I dont know how to play mid pairs

[bilbo-san]

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Leading the flop is fine if you're willing to play this hand for stacks and if you sometimes smooth call AA KK preflop and he's seen you do it.


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Explain to me why you want to play for stacks versus an opponent who often puts you on KK+, and apparently can beat that?

Also, leading means we lose tons of value from all the hands that villain will bluff with. I'm not in the camp of people who say "worse hands never call" because a button raiser has all kinds of hands that my have picked up a draw, or he might float with overs, or he might call with 88 because he beats a lot of donkhands that would bet here.

But checking certianly makes a ton more $$ than betting because Villain will bet around 99% of his hands, but only call with about 10-20% of them.

So I would probably never lead this flop, except perhaps with A4 or 33, because I probably can't stack him without getting him to raise one street.

Note that I'm talking about the preflop call scenario.

I would re-raise preflop. Many of you are too hung up about how often you win at showdown unimproved. Not every hands value is dictated by when you win at showdown.

For example, with AK (or AQs or even worse) we might 3-bet here, but we don't actually expect to win at showdown unimproved vs. a worse Ace. Nevertheless, you DO get calls, and you DO win value from worse aces. And you get MORE value (when you don't improve) vs. those hands by re-raising preflop and/or by winning the pot on the flop.

The same is true with TT vs. AQ, or say, 88.

Yes, if they call bets on 3 streets, you probably aren't good. But the simple fact of the matter is that there are many, many, MANY overcard hands that have significant equity vs. TT that will fold the flop if we re-raise, and that is a GOOD thing. It is a better thing than giving those same hands 5 cards to outdraw us (which they'll virtually always get if you play the hand for value), because calling a flop PSB, you've put in the same amount of money as if you'd RR preflop, but in this scenario the player in position will often see 5 cards for that price, or will double-barrel a draw and make us fold.

So, two scenarios involving roughly the same size pot:

1) RR preflop
2) call preflop, c/c PSB

But in senario 2) we will win a lot less often. And let's not forget the fact that re-raising will put us heads-up most of the time, where our equity is far better than in a 3-way pot.

A further reason to RR is that sometimes the other player gets stubborn with hands like 9[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]8[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] and thinks he can call for implied odds. You are crushing hands like this, and getting them to call is a good thing.