Katie’s big hand at the World Series

Katie said I could post her key hand from the World Series event she played in: $1,500 Limit Hold ’em. It is of course the heartbreak hand, pocket Aces. She was somewhat saddened to see several TV pros at her table, but did her best anyway.  I’m really proud of her.

"We’re at the $25/50 blind levels with $50/100 stakes
(which is second level, the first round is $25/25, with 25/50
stakes).

I had AA, raised UTG, got reraised by a player in the
SB, one of the five other poker players at the table who I have not seen on TV.
No particular read on him, though I’ve seen him raise a lot preflop.
Unfortunately, my table rarely saw the river (probably a sign of good players),
so I didn’t see many of his raising hands shown down. So my only read is that he
plays aggressively.

Based on this aggression combined with the fact that we were
heads up, I decided to just call, while delightedly plotting to do some
reraising on the turn to get as much money out of him as possible. I would never
have done this if there had been more people in the hand, but I’m pretty
confident of AA heads up. The best hand against AA is something like 65s, and
that only has a 23% chance of beating AA. However, the odds of him having small
suited connectors are pretty low here, given his reraise. So I figured I’m in
significantly better shape than that; I’m putting him on AK, AQ, AJ (this is
stretching it, I think), AA, KK, QQ, JJ, TT. Maybe even a slightly lower pair if
the goal of his reraise was simply to isolate me.

The flop came QXX rainbow, I checked to the reraiser, he
bet, I called with the intention of check raising the turn.

A blank came on the turn. He checked (I put him on AK
here, inducing a few seconds of happiness in my misguided brain). I bet, he
raised. Naturally, this check-raise makes me very nervous. Check-raises are
scary. Can I fold this? First, I remind myself that I didn’t reraise him
preflop, so he’s probably not putting me on AA or KK. Maybe he is putting me on
a smaller pocket pair, or AK or AJ, and incorrectly thinks he’s ahead.

What can I put him on here? I narrowed it down to AQ,
KK, QQ (argh), or a pocket pair that makes a set with the other two cards that
came on the flop (also, argh). I’m ahead if he has AQ or KK, I’m losing to QQ or
two other pocket pairs. I have a few other possibilities in my head that seem
less likely – for example, maybe he puts me on AK and is reraising me with a
smaller pocket pair (JJ, TT, etc). A check-raise is pretty aggressive in this
position, but he has shown himself to be aggressive."

 

Though I’m sufficiently terrified not to reraise him, I
know I can’t lay this down heads up. I check-called him down, and, of course, he
showed QQQ.

 

This hand lost me $500.