Situational Play: Two Pair

Question

I would love to hear back from any of your blog readers on how I should have known to have gotten away from the following hand. I was small blind at 25/50 with AdQd and there was one caller before I raised to 150. Big blind called as did the other player. Flop is a rainbow with As4dQh… I felt that I was good. Being first to bet, I lead out with 250 and both players called. Turn was 10d and I went all in. The big blind had 10d10h (got his set on the turn) and the other player had 4c4h, so second set… Thankfully, I had enough chips to stay in my chair, but that hurt. Should I have known to get away from my two pair? The guy with 10/10, made a bad play that worked out, but the 4/4 had me all along. Thoughts?

(Source)

My Opinion

In my opinion, it depends on the table. A table where 4-4 is good enough to limp and then call a called 2bb raise from the blinds is a loose table; given that, you were reasonable to assume your two pair were probably good. Having to act first three-way is always hard. Raising 250 into a 450 chip pot is probably not a large enough raise to get a A-x to fold at such a table; given that, you probably made the right action for the table. The problem is that there was never any action ahead of you to get a read on their hand strengths.

I agree with you that T-T was a loose or even bad call on the flop; however the 4-4 let you decide how many chips were going to be put into the pot.

Raising is an aggressive play, which might have been appropriate, especially if that is how you'd been playing up until then. Personally I'd have been more passive, flat-calling the big blind and then reconsidering if the big-blind raises; perhaps check-raising on the turn instead in the hopes of getting a read on the opposition. But like I said, I'm more of a passive player; had I been in the big blind, I doubt I would have called your raise, even if I put the 4-4 on a steal; and a raise into a A-x-x flop would almost definitely get me to fold (relative stack sizes permitting) unless I was absolutely sure you were trying to push me around.

(Posted here because the source blog is borked and wouldn't accept my response after I typed it in.)