How To Size Your Re-Raises With Aces

AA can be tricky – but by playing them better preflop it becomes much easier to set yourself up for success. In this hand, Michael makes some glaring bet sizing mistakes which creates issues and ultimately ends up losing the hand. The blinds were $1/$1 and there was a $2 straddle on…

Hero decides to go to 6, next to act with aces and I love the raising of course, but I’ much prefer to see it a bit larger in a live environment, going to something like 8 or 10, is totally reasonable and I think it’s going to be much more valuable as well.   We end up getting 3 back by the cut off. Call call by the big blind and here we go.

Now there are a couple major pieces of burning information that Hero gave. First and foremost is the cut off, notice he is sitting 950 big blinds to start the hand and he is classified as “Weak lag regular, who doesn’t really understand the math of the game and he is probably a level one thinker.” That’s the way Hero’s describing him anyways and Big Blind is just kind of a bad short stacker and here we are. Hero also specified that he is a winning lag that often sits in higher stakes games, so these people might know that and he is probably viewed as a lag, due to playing a little bit looser, taking edges with more marginal hands etc.” So, with all that in mind, here we are.

So I’m going to show what Hero did and Hero made his small 4bet at $29 and then I’m going to talk about what Hero said. So Hero said in a right up that, he thought the cutoff was 3betting a pretty wide range of hands, but it wouldn’t contain things like pocket pairs 22-88 but that he might 3bet suited connectors.

Now, that’s awesome and I love the fact that you’re thinking about building correct poker ranges, and you’re on the right track – but the issue is the size.  I love the fact that we’re 4betting.  The cut off has a ton of hands in his range and we’ll  just assume that he’s going to make a decent amount of mistakes with those hands and if you 4bet. Yeah, you’re putting in a lot of money, but you guys are deep. He might just take deeper prices, because LOL, he has position, plus LOL, and he has some cards, awesome.

So, I think you’re doing yourself a massive disservice, by going to this exact size, now, here did write up in the write up, that he realizes this is horrible sizing, but he went small, because he didn’t want to lose the only player that covered him. Okay, that statement alone, is problematic and it just not the greatest way of thinking, because if this person is that loose, if this person is that speedy, then you have to go larger. It is your responsibility to go larger, to generate tremendous amount of value, from someone who wants to give you money, from someone who wants to gamble, from someone who’s inelastic with those gambling hands.

If you went to 50, he probably comes along with a very similar range, as the times he comes along for 29.  So go larger. In fact, go something like 60 or 75 is totally reasonable here. Because of who this player is and this is why you have to know your opponent. Yes, I understand it sucks, when you go to somewhere like 75 and everyone folds. But, realistically, you’re getting at least some action here. The BB already put in the third-ish of the stack. He’s coming along, so you automatically getting money from somewhere and you’re increasing the chances that you’ll make a ton more money, that times are cut off and comes along with the second best hands.

Is he really going to fold KQ preflop? No. Probably not.

Is he going to fold TT preflop? No. Probably not.

So again, it is a 100% your responsibility to make a lot of money in these situations. Now, I don’t particularly find the rest of this hand interesting, because if we play preflop differently, postflop never happens the way it does.

We’ll just going to zip through the rest of the hand, because again the major inflection point, is definitely going to be the preflop size and we’ll give him both callers and at this point, whatever, we’re getting a lot of money in here, one way or another, so let’s do it. Here besides, continuation back for 65. Totally standard.  Both call and now there’s 226 the middle, 281 the stack, and hero just decides to rip it. I’m really not worried about this at all.  I think all this looks really, really good.  Obviously at this point, you’re trying to pin exactly like a Qx type hand. A sticky Jx kind a hand.

I think this is played, totally, totally fine, as played preflop. Then, unfortunately in this situation, he happens have T8 and it is what it is. Not to worry about it. And here did ask like, how could he play the turn. Was his turn line correct? But what you have to remember, is, you have to check the earlier inflection points.  Too many people ask questions about what should I do on a turn? What should I do on this river?  When really, the major question should have been, why didn’t your size differ from an earlier streak. Why did you take a more aggressive on and aggressive action, not an earlier street?

So, whenever you’re in a tough situation, on a turn or river, really go back and say, did I play preflop, did I play flop, , correctly? If yes, okay, then the question is valid of what do I do on a turn, or river, but often times the answer is found in an earlier streak and especially in a size, and the whole reason why I kind this kind of hand up, again I don’t find oppose for particular interesting, but it’s so, so important, that you size well, in live games, when you’re playing against weak opponents, because often times, you’re going to be in the strong side of the spectrum, which means you can go larger.  They’re inelastic.