AJo from BB Short Handed - pf play

[Smurph64]

Hey don't take it personally, you should look at some of the responses I got when I started.

Seriously though, consider not playing at shorthanded tables if you can avoid it until you get the concepts behind full ring tables clear.

If a table was was less than 7 I got up and left for the longest time until I was clear as to the reasons why I played a hand a certain way.

[Absolution]

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Are you talking to yourself or do you want an answer?

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I want the answer. Sorry was talking to mysel. Now listen.

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Sorry for not getting back to this, but I had a sinus headache this afternoon.

Anyway, this has already been answered as many people have pointed out in this thread, but I recommend you read Davelin's magazine article on this very subject. He reposted it in his well here .

This article discusses why you might give up a small equity edge pre-flop to allow your opponents to make bigger mistakes post-flop in a smaller pot.

As Fantam pointed out, AJo is doing well in this particular situation because one guy threw in free money for us. Against 2 limpers and an SB caller (which is also free money most of the time) you might decide to just limp along, although I tend to raise it more lately. AJo, like KQo is easy to play post-flop in these situations because:

a) when you pair either of your cards you expect it to be top pair most of the time.
b) these guys play straight forward, loose passive poker.

Here are some PokerStove numbers to think about:

6,712,144 games 10.422 secs 644,036 games/sec

Board:
Dead:

equity win tie pots won pots tied
Hand 0: 22.856% 21.63% 01.23% 1451896 82238.25 { 99-22, ATs-A2s, KJs-K9s, Q9s+, J9s+, T8s+, 97s+, 87s, 76s, 65s, 54s, ATo-A2o, K9o+, QTo+, JTo, T9o }
Hand 1: 21.825% 20.86% 00.97% 1399918 65015.92 { random }
Hand 2: 21.790% 20.82% 00.97% 1397575 64970.25 { random }
Hand 3: 33.529% 31.93% 01.60% 2142998 107533.58 { AJo }


And, if you do the stove for AQo and AKo, you'll notice that the equity doesn't change much. If you put in ATo it start to go down to around 31% and then you might consider limping.

[QueBob]

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I serious wonder if you should be playing 6 max table.

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Yes, you should not be playing six max. You're going to lose your shirt. Play full ring until you learn starting hand values and the intrinsic value of a staring hand in relation to your position.

[Xhad]

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It has never been a question if AJo has an edge here. The question is if it's best to exploit that edge now or wait until the flop to have an even bigger edge.

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Given that 1 of your opponents has a random hand and 1 of them is probably near-random (he open-limped into a late post at a 6max game!) it's going to be correct to bet your hand UI on a lot of flops anyway.