on the flop than just minraise, then you definately need to just push the turn. He's a donk for getting all his chips in with a 6 kicker, but it happens.