A few basic questions

[Mr.ScragglyBeard]

Hey,

I'll pitch my 2 cents, and then let some of the more experienced players give you their take. There's no "exact" answer - it really depends on your opponents and their playing style. Pre-flop, being in the small blind gives you the advantage of seeing everyone else's move before its your turn to act.

So if the tightest player in the game just made it 3-5xBB, I would be inclined to dump KQ, AJ, AT, KJ since you're either i) dominated, ii) facing a decent pocket pair (9-J), or iii) a monster. If a player who has been playing some marginal hands opened in early position, then use your best judgement - what range of hands has s/he opened with before? I would also consider how many other people are going to be playing in the pot - if you get 3-5 calls of the raise (unlikely, but for the sake of an example), then you're getting decent pot odds to play those hands.

Post flop you need to evaluate the board - if you connected with the board fire off a probe bet to figure out where you stand. If you get a raise, and then a re-raise, then there's a good chance someone was playing a better hand, and you can just cut and run. But really, it depends on who is betting. The tighter the player, the more likely it is that your hand is toast.

If you just need to complete the bet (I just want to make sure I didn't misunderstand your question) from the SB, then you would obviously do so with the above hands you mentioned. Personally, I despise playing easily dominated hands out of position - if they are non-suited I would dump the above to a sizable raise from EP pretty quickly. If the raiser is tight, they are also getting dumped suited or not. Against a looser player I would like to see a flop - the nut flush possibility/likelihood of a wider range of hands warrants a call in my oppinion with AJs, ATs.

Sorry if that was kind of vague and useless.