That's one of the last conversations Harlequin and I had as we were driving over to our regular Thursday night cash game. He means pre-flop, of course. I responded with, "yeah, I know, I know! But if I do, everyone will know I have aces because I don't re-raise!" He was telling me that last week after my pocket aces got cracked and I got felted.
We all have some holes in our game, right? I'm trying to patch a few of mine. I'll admit, I have a habit of smooth-calling a raise pre-flop with AA. I know, it's bad. That's how I got cracked. But I don't like to be all-in pre-flop. It makes me fairly uncomfortable unless I'm up against a much smaller stack.
Anyway, last night I was not catching much of anything worth raising pre-flop. Any opportunity to limp was thwarted almost all night. Then there was a hand where the kid to my right (UTG) raises to $20 pre-flop. (We were playing $1/2 NL, btw.) Thinking I should just get ready to fold my garbage hand, I look down and check my cards. To my surprise I see 2 shiny red aces staring back at me. "Oh, great. I have to re-raise now. Nice." So I stop and think for a minute and announce my re-raise. "Make it $50." Well, 5 guys after me fold and then it gets to another guy who decides to re-re-raise! So, I'm thinking, "excuse me, I'm BlondWidow, I don't re-raise. You have to know I have aces. Kings at the very worst!" He raises another $200! Holy cow!
While crazy re-re-raiser guy is deciding how much to bet, I'm figuring that at the worst, I may be up against AA, AK or KK there. No idea what UTG could have had at that point but, to my surprise, he calls both re-raises and puts his $250 in front of him. By then, I think I had around $260 left. I didn't have much choice at that point. I really didn't want the lecture on the way home about folding AA pre-flop when at that point I absolutely had to have the best hand... Soooo... I scoot all my chips out and announce "I'm all in". It's only a bit more for crazy re-re-raiser guy to call, so of course he does. UTG calls the rest too. They both still have chips - a couple hundred each.
Well, then the flop comes. Something-Q-J. UTG pushes. C-R-R-R-guy calls. We all turn over our cards. I have AA, UTG has JJ and C-R-R-R-guy has KQ off-suit! "What the hell?" So then I look down and realize UTG flopped a set. I'm crushed. I look down at HQ at the other end of the table with a "see why I don't re-raise with AA pre-flop?"-look on my face and he gives me a back the "you still should!"-look. I'm about ready to get up when the turn is a blank. Then I almost threw up when the river came and it was one of my 2 outs. An ace! Woo hoo! I raked in my biggest pot so far in my short poker career. The set of jacks took down a nice sidepot too. He got pretty lucky as well.
So... crazy re-re-raise guy was apparently trying to bully me off my hand and I don't know what the hell UTG was thinking calling an all in bet for that much with pocket jacks. Crazy. Just crazy.
You can probably figure out what the moral of the story is.
Gotta love tables where people are willing to give so much action with JJ and KQ off!
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