50nl session - Hand Analysis

[dividius]

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Please let my give you my analysis, because reviewing these today just doesn't look pretty.

Hand 1 - Is it +EV to raise with those really small pairs? I always find that just flat calling with lots of limper rarely leads to a huge pot. On the turn when he lead bet for 8, i didn't really believe him there, seemed like he would have gone for a c-r or c-c if he had the queen. Miracle card on the river, but didn't really matter, perhaps he had the 9.

Hand 2 - Problem with this hand was that i had no idea were i was the whole time and i was betting to protect it. I knew i was beat on the river, i'm just wondering do you think i was beat the whole hand? I know my problem started when i flat called the min raise but my hand wasn't to bad to play in position.

Hand 3 - Well looks like the biggest donkey move ever. Just wondering from a math stand point how bad it was. I figured that because there were so many limpers, the pot was around $10.3 and it was 6.8 for me to call, i was pretty sure he would do this with any 2 high cards. Also i thought there would be some added value because it would really loosen up my image. Plus it would be fun

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1 - When you pre-flop raise with these hands, you're basically running a semi-bluff. Again, you need a lot of fold equity pre-flop and steal equity post-flop to raise with this type of hand in this spot. If there were no limpers in front, that's a different story. But 33 is too low to be raising here w/no reads. I want the pot to be cheap in this spot. If we hit, then we build the pot. If we miss, we're only out 1 BB.

2 - You said it yourself: you had no idea where you were at the whole time. If you can't play hands like this well, then you shouldn't be playing them at all. Not trying to be overly critical, but you shouldn't be playing these hands, even in position, if you're spewing when situations like this arise. No shame in folding and waiting for a better spot.

3 - I guess if you just feel like gambling, sure, go for it. I only do things like this in home games with friends, and even then, I'll need quite a few drinks and a pretty huge stack before that happens. But hey, it's a free country. Just be aware of the fact that you're consciously giving money away by playing 68s here.

[DawnToDusk]

In hand two you played a marginal hand on the button more as a speculative hand. Not a problem in my books. But you flop a top pair with a weak kicker against someone who did raise (although it looks as a weak/pot sweetener raise). After it is checked to you the main thoughts going through my head are that I have a hand with some showdown strength at this point. Not a lot of aggression PF and none so far on the flop. How can I get to the river by keeping this pot small? Well since there aren't a lot of cards that you really like to see turn I probably check behind here unless I have some other reads that tells me to do otherwise. On the turn I will reeval with what falls. If it is a blank and it is bet to me I will call a bet or if it is checked to me I will bet. If I call or get called then I will look again on the river to see if the river card improved my opponents range and possibly make a value bet.

For you what started out as a cheap investment to possibly win a lot from one of your speculative hands turned into an expensive mistake once you built the pot up big with a speculative hand. I would look to show these hands down cheaply and keep the pot small if I think there is any value against my opponents.

On hand three you made the same mistake. You called with a speculative hand (I probably only make this call in the CO and thats if the BTN isn't supper aggressive) and saw a short stack go in. You then saw some dead money and tried to isolate him with a raise. Just keep your hand as you originally planned. A cheap speculative hand. Muck it.

[DawnToDusk]

Raising with small and medium pairs isn't a problem. You just need to formulate a plan for them when the flop comes. Plans change depending on opponents too but for me a lot of the reason to raise pairs is for a little deceptive purpose and to build up the pot for when I do flop a set. I have a fairly tight raising range so when the flop comes 742 and I have two opponents in with me and they know my playing tendencies and I CBet after a PF raise they may play back at me.

In your case at these stakes I think raising with them to build up a pot is okay when you flop a set but a lot of times if I am getting 2-3 limpers already and I have them pegged as loose and will go deep with marginal hands I usually won't raise. If I miss the flop then I usually just dump if it seems all hope is lost for my PP, bet if I flopped a set, draw, or even if it just looks profitable to bet (IE AQ7r flop against one limper after I raised PF), or just check it.

[DawnToDusk]

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1 - When you pre-flop raise with these hands, you're basically running a semi-bluff. Again, you need a lot of fold equity pre-flop and steal equity post-flop to raise with this type of hand in this spot. If there were no limpers in front, that's a different story. But 33 is too low to be raising here w/no reads. I want the pot to be cheap in this spot. If we hit, then we build the pot. If we miss, we're only out 1 BB.

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I don't think we should be looking for fold equity with these preflop. I almost feel like you are raising with these as an opportunity to steal the blinds and if get called maybe play out of it by flopping a set or "outplaying" people postflop. In these micro stakes I am looking to make sets and get paid off because people play marginal hands to far. Not only that but looking to use these hands to steal blinds isn't effective because the blinds in comparison to a big pot the might brew from you flopping are set are minuscule. I'd focus on building as big a pot PF while kepping in as many people as possible.

[dividius]

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1 - When you pre-flop raise with these hands, you're basically running a semi-bluff. Again, you need a lot of fold equity pre-flop and steal equity post-flop to raise with this type of hand in this spot. If there were no limpers in front, that's a different story. But 33 is too low to be raising here w/no reads. I want the pot to be cheap in this spot. If we hit, then we build the pot. If we miss, we're only out 1 BB.

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I don't think we should be looking for fold equity with these preflop. I almost feel like you are raising with these as an opportunity to steal the blinds and if get called maybe play out of it by flopping a set or "outplaying" people postflop. In these micro stakes I am looking to make sets and get paid off because people play marginal hands to far. Not only that but looking to use these hands to steal blinds isn't effective because the blinds in comparison to a big pot the might brew from you flopping are set are minuscule. I'd focus on building as big a pot PF while kepping in as many people as possible.

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With two unknown limpers in front, you better have some pre-flop fold equity and some steal equity on the flop. Why else are we raising?

33 has very little showdown equity. That means we're winning this pot one of two ways: 1) making a set or 2) making everyone else fold. Since the likelihood of making a set is low, we need to have a high probability of people folding (pre and post-flop) in order to make a raise here profitable. Otherwise, we could just call and see a flop, building a pot when we hit, and folding when we miss.

I'm not worried about the times we hit a set and don't win a big pot; I'm worried about the times we raise w/ 33 and get multiple callers, then flop nothing. If we can't steal the pot a good amount of the time here (keeping in mind we wouldn't even be here if villains folded PF) then we shouldn't be raising with 33.

[DawnToDusk]

Well if everytime we raise PF with this types of PP hands and don't flop a set and end up folding yet only limp the times we do flop a set and not win a big pot we are losing a lot of money with these hands. We raise because we WANT to build a big pot for when we flop a set. At these stakes that is all we want with these small PP pairs. The ONLY showdown equity we can concievably have on the flop with these hands is when we flop a set. If you find yourself with these hands trying to fold out limpers you will just spend a lot PF and on the flop to fail most times.

So again at these stakes small pocket pairs shouldn't be used to fold out limpers. It should be used to promote multiway pots and build big pots. I'm not looking to steal a pot from limpers with small PP after a raise PF.

[dividius]

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Well if everytime we raise PF with this types of PP hands and don't flop a set and end up folding yet only limp the times we do flop a set and not win a big pot we are losing a lot of money with these hands. We raise because we WANT to build a big pot for when we flop a set. At these stakes that is all we want with these small PP pairs. The ONLY showdown equity we can concievably have on the flop with these hands is when we flop a set. If you find yourself with these hands trying to fold out limpers you will just spend a lot PF and on the flop to fail most times.

So again at these stakes small pocket pairs shouldn't be used to fold out limpers. It should be used to promote multiway pots and build big pots. I'm not looking to steal a pot from limpers with small PP after a raise PF.

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So instead of calling/limping and then folding when we miss, we're gonna raise and do the same? I don't see how that is a better strategy.

We're going to miss our set far more often than we make it. And there's no guarantee we're going to get further action after we hit our set, whether we raise PF or not. So why should we raise PF when we know we're going to concede on the flop when we miss? We're going to miss more than we hit, so we need to be able to steal post-flop or win it PF outright a good amount of the time to make this play profitable.

You can't just assume, "Well, when I hit my set, I'm going to stack them, so that's gonna pay off all the times that I miss." You could just as easily hit it, and villains all fold on the flop. We need to maximize our expectation for both when we hit it and when we miss it. Since we're going to miss it more than we hit it, it makes a lot of sense to have some type of plan for winning the pot when we miss, don't you think?

[Peto]

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All 3 hands are horrible and funny.

Move down in limits until you learn ABC poker.

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Agree 100% you lack the basic knowledge of poker. Keep posting and please move down to learn!!

[DawnToDusk]

I don't advocate raising your small PP all the time. If I mislead you to believe that I'm sorry. But on the other hand I am raising a lot. You're right. A lot of times I won't flop a set. Sometimes I will flop a draw or something though which will provide me some options postflop. The times I do flop a set I won't always stack someone either. Correct in that sense. But by balancing your raises, raise sizes you should be able to maximize the pot size PF as well as the amount of players that enter the pot. Sometimes you might not even have to raise. Depending on the players they might and their personalities there might be 2-3 players that have already limped in that play their hands way to far. A pot size on the flop of 4-5BB might already be enough to build a big pot. So with that part being said I am not looking for PF fold-equity. PF fold-equity is going to diminish the pot size. Thats not to say a raise on my part won't cause everyone to fold out.

As far as devising a plan to steal post-flop its rather a very certain scenario I am looking for. Maybe getting two limpers only to call my PF raise who are tighter, players who won't go far with marginal hands, or players with predicatable playing tendencies. It may sound like a lot of scenarios but at these stakes at these full ring tables I don't this come up often. So again with these small pocket pairs I'm not looking to find a lot of places to steal post-flop. I think you CAN but its not my primary concern.

In terms of middle PP there would be more opportunites to steal as they would flop stronger draws and even overpairs sometimes.