An odd play i make i want you peoples thoughts on

[Bond18]

I was having beers with Colson/Kush tonight when the topic of the 99 vs his AJ hand came up. I brought up an idea on how top lay in his spot that i had been meaning to make a post about for a while but hadn't gotten around to.

I often find in spots where i have a weak/loose limper in front of me and it folds to me in LP with a hand like AJ/KQ/KJ/AQ but i have an awkward stack of ~20 BB's (and no antes) not a lot of my options feel good. Our break down of this situation went as follows. Assume blinds in this situation are 50/100 for discussion purposes, and we have a hand like AJ/KQ/KJ/AQ

If we make the standard raise to 400 we feel the limper will always/often call and we're now sitting with ~1600 behind in a 900 chip pot. If we don't hit the flop any c bet we make is about 35-40% our remaining stack and with our stack it feels like villain will check shove a lot more loose than if we had a lot behind.

If we raise big pre flop, to say 600, thats pretty close to a shove anyway and again might put us in an awkward/previous spot post flop.

If we shove pre it kind of feels like an over bet, which many people clearly reacted harshly to in the other thread, and i can understand why.

If we limp pre we might let some awful hand the limper snuck in with stack us post, as well as a difficult hand to read from the BB.

The move i've been using in this situation, and i think its especially useful in live where c betting small is very common goes as follows.

Fish limps for 100, folds to us with AJ/AQ/KJ/KQ and i raise to only 300. The reasons are as follows:

1. If only the limper plays i can c bet flops for 300 since pot is kinda small with fold equity vs weak players and i don't commit a huge chunk of my stack.

2. It to at least some degree, discourages play from the blinds with hands that will be hard to read.

3. If one/both of the blinds elects to call pre, we can basically play honest post flop when we miss and elect to take free cards without feeling like we REALLY ought to be c betting to take the pot.

4. If one/both of the blinds elects to call pre and we hit the flop, we have built a large enough pot that it shouldn't be to hard to get it in by the turn and theres a way less chance somebody has a spastic two pair we can't predict.

This is kind of my std play in these awkward stacked situations, and i feel very comfortable with it. Colson seemed to agree that it was defiantly an option worth considering.

Your thoughts please gents?

[luckychewy]

i think w/ 20 u are deep enough that u can raise to 3x-4x and just correctly alter your cbet frequency on flops that you think hit his range more so than others. him calling you oop w/ a hand way behind our range is a huge advantage for us, and surrendering to him making a big mistake by shoving(overkill imo) or limping behind(fighting passiveness with more passiveness) are both just far far inferior to raising behind and isolating a weak limper. there's no way anyone can play well enough post flop to make up for the preflop equity edge they are giving up assuming we are only isolating them w/ a strong range assuming 20bb stacks effective.

i'm basing this off you guys both being in lp, like HJ vs CO or something, if you are in ep i think limping along is different and fine because of all the people behind you, though w/ big broadway hands i'd rather raise and get it hu because they play better in hu pots than multiway.

[KUSH]

LOL WHAT A JOKE BE HAPPY TO BE "IN THE KNOW" BOND

[Mr.Poker]

i think this is definitely fine.

You can't always make the standard play in tournaments simply because your stack size doesn't allow you to, this being one of the prime examples.

I think I had a similar situation online yesterday when at 50/100 and 1600 chips, I was dealt 99 UTG+1 at a full table. Again, most of your options seems to suck - raising means you are committed to calling a push from basically anyone, raising and getting called means the pot is around 700 and you have 1300 behind making continuation betting extremely awkward. In the end, i decided to limp in, which again, seems to suck given our stack size and hand strength.

However, I think, given the nature of tournaments, these non-standard adjustments are absolutely crucial, like raising 2.5xBB in later stages.

Nice post. I hope it gets some interesting discussion about how other people adapt.

[Clayton]

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LOL WHAT A JOKE BE HAPPY TO BE "IN THE KNOW" BOND

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post more

[WarDekar]

One major problem with this is the stack sizes of the remaining players to act. If they have a stack worth shoving, aren't they shoving like... really light here? I mean, if I have 15-20BB and I have 2 limpers in front of me, it's so easy to shove a wide range because you know you're almost never getting looked up.

I think that's probably my biggest problem with limping something like AJ here.

[Bond18]

Um, Dekar, you realize i'm not advocating limping right?

[uclabruinz]

Problem is, didn't we establish in the other thread that shoving is very +EV? Is raising to 300 really gonna be more +EV? I don't know the answer.

[shaundeeb]

that really boils down to the players postflop ability for some it will be more +EV while for others it will not be.

You just need to know your own strengths and weaknesses to decide what is best for you.

[uclabruinz]

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that really boils down to the players postflop ability for some it will be more +EV while for others it will not be.

You just need to know your own strengths and weaknesses to decide what is best for you.

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We're still only going to have 2xPOT stack on the flop. Doesn't seem like a whole lotta room for amazing postflop skill.