heeeey, i would have walked away too.

You're a very tight player, no doubt about it, but you would've at least called. No way would you drop your AQ with two As on the table.

It's one of those beats you have to take.

If you hadn't raised him, he would have sensed weakness and raised on the next card anyway. The only hope you would have had there is that he would have known he was winning, known you were close to your limit, and thus he might have slowed down betting to keep you from folding to him.

OTOH, he might just have gone all-in on the next card anyway, knowing you had *something*, and also knowing he could beat you, just hoping for a call.

And if he had put you all in, you would have assumed he was trying to push you out of the pot, so you would have called.

I don't know what you do. There are times when your hand is just too strong do do anything but bet but you're also beat.

He basically needed to have one of three hands to beat you, or maybe he could have had an ace and three or four cards to a flush so he figured he'd bet it as if he had it. Someone with an a10 or aj would probably have bet the same way with two aces on the board, so how can you guess at his kicker?

Then again, after he re-raised you, maybe you should have just called... he was raising something that was substantial but callable, so he didn't seem to be trying to push you out. Maybe that was the one mistake-- not putting him on something v. strong after the re-raise. That limits what he can have to the few hands that can beat you (well, and some other strong hands that can't beat you, but it's 50/50 there and you know you don't have the nuts).

Well, here's the question: what would you have done. I know all the things I could've done in retrospect but picture yourself holding AQ with that flop. How would you have played it?

I probably would have re-re-raised too, which is why I'm not a great poker player.

I think a great poker player would have slowed down at that point and only called, knowing he didn't have the nuts, and knowing his opponent must have something very strong.

You're probably right because at that point I was sure I had the nuts.

"The nuts" means the best possible hand given the cards on the board, not the likely best hand at the table. You didn't have the nuts, because you didn't have AK (not the ultimate nuts, but the nut three of a kind), A6 (the nut full house), 66 (not the nuts but 4 of a kind) or AA (which would give you the actual nuts).

except both players knew AA wasn't possible, so at the absolute nuts was the A6. I would have been afraid that the old Chinese guy had that. In the previous hand, he won with a J3 off when a third jack came on the river. Also he was veeeerrrrryyyyy excited about that flop. Practically leaping out of his chair when Karol bet into him. It's definitely a gulp call, rather than a re-raise kinda moment.

Ok, yes, I was using the nuts expression as best likely hand. There's always a possibility of, say, 4 of a kind on a paired board but the boat is generally acknowledged as the nuts.

Well, agree to disagree, but I'm pretty certain "nuts" or "nut" has a specific meaning and it's not the sense of "best hand at the table," which can just be called "best hand at the table."

dawn,

yes, with an a in your hand you know 4a's isn't possible, so the nuts would be a6 on the flop.

ak would give you the nut three of a kind, but aq doesn't even quite give you that. It gives you three aces, high kicker. But not the nuts.

I mean, the whole point of the nuts is that you simply can't lose. Or, if you have the nut full house, you can't lose to anything except the very unlikely 4 of a kind or straight flush.

I don't see that you could have avoided the beat.

I don't think you can fault yourself for not calling his re-raise. His re-raise was aniemic. You didn't say how much you had to commit in order to go all-in, so I can't completely say whether you made a mistake to call the all-in. Unless it was an astonishing amount, I doubt many people could have done differently.

On one point, though, I absolutely have to agree with ace. "The Nuts" is understood by all to mean the absolute best theoretically possible hand. It never means "the best hand at the table," or "the best likely hand."

Don't beat yourself up about the beat, though.

The poker gods deal you hands that you are meant to lose all your chips on. This was one.

Most of the time, the guy betting like that has a pocket pair, or maybe he's got the 6. I don't have the stats, but I imagine that 9 times out of 10, that's going to be the case.

You play poker and evaluate your performance over the long term. You lost this one, but the next 9 times, the other dude is sitting there with pocket something, thinking he's got you dead to rights, and that's why he's betting like that.

You can't win 'em all. You just have to play the percentages. You can't have an awesome hand and assume the guy, miraculously, can beat it.

Well, maybe you can. But then you'll play so tight you'll never win nuthin'.

Probably the correct play--you just can't count on the correct play winning you the hand every time.

First off, I probably, nay, certainly, would've called all my chips away as well.

Re-reading this hand, though, one thing jumps out at me: when you bet $25, and he raised to $40? (Did you mean he raised it $40 to $65, or TO $40)? Either way, a little raise (ok, I call them bitchraises) might send up a flag. You might have thought he WANTED you to reraise, and you did just that.

Like I said, though, I think only Doyle (who famously 'doesn't play AQ') would have survived this hand. It's like flopping top two, and losing to bottom set; ya just can't avoid that.

This hand is not even worth discussion. If this were a tourney, maybe u have to give serious thought to a6 or 6's(even in the case of a tourney i would only maybe lay that down if it meant my tourney life) but in a cash game you do not lay that down unless u see have a monster read on a tight & weak player and he gives u his worst " i cant believe i have the nuts face". There is also no reason to slow down in the middle of the hand(i dont think). You either convince yourself that he has one of those killer hands and u fold or u keep pushin the gas.