In this particular hand, I lose all my chips post flop with AA to 75c. At first glance, it would seem like I must have played the hand horribly to lose all my chips to 75c, but if you disect the hand along with me, you'll see my thinking and where exactly I went wrong. This hand describes how making a decision on a early street must be used with later street decisions. I go through each decision I made, and give reasons why it was good or bad, and what I could have done differently.

PokerStars Game #2761365092: Tournament #13564730, Hold'em No Limit - Level II (15/30) - 2005/10/09 - 07:53:04 (ET)
Table '13564730 1' Seat #7 is the button

Seat 2: FloridaHawk (3050 in chips)
Seat 3: JESSECOLIN (3030 in chips)
Seat 4: nev67 (1155 in chips)
Seat 5: gidders (1720 in chips)
Seat 6: LS430 (1480 in chips)
Seat 7: captinj (1335 in chips)
Seat 8: breitling996 (1025 in chips)
Seat 9: Trebreh (705 in chips)
breitling996: posts small blind 15
Trebreh: posts big blind 30

*** HOLE CARDS ***

Dealt to gidders [As Ac]
FloridaHawk: folds
JESSECOLIN: calls 30
nev67: folds
gidders: raises 90 to 120
LS430: folds
captinj: folds
breitling996: folds
Trebreh: folds
JESSECOLIN: calls 90

JESSECOLIN: checks
gidders: bets 120
JESSECOLIN: raises 120 to 240
gidders: calls 120

JESSECOLIN: checks
gidders: bets 390
JESSECOLIN: raises 2280 to 2670 and is all-in
gidders: calls 970 and is all-in

*** SHOW DOWN ***

JESSECOLIN: shows [7c 5c] (two pair, Sevens and Fives)
gidders: shows [As Ac] (a pair of Aces)

JESSECOLIN collected 3485 from pot

Okay.  Let's go over this hand decision by decision.

Comments - Usually a good standard sized raise at the 15/30 blind level.  Don't really wanna drive everyone out, but want to make sure if people are entering the pot behind us, they have to have a hand we can put them on.  We don't want any J4 or anything funky in the pot with us where we don't have a clue what they have.  A good play here.

Options - Consider raising 5x, possibly even 6x - depending on how loose the table has been playing. 

Decision 2 - Bet 120 into 285 on the 8s 3c 5h board.  

Comments - A bigger bet would have been better here.  Generally want him guessing 50/50 whether we have an overpair, or overcards.  If we can make him doubt himself, he will be more likely to fold, or just call.  This is what we want generally.  Generally a bad bet, but could have been wise had we known he was likely to check raise without a set or
two pair (just a little piece, because we sold to him we only had over cards)

Options - Consider betting 210 on this flop.  This way, if he does reraise the minimum, we'll have an easier decision to 3 bet him all in.  At this point, he'll have to know he is beat and lay it down, or he will feel pot committed and call, at which point we are a nice favourite to win the hand.  With the smallish 120 bet, we don't accomplish very
much and don't take a hold on the hand.  This wouldn't be a problem, if Decision 3 was to push all in, but we didn't do that.

Comments - Probably our biggest mistake.  After much thought about this hand, what turn card did I really hope for? There was very few cards that were "beneficial to his hand without revealing the strength of ours.  A two and three are the only real cards that aren't scary to him, and aren't scary to me.  If a 4 comes (I have to worry that he had 67 - a comment checkraising hand if he believes we are on high cards).  A 5 is scary to us because he could have been check raising with middle pair (which he did).  A 6 through 9 is scary to us because he could have easily limped with any of those connectors and hit two pair.  A ten might be likely for him to hit if he held 8T.  And if the turn was a J,Q,K or
A - he is scared and is forced to slow down, probably checking or betting weak - where we'd evitably raise and have him fold. 

I guess I was thinking that I wanted to push him all in drawing to one card knowing that if the turn was a good card (2,3,J,Q,K,A) - I could reraise all in and have him know that he is drawing slim - plus the fact that he probably bets the turn and gives me more chips because he took the lead on the hand) 

Options - It was probably better for me to just 3-bet push on the flop, or raise enough for him to know that we had an overpair.  We would have probably taken a smaller pot, or would have gotten it all in with us as a favourite to win a large pot early on.  In hindsite, this was a "bad" flat call - but the amount of good cards for us to push favourably
on the turn makes it debating.  I don't mind switching up the play on this hand on the future - perhaps just calling sometimes and raising all in (standard play) other times.

Comments - For him to quickly check here should definetely scream of strength.  I failed to recognize this, and it cost me the rest of my chips.  If he did have a hand like 89, why would he check the turn after I had only called behind him?
The turn MUST have hit him, and by some natural reaction - people tend to check their "big hands".  The 390 was a waste of chips if I wasn't going to call his all in reraise (which was most likely).

Options - If I was able to recognize the situation of his cards, and not my own - I would have known that his turn check meant strength, not weakness.  I really like me checking behind him with AA here.  I don't think I should make a single bet into this pot if he decides to check his strength - I should take the free card (knowing I am now behind).

Comments - I knew I had to have been beat, but got married to my AA.  I should have checked the turn behind and not gotten into that predicament in the first place.

I don't believe Decision 3 was entirely that bad, only if I planned to make my future decision according to that. If I flat call, and he checks the turn to me - I would check right behind him.  And than he would have to decide how much he could extract from me at the river, probably making a bet around 300 or so with the J on the river.  I might have called just because my one pair beat the board, but I wouldn't have had to lose all my stack with AA - just because it was AA.

Lesson: Decisions aren't necessarily bad if you are able to make your following decisions accordingly.