Did I convince myself the hand was better than it really was

I played my one of my first games of NL hold'em tonight. I've only been playing for a few weeks, so the majority of the hands I played were very strong (I tried bluffing a few times). I think I over valued a hand that resulted in me getting knocked out though. Here's the setup...

Big Chip Leader is to my right and has been playing aggressive all night. He bets 3200 (out of about 25000) before the flop, my whole stack is about 5700. My hole cards are Ah 2h. I reationalized my that my pre-flop hand gave me three options: high pair if an Ace shows up on the board, a possible straight, or a possible flush. So I went all in. Big Chip Leader calls and we flip our cards, he has Ac Kd :( So my chances of flopping top pair were out, Big Chip Leader caught two running Kings to give him the set and the hand. I'm out.

In retrospect I think I put too much faith in catching the straight or flush and should have folded. What do you guys think?

Thanks,
justo

i can give you a general answer, but it will depend on some conditions. is this a multitable tournament or a sit-n-go? how long has it been going on, how close to the money are you, how big are blinds?

but for now, i'm guessing this was a mtt, and blinds were considerable. The problem here, is that he has just raised, showing he probably has a good hand like a pocket pair, or a better ace. This hand is deceptively weak in a situation like this, where its really almost guaranteed that you're dominated. The odds of you making a flush or a straight combine to be roughly 3ish%, and that's probably a high estimate. If he has any better ace, or any pocket pair, you're looking at 70-30 odds at best. I'd wait here unless it was desperation time, and even then i'd rather push when i wasn't dominated.

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Originally Posted by Greedo017

i can give you a general answer, but it will depend on some conditions. is this a multitable tournament or a sit-n-go? how long has it been going on, how close to the money are you, how big are blinds?

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Its the tail end of the night, close to the end of the second game, a physical game (not online), we had been playing for about four hours. Blinds were 400/800

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Originally Posted by Greedo017

but for now, i'm guessing this was a mtt, and blinds were considerable. The problem here, is that he has just raised, showing he probably has a good hand like a pocket pair, or a better ace. This hand is deceptively weak in a situation like this, where its really almost guaranteed that you're dominated. The odds of you making a flush or a straight combine to be roughly 3ish%, and that's probably a high estimate. If he has any better ace, or any pocket pair, you're looking at 70-30 odds at best. I'd wait here unless it was desperation time, and even then i'd rather push when i wasn't dominated.

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In retrospect what you say should have been pretty obvious to me. Oh well, live and learn :roll:

If you said he'd been acting aggressively, I'd say that he had been playing bully with his chips stack.

If you thought he had absolute crap, then going all in here was a good move. Put the pressure on him. If he has diddly, he'll probably fold and you're only an underdog to PP's and another A. Sucks this time that he actually had a hand.

On the other hand, if he's been playing pretty tight (which you said he hadn't, or I thought you'd implied it), then you should respect his raise.

true he was acting aggressive, but there are still so many hands that are ahead of you here that he might randomly have, and even then you are 60/40 against any two cards, it only gets lower if they're suited or connected. if you wanted to push with this, that's a fine move, but more or less calling all-in i don't think is your best bet. I rarely call all-in and am glad i did it later.

A2s can only make 1 specific straight. any pair it makes is almost always a loser. so your only outs with this hand are the flush (extremely unlikely) and trips deuces.

you can raise with this hand but you cannot call a raise with it because the raiser almost certainly has a higher ace (AK, AQ, AJs, ATs, etc) or a pocket pair vs your lone overcard.

In my eyes this should have been a simple lay down(although I have made dumber moves....LOL). You have $5,700 in chips and blinds are $400/$800. You do need to start making moves but I don't think your in desperassion mode just yet. Even if he's been playing over agressive like you said you should make sure you have the best hand to take him for all you can, and possibly slow his ass down. Unless there were only a few players at the table you should not have even been calling the BB with this hand anyways, let alone raising.

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Originally Posted by Wolverine42

In my eyes this should have been a simple lay down(although I have made dumber moves....LOL).

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You're right, it should have been an easy laydown. I'm chalking it up to my phenomenal lack of experience.

The way I see A2s is that all I'm giving myself is a nut flush draw (unless flop comes 22x). As far as pairing up goes I've only got the Ace, everything else that hits the board is an overcard to my 2. If the board hits my ace I'm certainly dominated at a full table. That's how I've learned to dump Axs because it only gives me 1 way to to the nuts. So I may play it for a limp and see if I hit the flush, but calling all-in with it will almost always be a mistake.

But like ensign_lee said, if he was stealing this was probably a good hand to keep him honest with. Otherwise, look for a better spot to double up - preferably where you can be the one pushing. Just my .02