[Buzz]

Damicles – A[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img],4[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img],4[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img],7[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img] is a rather marginal, maybe even sub-marginal, starting hand in a full fixed-limit game. In such a game, I try to avoid starting hands with small pairs. And the seven, a middle card, doesn’t help very much.

At any rate, playing pot-limit rather than fixed-limit, you limp from UTG with the hand and CO pops it.

Now the question is, “How do your opponents play?” Seven opponents were dealt cards. Two of them call the pre-flop raise. Would any of the four who fold before the flop fold a hand with a pair of queens or a pair of jacks? Might any of the three who are playing have a pair of queens or a pair of jacks?

If you opine that nobody would fold a hand with a pair of queens or jacks, and anybody would play such a hand, then you have to figure the chance you are up against a set of queens or jacks on the basis of seven opponents. One or more of them will have been dealt a hand with a pair of queens or jacks, after considering the cards in your own hand and also the flop, roughly between one time out of five and one time out of four, a bit closer to one time out of five – something like that.

But if any of the ones who folded would just as soon fold a pair of queens or a pair of jacks as not, and the ones who are continuing would just as soon play a pair of queens or a pair of jacks as not, then you’ll be up against a higher set roughly one time out of ten.

And it’s hard to tell if you’re up against a set of jacks, because the holder of the pair of jacks will be worried that you hold a pair of queens.

At any rate, somewhere between 10% and 25%, depending on how your opponents play and dumb luck, you’ll be up against a higher set after this flop.

Aside from a flop with a pair of fours, this rainbow flop with only one low card is as good as it gets for your own pair of fours. (One of your fours would go nicely with your ace after a flop of 2-3-5, but that’s only using one of the fours). And that’s why a pair of fours stinks in an opening hand – that and you’ll take a damned beating if someone has a higher set or if the board pairs the queen or jack and an opponent is playing QJYZ or various other combinations that make a higher full house than your miserable pair of fours.

But anyhow, you saw the flop with a hand containing a pair of fours and the flop is almost as good as it gets for your pair of fours and now what?

I don’t know what to tell you. In a fixed-limit game, I’d play it fast. Chances are nobody has a higher set and you want to at least make it expensive for anybody to draw out on you.

You’ll get a lot of advice to bet and fold to pressure. I don’t do that much, because in my games if I do that one time, I’m going to have opponents continuously bluff-raising me after I bet. If you wait until you have the nuts before betting, it’s wonderful to have your opponents bluff-raising you, but I’m routinely betting lots of times without the nuts and I don’t want to get bluff raised when I do.

At any rate, I consider the pair of fours more of a liability than an asset, and the same is true of any combination I make with the seven. So for me, playing this hand would be like spotting my opponents two extra cards and playing with a bare A[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img],4[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img]. I’d see the flop with this hand if I was in late position and did not expect a raise from a blind - or if I was in the small blind and did not expect a raise from the big blind - or if I was in the big blind and didn’t get double raised before the flop. But that’s about it.

If you’re not going to play the flopped set of fours, then you should not have seen the flop with a hand, half of which was a pair of fours. Therefore, it seems like you should do something. What?

I guess you play the set of fours like it was a set of queens and pray.

Buzz