Some Random Questions. SB/BB Play/

[scallop]

Ok. This isn't about a specific hand, more about some real problems that I've been having with my game recently.

I've been playing for almost 4 years now, and I've only just realised how little (or, rather how poor) my progress has been.

However, recently I've been really trying to put the effort into understanding WHY we want to be doing certain things. This has left me incrediblly confused about an aspect of poker which;

1) I thought I had grasped
2) I thought was fundamentally easier to grasp than other aspects of the game

I am talking about preflop poker.

I had a revelation recently, and I'm sure it will seem rather obvious to most, concerning position.

The reason why we don't want to open raise from early position with hands like 9[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]8[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] is because even when we do make a hand, the sort of hand we tend to make requires position in order to be played profitably.

Even more pretty hands such as T[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img]J[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img], or even J[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img]Q[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img] are not great when played OOP, and thats one of the outcomes when we raise in early position with these hands.

This might seem trivial to most, but I genuinely and rather naively always considered the main reason for not raising with hands such as suited connectors in early position was that we were worried about being 3-bet preflop with a weak hand OOP.

I'm not saying being reraised isn't a concern, but in fact I consider the future problems in the hand that we are going to play far more trecherous than the present problem of:

"how do I respond to his reraise?"



A large percentage of the time we will steal the blinds or when we raise pf w 8[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]9[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] flop AT2 rainbow, we c-bet and win.

But when we are called and do meet resistance the chances are that we never have a hand, because we do not make hands very often, and subsequesntly we play a guessing game about the strength of our opponents hands and fire again or we check, which should = folding if our opponent is competent.


This brings me onto an apsect whereby I am genuinely confused.

Folds to me in the SB. I have K[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img]5[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img]. This is likely the best hand right now, and I can raise, but my raise is not for value because there is no value in playing this hand OOP. My raise is an attempt to steal the blinds.

If, in 100nl, I raise to 4 and he folds I am risking my $4 to win $1. If he calls I am in alot of trouble because my hands sucks OOP.

C-betting works, but not all the time and most of the time when we are called our hand is not good, because the type of hands I am concerned with are the type of hands that whilst statistically might be better than our opponents preflop, are the sort of hands that rarely make anything powerful enough on the flop that can stand up to even the most passive of plays: the smooth call (Ok, not always passive but you see point)

So, I guess to put a question onto these rants and ravings, do you have a particular cut-off for hands you will raise SB vs BB;

vs: Unknown. 19/17. 30/20.

Any thoughts on this would be greatly appreciated.

[SilentNoise]

if bb folds blind alot raise a wide range. if bb keeps 3betting you, tighten up / 4bet more. if bb keeps calling preflop and floating/raising/outplaying you, tighten up.

[AggJedi]

Like mentioned above is always going to be player dependant and in any situation you find yourself in you'll have to adjust acordingly.