Play a Hand With the Masters #1 Pre-Flop

[fnurt]

Oh, if you call and MJ raises, you want to call it? I don't love calling raises with a trap hand like AJ, suited or not. When he has a real hand, doesn't that get awfully expensive?

I'm not saying it's clearly wrong to call such a raise, but the point of raising in the first place is that I'd rather give the other guys something to think about, rather than let them give me something to think about.

[curtains]

[ QUOTE ]
I'd rather give the other guys something to think about, rather than let them give me something to think about.

[/ QUOTE ]

This is why I prefer raising more than like 450-550, because you want people to have to make decisions instead of making moves that make all their decisions simple.

I suggested a raise to 600-650, but it's possible that raising to 750 is more effective as it really makes it harder for the cutoff to just call you offhand, considering his large stack.

Anyway I think the quoted sentence above is very important in tournament poker and is the reason why I don't personally like the smaller raises in this situation.

[adanthar]

[ QUOTE ]
Oh, if you call and MJ raises, you want to call it? I don't love calling raises with a trap hand like AJ, suited or not. When he has a real hand, doesn't that get awfully expensive?

I'm not saying it's clearly wrong to call such a raise, but the point of raising in the first place is that I'd rather give the other guys something to think about, rather than let them give me something to think about.

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't think there's much to think about at all when you limp and he raises: you're ahead of his raising range with 2 LP limpers, so you call. If he has a real hand, cool, we'll play poker and I have position on him.

When you make it 600 and he makes it either 1500 or 2K, are you calling? Because you're still folding the best hand a lot and I think deciding what to do there is much harder.

[curtains]

I don't think we should be so worried about this guy raising a limper and a raiser with nothing. Do you think he's sitting around worrying about everyone else bluffing him out preflop early in the touranment? I think that paranoia like this does not help one's chances.

[curtains]

Worrying about the SB is kind of silly right now IMO. He has a random 2 cards.

[North2]

I would simply call. The main problem with raising is that I cannot call a reraise, so it would make no sense for me to raise if I have no guarantee that everyone will fold. AJ is not a hand to build the pot with.

It gets better. With a hand like AJ suited on the button, I can even call a decent raise from the SB or the BB since I'll have position after the flop. If SB or BB raises an enormous amount, then I'll give credit that they're not just squeeze playing and fold. If SB or BB raises for me, I'd be happy if CO calls because I'm probably not in too good shape but I have great odds and position. If CO folds, then I'm still happy because I have position heads-up with AJ. If CO reraises, I'm STILL happy because I can now fold with no regrets. If nobody raises, I'm STILL happy because AJ suited isn't that great to begin with and it plays nice multiway.

No matter what happens, it can't go wrong. I'm limping.

[curtains]

You probably shouldn't limit your raises to only hands you can call a reraise with. If everyone folds to you on the button and you have A4s, it usually makes sense to raise, although you may have to fold if reraised. Also it makes you pretty predictable if you only raise with the absolute best hands.

[North2]

Ok, I said it wrong. AJ suited on the button is a hand that I don't WANT to fold to a reraise but I have to anyways. There are plenty of hands that are raisable but have no regrets folding to a reraise. AJ suited will leave a bad taste in my mouth when I could have had a multiway pot with nice cards or heads up to a single raise with dead money in it in great position.

[stokken]

With uknown players it is hard to define a range.
Standard would be as suggested above-somewhere along the line Any PP,A-(K-9), A-xs, Broadways and 1 gap suits.

It is sometimes good play to limp from co because of its deceptivness, and its good for establishing a read.
I would splitt the limp 4 ways
1.Crap hand-but set up for repping AA-KK to any raises or weakness
2. Good, but not excellent hand which is for some reason not elected to attempt a steal with or at least charge an amount to stay in for. Maybe a read, some reason?
3.Semidecent/weakish hand which is brought into play cheaply, and to keep button from stealing and accumulating.(One will face alot of though decisions against the players to immideate left and right, dont give them anything free)
4.Slowplayed AA-KK.
(Offcourse any of the above could be played as rep AA-KK slowplayed)

Things to consider: he is big stack, and could actually try a steal with anything, but has elected not to. But he wants to be inn the hand.

AJs. Against a fairly broad range as suggested and two random hands co:26% AJs:36,5% Sb:17% bb:20,5%
Against AA_KK co:50%, AJs:23,5% Sb and bb 13% each.

Pot is 75+150+150=375

To me a raise of 450-550 will not produce alot of information.What is it one whishes to acomplish with a raise? Stealing the blinds? I rather feel it will leave room for moves. Button could put on the squeese. Co could reraise and both raises are though to call. I`d rather limp and wait to see sb and bb actions, and if any raises co`s response. I want to see a flopp with this hand, but as cheap as possible. One should already be thinking far into the hand. What type of flopp do we want? If an A flopp we are left with a though decision, if a J flopps as top card we have a though decision.If there is a straight draw or flush draw( other then our suite)its a difficult decision.If it is rags its a difficult decision.
To continue with the hand we are hoping to flopp something that will be strong enough to bust AA or favour ourselves against the possible range. Which is a longshot.

The second approach is repping something big ourselves. I might choose to do so sometimes. Bring it up a good size,leaving odds of 1:1,5 to any caller-at least it leaves the message dont get tricky with me. It discourages moves from those without balls of steel, and it`s real easy to be done with the hand if anyone comes over the top.But I prefer moves like this in different situations and in later stages. Sometimes I would just fold and pay attention as there will most likely be a flopp, or some action that will leave some information about the players.

I favour call 60%, fold raise 20% each If I call or raise I`d do so without much hesitation

[m1illion]

Missing info - What is our table image?
Still very early in the tournament.
I raise 300, making it 450 to go.
This should get me heads up but if not that's ok.
CO range is very wide and will be further defined from his call/raise/fold. He appears to looking for a cheap flop so hands that fit that mold are his range.