3/6 A5s, Lots of Room for Debate

[Harv72b]

Allday: I mean in this one, very specific scenario. Taking into account all the information we have in the hand, both on our opponents and on our own image.

James: You're very, very close to what I was thinking. Which still doesn't convince me one way or another that I was close to right. [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

I'm also a bit suprised that more people haven't advocated raising the flop, which would be my standard play when facing a bet from the LAG & fold from the BB.

[steakhouse]

[ QUOTE ]
also, my point was our Ahigh is the best hand pf some decent portion of the time. a bit simplistic, but folding the best hand is leaving money on the table.

[/ QUOTE ]You might be on to something valuable here. Could you please unfold the concept behind this statement of yours?

[James.]

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I'm also a bit suprised that more people haven't advocated raising the flop, which would be my standard play when facing a bet from the LAG & fold from the BB.

[/ QUOTE ]

i like the way you played it postflop. there's an old addage in poker that promotes keeping crappy players in pots. basically, it deals with when you are in a spot that can go either way, raise or call. if you can keep a fish in the hand by only calling, it is often going to be your best play given the added overlay(i think something similar is expressed on one of the 2p2 hold em books). if the pot was bigger i would say raise for sure.

as far as pf goes, i honestly think it's probably close enough that raising or calling isn't giving up or gaining much more either way.

[WalkAmongUs]

is there any merit to calling the flop and raising the turn in this hand?

[ill rich]

i would limp like you did, but fold on the flop to a bet.

[Dan87]

i raise this preflop, but to each his own

my reasons for raising:

It widens up my range if it goes to showdown and people see ive raised with a5
It could win the blinds right there
Only the blinds or a blind might call and we have position after flop
If we do get a coldcaller and miss, we can get out cheaply, or decide to play back at them and get to showdown for the same reasons as the first point

[James.]

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is there any merit to calling the flop and raising the turn in this hand?

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my fear would be his holding is so weak(Ahigh, gutshot, whatever) a turn raise would usually end his bluffing or cost us the same and maybe not even see a showdown.

given the size of the pot i don't mind letting him keep firing. if he wasn't described as a triple barrel bluffer or if the pot was much bigger a raise(or even fold) somewhere could be considered a better course of action.

another thing. if he was either a payoff monkey(any ace, weak pair, even Khigh) OR possibly capable of folding a marginally better hand i might consider suggesting a river raise. since he doesn't seem to have been described that way, i think Harvester Dave played it well postflop. pot size, board texture and player reads being the keys to our strategy.

[Harv72b]

[ QUOTE ]
is there any merit to calling the flop and raising the turn in this hand?

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The problems here are twofold:

1) the bottom board card pairing put more of SB's potential flop range ahead of me. While he had slowed down against me during the last (6max) session after I kept winning pots, that was the last session. I'm not even for sure that he recognized my screenname. But at any rate, raising the turn gives him the opportunity to 3bet me off my hand, when sometimes I'm best. And of course it allows him to fold if he's been bluffing with absolutely nothing.
2) After calling preflop & flop, BTN had less than 2 BBs behind. So really, any hand that he'd call 1 one with, he'd call 2...so the raise would only serve to give him more motivation to fold hands that I'd want him to call with (i.e., naked overcards & especially aces).

If the turn had been a safer card, it had been my intention to raise after BTN only called the flop. So in that sense yes, there's merit to calling the flop & raising the turn.

[Harv72b]

Okay, the preflop limp. This is gonna be a long post (like any of mine aren't), so bear with me folks. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

For starters, as James alluded to most of your value from raising this hand in this position comes from stealing the blinds (outright or with a c-bet on the flop) and/or getting moderately better hands (such as mid-aces & small pocket pairs) to fold. With this lineup behind me, I was very rarely going to accomplish the first goal (and when I did, they would probably have folded anyway), and never going to accomplish the second. For that reason alone I felt/feel that raising would be a mistake.

But beyond that reason, with two passive opponents behind me I would have a very difficult time playing this hand postflop if they coldcalled; this because they were likely to coldcall both with better and worse hands (especially button), which would leave me either value betting my top pair into a better pair or checking the same against a worse one that would've called. About the only thing I could be certain of is that if one of them raised at any point, any 1 pair hand I had was no good.

There was also one final reason: BTN being so short-stacked. Playing more NL & especially MTTs lately has made me much more aware of players' stack sizes, and BTN's lack of chips created another problem. Let's assume that I did raise preflop, the same players all called, and the same flop came down. SB would likely have donked again with whatever he's donking with this time and I would then have raised because the pot was larger & winning it outright would have been more important than it is here (probably not the best wording, but I hope you guys can figure out what I mean). If BTN calls two on the flop, he then becomes pot committed with less than 1 BB remaining. Further, if he 3bets my flop raise, I'm forced to put him all in (because my hand/draw is good enough to call the 3bet as well as his $1 turn bet, and there's always the chance he's got a FD). Yes I'd have the proper pot odds to do so, but only because I myself had bloated the pot with my raises.

So raising doesn't look right. Many of you said to fold preflop. Others said that folding is wrong. Folding is my usual play with this hand in this position; maybe if I were better postflop I could profitably raise this every time, but I'm not so I can't. All too often I end up paying off a better ace or some other superior hand. In fact, the only times when I'd raise with A5s from the HJ were if I'd been absolutely running over the table lately and/or the players left to act behind me were all tight & straightforward. Okay, and probably if I were tilting. [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

However, with this particular lineup of players behind me, folding felt as wrong as raising. With the exception of the SB, none of them were likely to raise without a hand that had me crushed & drawing to 3 outs. Both of the players behind me were passive enough that I could pretty accurately determine which 3 outs were good by the turn, so I'd probably only have to put 3 SBs into the pot at most to figure out if I was ahead or behind after flopping something.

This was also very true if nobody raised, again with the possible exception of SB. If I flop a 5 (as I did here) and any of the passive guys bet or raise, I know I'm drawing to 5 outs at best. If I flop an ace & any of them show aggression in an unraised pot, then again I know that I'm likely drawing slim against them. My table image also helps here, as if I bet after an ace flops I'm very likely to get credit for having it. And again as James alluded to, you want to play pots against bad players--A5s against these guys was clearly +EV.

So limping in this particular scenario probably makes it easier for me to play my hand perfectly postflop, or at least very close to it. But there's also an added bonus which did occur to me during the hand--if I limp, CO & BTN limp behind, SB raises, and BB folds...I can reraise if I want (especially if only 1 of them limps behind). I fully know that SB is capable of raising assorted junk preflop, or at least that he routinely did on the 6max table, and against his range even from OOP my A5s stacks up pretty well. So I always have the option of isolating on him and (hopefully) creating some dead money in the pot when he decides to attack my "weakness". Again, my image helps as I've already shown them two apparently tricky plays. If SB raises & BB calls the raise, and again CO and/or BTN have limped behind me, I can call the raise & not be too unhappy about it (especially with my position relative SB).

Anyway, just something that I wanted to throw out there, as much to check my own "work" as anything else, but also to hopefully get some people thinking. I believe it's very rarely correct to openlimp from MP or later in an online SS game, but I am thinking that is one of those cases where it is the best play.

I'm also a bit suprised that more people didn't recommend a postflop fold anywhere. But I'll take it. [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]

[bernie]

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why is this an autofold pf? i really don't get that. A5s should be profitable from the hijack. especially given we have no callers in front, we have a crappy loosepassive behind us, the LAG we have crushed in the SB, the weak/tight passive in the BB and our superior postflop skillz.

i will admit, i would autoraise pf and not even think twice about it. i understand the rationale for not raising given the fact that you will often have a coldcaller or two behind you(among other things). it should be realized, a big part of the reason to make the pf raise is to win the blinds immediately or help take it down with a c-bet on the flop UI. given those left to act, this rarely to never happens and as such it makes raising pf less attractive.

given all this i'm not saying i would not raise, but i see a rationale for not doing it. i am CERTAINLY playing in this spot, though.

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Against this line up, I'm auto-raising this preflop from this spot.

b