Pocket pair OOP when an Ace falls

[jo]

So this is a pretty common situation that leaves me a bit unsure of what to do. I'll illustrate with an example. Game is 200 NL 1/2 blinds, both me and villain have only recently sat down and have about 200 in our stacks.

I get dealt QQ in SB.

Villain raises to 6, I reraise to 10, he calls.

Flop ($22) is raggedy: Txx

I make about my standard c-bet which is 15 and he calls

Turn ($52) is an A

Now what?

[bdawg56kg]

First of all RR more pf. $24 or so. As played, I ususally c/c in these situations.

[Lukie]

Villain raises to 6, I reraise to 10, he calls.

make it 20 to go and jam 30 on the flop

[Silly String]

My $0.02 from 50NL, is to rep the A until he tells you otherwise. I bet $35 and fold to a re-raise.

I also re-raise more than $4 here. If you are going to re-raise and give up information to your opponent, make him pay dearly for it by making a bad call. I re-raise to at least $18, but $20 sounds better. If he folds, smile and collect your $8 pot. That earns you 2BB for this hour.

[jo]

First of all RR more pf. $24 or so. As played, I ususally c/c in these situations.

Would you be comfortable calling a pot-size bet? If so what would your river play be, assuming a blank falls? If not, what size bets would you be comfortable calling?

[jo]

My $0.02 from 50NL, is to rep the A until he tells you otherwise. I bet $35 and fold to a re-raise.

I also re-raise more than $4 here. If you are going to re-raise and give up information to your opponent, make him pay dearly for it by making a bad call. I re-raise to at least $18, but $20 sounds better. If he folds, smile and collect your $8 pot. That earns you 2BB for this hour.

Thanks, that's a good way to look at it. I've felt like a big reraise defines my hand too much, but perhaps I should start incorporating it into my play more.

As for repping the Ace, the thought did cross my mind. But given he called a preflop reraise and a decent size flop bet, there's not a lot of his hand range that I'm currently ahead of.

[SmackinYaUp]

Well actually, there are a few hands he could have other than aces. He could be putting you on AK and have a pocket pair for himself that he felt was still ahead of your weak re-raise and assumed the ten missed you. He could have jacks, nines, queens, eights, etc..

If he had a flopped set, then you can thank that ace for falling.

Keep betting. If he calls the turn, get a cheap showdown. If he called your flop cbet with a naked ace, you will probably make your money back.

[dsaxton]

Reraise more preflop. Just bet the turn and fold to a raise.

[johnny_fish]

Betting the turn is -EV. Check/call or check/fold is the way to go. Obviously check/fold if Villain doesn't ever bluff the Ace.

[dsaxton]

Betting the turn is -EV. Check/call or check/fold is the way to go. Obviously check/fold if Villain doesn't ever bluff the Ace.

How? Her hand is probably good (meaning it's highly unlikely she gets called or raised by a better hand), a second best hand almost never bets when she checks the turn and/or river, and the pot is reasonably-sized and worth protecting against a 5-outter or some other weird draw. You don't bet to get called by a worse hand in this situation, you bet to win the pot. The fact is the ace has killed all her action from second best hands, so she might as well just protect the pot with a bet and hope to take it down.

[jo]

Thanks for the comments guys. In the actual hand I checked, he bet 45 and I folded.

I felt that part of the problem with repping the ace, is that I was probably only ahead of about a 1/3 of his range, and I would have had to bet too much to realistically rep the ace.

Maybe I was too conservative in those calculations though, and probably rerasing more preflop would have helped me know more about where I stood.