Okay, first let me say thanks for letting me get to my second post without getting my face melted. The following hand went down just a bit ago with me nervous as a cat. I only play .25/.50 NLHE & $5 sng's.

I lucked out , was trying to represent the jack.
Any comments on the way I played it out ..

Table was playing tight to real tight cept for short stack, they never care if they have less than 20 bucks.



PokerStars Game #2844553609: Hold'em No Limit ($0.25/$0.50) - 2005/10/19 - 21:08:55 (ET)
Table 'Landi' Seat #6 is the button
Seat 1:
Seat 2: MR. MASON1 ($41.70 in chips)
Seat 3: tlh22 ($30.05 in chips)
Seat 4: RDQ62 ($11.35 in chips)
Seat 5: BigMamaPump ($1.55 in chips)
Seat 6: welder339 ($43.20 in chips)
posts small blind $0.25
MR. MASON1: posts big blind $0.50
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to [Qc As]
tlh22: folds
RDQ62: raises $2.50 to $3
BigMamaPump: folds
welder339: folds
raises $4 to $7
MR. MASON1: calls $6.50
RDQ62: raises $4.35 to $11.35 and is all-in
raises $4.35 to $15.70
MR. MASON1: calls $8.70
*** FLOP *** [9c 8h Jh]
checks
MR. MASON1: checks
*** TURN *** [9c 8h Jh] [6d]
$24.80 and is all-in
MR. MASON1: calls $24.80
*** RIVER *** [9c 8h Jh 6d] [Tc]
shows [Qc As] (a straight, Eight to Queen)
MR. MASON1: mucks hand collected $57 from side pot
RDQ62: mucks hand
collected $32.35 from main pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $92.35 Main pot $32.35. Side pot $57. | Rake $3
Board [9c 8h Jh 6d Tc]
Seat 1: (small blind) showed [Qc As] and won ($89.35) with a straight, Eight to Queen
Seat 2: MR. MASON1 (big blind) mucked [Ad Ts]
Seat 3: tlh22 folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 4: RDQ62 mucked [Ac 7h]
Seat 5: BigMamaPump folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 6: welder339 (button) folded before Flop (didn't bet)

My quick opinion is that AQ sucks out of position...especially since you are up against an early position raiser. Then when you are reraised, I assume you reraised again to try to isolate the all-in...but you didn't bet nearly enough to get the big blind to fold.

I did try to isolate the all in with that weak ass bet. I see what you are saying now. I guess in hindsight though, I didn't want to get too much more in the pot for fear of getting blind sided with aa/kk. Once he "just" called my play, instead of reraising, I figured I could eliminate those hands.

Now I don't claim to know more than .002% about poker compared to some vets here. I read (and learn) more than I talk, but I don't really care about the position once I get head to head. I almost like the reverse part of being able to control the hand. Am I wrong in this thinking?

Fold pre-flop to the original raise...AQo isn't a strong enough hand to re-raise with. If you have a good read, you can consider just calling the raise if you're in position (on the button).

Good Luck.

first of all, my god ur two opponents are horrible

but folding aq preflop to just one raise is just too tight. villain is short stacked and could be raising with any two cards. the only four hands that have aq dominated are ak, aa, kk, and qq.

odds:
aa 12-1
ak 3-1
kk and qq 2-1

but as i said earlier, villain was relatively short stacked and could be raising any two cards, i dont like a fold here at all. aq is a quality starting hand, especially 6-handed


to op, i would isolate the original raiser, because your hand is strong enough to play heads up. however, you're reraise of $4 was atrocious. you must realize that villain was short stacked, and if he was willinging to call another $4, he's committing himself to the pot and will most likely push his remaining chips. why not set him in w/ a raise to 12. you're more likely to drive out bb w/ a larger raise (thereby getting to heads-up), and now you're putting villain to the test for all his chips. he may very well fold a small pair.

if you had driven out bb pf, you wouldnt have had to risk all your chips drybluffing on the turn. and that bluff was pretty bad as well. all you have so far is ace high, and you're pretty much bluffing to win the $9 in the side pot. there's already a guy all in, so there's no way to drive him out and with a fairly coordinated board, that guy most likely has you beat.

you were lucky that neither opponent had a quality hand, and were just flat out bad. but if you keep raising too little (ie pre-flop) or drybluffing all your chips into a tiny sidepot ($25 to win $9), you're gonna lose all your money.

If you're re-raising preflop, you need to be doing it for the size of the pot. If someone puts in 3 and it's 4 more to them, they should only be calling or re-raising.

If it's 3 to you and you make it 10-12 back to them, then they can fold.

I am still in baby stages of learning guys. Thank you for grading my play on this one. I know that no two situations are alike when confronting problems but will take advice and apply it accordingly.

We are all learning here.

Generally speaking, making weak (and by weak I mean "less than the pot") re-raises will...

a) price in the raiser to call you with ANYthing
b) re-open the betting for a re-re-raise that you don't particularly want to call

Personally, I'm not a fan of re-raising AQ preflop anyway.

For that guy's stack though, I don't think moving him in would be a bad play.