HOH3 Problem 1

[Moose747]

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There's really no use raising (or playing) here simply because there's nothing to steal, and that's what you are doing if you raise with T8o, stealing.

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If this is all you're trying to do, then yes it's a bad play. But it's not. There's no such thing as blind stealing with the blinds this low. The blinds barely even exist. What you're doing is challenging players behind you to play poker. If you think you're a better post-flop player than they are and enough better that you can win more than you lose with a marginal hand like T8, then by all means play it. Without much of a read, I fold. If I think my opponents are bad at poker, I verywell might raise.

[Gomez]

A only. D is a Joke. And what type of tournaments do you start with 2500 chips?

[allenciox]

I think that any of a), b), and d) are defensible. If you are confident that you are playing against people that will get their whole stack in with one pair, then it is correct to limp (you want to encourage others to limp, so you have more opportunity to stack them). If you feel that the blinds are imbeciles but the players behind you are tight aggressive (or the type of aggressives that will raise any limps on their button), then you might be good to raise.

In the normative case, where you feel that your postflop play is not a lot greater than those behind you (since they have position), you may want to vary your play, something like 70% fold, 15% limp, and 15% raise, particularly if you are limping small pairs, etc. If all you are limping is small pairs, you are too easy to read.

[Bullet_Dodger]

A > B > D > C

Standard.

[Wetdog]

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A only. D is a Joke. And what type of tournaments do you start with 2500 chips?

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Stars $1M guaranteed starts with 2500.

[dwatts1350]

A.

[mlagoo]

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There's really no use raising (or playing) here simply because there's nothing to steal, and that's what you are doing if you raise with T8o, stealing.

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If this is all you're trying to do, then yes it's a bad play. But it's not. There's no such thing as blind stealing with the blinds this low. The blinds barely even exist. What you're doing is challenging players behind you to play poker. If you think you're a better post-flop player than they are and enough better that you can win more than you lose with a marginal hand like T8, then by all means play it. Without much of a read, I fold. If I think my opponents are bad at poker, I verywell might raise.

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T8o is not a marginal hand. It's crap. If you're going to raise with that, you should be raising with like 80% of your hands or something here. Which is terrible, for obvious reasons.

Folding preflop is okay!

[pa3lsvt]

The only reason I raise here is to lay out a LAGgy preflop image. That said, I want to show the hand down as cheaply as possible post flop, especially if it improves enough to call bets (i.e. paired somehow or drawing).

Keep in mind that the loose players to my right will give me less cred when I play back at them when they see me make a standard preflop raise with T8.

One thing I'm NOT trying to do is play a big pot OOP, so callers that aren't in a blind make this an automatic check/fold if I miss the flop.

I have to be feeling especially frisky to pull this move.

85% of the time I'm just open folding. It's probably too early to be spewing chips for metagame.

[Moose747]

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T8o is not a marginal hand. It's crap. If you're going to raise with that, you should be raising with like 80% of your hands or something here. Which is terrible, for obvious reasons.


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Someone better go tell Ivey. And Juanda, Hansen and Negreanu.

I'm not saying I usually raise here, because I almost never do, but I do believe there are situations where it's worth considering. When deciding to raise, cards are a consideration and these ones are bad. Position is a consideration and it's not great. Chip stacks are a consideration and here they're so big that implied odds may warrant raising. And quality of players at the table is also a consideration. I'm not willing to grant that there aren't opponents against whom a raise here is +EV. The top pros know this and thats why you'll see Howard Lederer raising 80% of hands in late position.

[dmk]

the top pros are very good at playing postflop poker and reading opponents, especially live. most of this forum is not on that level. and i don't even agree that they raise 80% of their hands in LP. from what i've seen, they're aggressive, sure. but come on...