Welcome back everyone to Part II of the latest What's He Holding post, where we're playing limit holdem in the late stages of a HORSE tournament on Full Tilt. I raised it up UTG preflop with the marginal holding of A8o, one opponent called from middle position, and then on a flop of 226, I checked and he bet out for 300 chips into a 2250-chip pot. At the end of Part I, I asked what range of hands you would put this player on given his actions so far on the flop.

In general, I agree with most of the comments made on this post. The guy did not reraise me preflop, so he is not likely to have a premium pocket pair, and probably not AK which in my experience in limit holdem tends to be reraised even more often than Aces or Kings, as lots of people like to slow-raise with the biggest pairs to try to trap another player who also holds a big but not quite big enough hand. Yet, he did call a raise that came from UTG, normally indicative of a strong hand itself, so I'm not putting him on the weakest of the possible calling hands -- pocket pairs 2s through 7s or 8s, and weak Aces or Axs. Given his lead on the raggiest of raggy flops of 226, which also contains a pair which would make his high-card or middle-paired hand very likely the best here, I am feeling very comfortable with my read so far of probably pocket 8s through pocket Jacks, or AQ down through AT or maybe A9s. Of course you always have to be willing to adjust that read as soon as you get any more information about what your opponent may be holding, but for now I've got him on A9 through AQ, or pocket 8s through pocket Jacks. If you think about it, it's actually an amazing job of narrowing things down to just eight likely hands given that all he did was call a preflop raise and then bet out for a small bet on the flop. But that's where I've got this guy so far.

So what happened next? Well, I had raised preflop UTG, representing a very solid hand, so when puyop bet out after my flop check, given that I had him on a middle but not premium pair, or medium but not premium Ace, I figured I'd go ahead and raise it up. See, for me I like to make a lot of my moves in limit holdem on the flop, when the betting is still cheap, so it doesn't cost me too much if I have to give up on 4th street. This is kinda counter to what a lot of other players seem to do, but if I think a guy has a hand that is medium good but very beatable (like in this situation), and I know I've represented strength so far throughout the hand, I will sometimes go for one extra cheap bet if I think it might take down a pot, or set me up to take down a pot later by showing some strength early on in the hand. So I raised it up, which given this flop had to scream out "big pair!" to my opponent, and he just smooth called my raise.

That was when the Ace♣ fell on the turn. Interesting, this one is really going to put my read to the test here.

OK so this guy called my UTG raise from middle position before the flop, and he got check-raised by me on the flop of 226, which he also smooth called. The problem is, our kickers are still very much live on this board with one low pair and another low card, so if he is on any of those pocket 8s through pocket Jacks I put him on, I'm now in great shape, but if he has any of those A9-AQ hands I also have in his range, then I'm severely dominated. But, remember that my read is more than 50% balanced in favor of the high-Ace hands over the pocket pair hands (there are 16 ways to make an unpaired hand like AQ or AJ, and only 12 ways to make a paired hand like 88 or 99, so my total range here is 64 hands of Ace-high, and 48 hands of the medium pocket pairs. 64:48 means there is a 57% likelihood of him holding an Ace-high hand that beats my A8, if you look just at the range of hands I've got this guy on so far). So overall, on balance, I decided I had to check here. If he's got an Ace, I can hope that he will bet out here, and then I can consider folding my hand for a fairly minimal loss in the overall scheme of things.

My opponent checked right behind me after a few seconds of thought.

As we wait for the river card to fall, what now is my opponent's likely range of hands, given everything we now know from him? He called my UTG raise preflop from middle position. He called my checkraise on the uber-raggy flop. Then when the scary Ace fell and I checked to him, he checked it right back to me and took a free river card. What is he holding?

Please post your replies in the comments, and I will be back later with the conclusion to this hand.