$25NL suited connector: play along

[sdunsmb]

lol at 9% limp.

[Pokey]

<font color="blue">A few notes before we move on....

1. My extended hiatus from poker was because I seem to have luckboxed my way into a life. I've always considered poker a hobby, and now that I've got me a woman I have less time for poker. Yeah, I know she's -EV, but I'm fond of her anyways. [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

2. Preflop from EP I love me some low- or mid-strength suited connectors. Nobody sees it coming at these levels. These are absolutely mandatory to raise if you're going to play them: limping for a good flop wins you too little when you hit and costs you too much when you miss, and I'm not even sure they are profitable to play under those conditions. However, for a raise you've got folding equity up the yin-yang when broadway cards come, and when low cards come you either connect or you can rep an overpair. Unless your table is extremely loose (the sort of loose you'd see in a live game) you'll have a very profitable situation when you combine your folding equity preflop (minimal), your folding equity postflop (strong), and your deceptiveness if you happen to flop well (incredibly strong). As such, I'd say the play is best described as a semibluff.

3. I'm confident in my postflop abilities to escape a second-best hand, and I'm confident in my opponent's ineptitude to lose money if I have the best hand, so I feel comfortable playing 76s for a raise. However, I should point out that there is no shame in folding this hand preflop. If you are uncomfortable playing OOP, or if you are unsure of how to proceed postflop with a modest holding, it's always best to protect your stack and live to fight another day. If you're not comfortable getting into awkward situations postflop, feel free to dump this hand pre and move on with your life.

Back to our game:</font>


SB: $28.80
BB: $24.60
Pokey (UTG): $25.75
MP: $19.10
CO: $68.60
BTN: $84.90

Preflop: Pokey is dealt 6[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] 7[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] (6 Players)
<font color="red">Pokey raises to $1</font>, MP calls $1, 3 folds, BB calls $0.75

<font color="blue">About what I expected. My intention is to steal this pot with a c-bet a shockingly large fraction of the time.</font>

Flop: ($3.10) 4[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img] 5[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] 3[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] (3 Players)
<font color="red">BB bets $3.10</font>, Pokey...?

[kaz2107]

im shovin this bitch. 25nlers CAN NOT FOLD OVER PAIRS!!!!! i dont want to keep tha hand proceeding and let a scare card hit tha turn and kill all action. he could also call wit a combo draw and we r free rollin his ass super hard where as he could possibly get away from a missed combo on the turn where he loses a lot of EV


EDIT:
love ur thinkin on preflop. spot on as always and congrats on tha whole women thing. post some pics [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

[Isura]

Welcome back Pokey! I like your explanations. The poll results are a bit disturbing though. We are not raising this hand primarily for deception.

p.s. Congrats with the lady friend.

[TheRenaissance]

Largish raise.
Though the donk is generally weakness, and villain will often fold, there is a good chance he has a smallish overpair, or even a set, and the time to commit him is now - before any scary looking aces or kings come along. He might also STILL think we have overcards, and rebluff or something.

If he has nothing oh well, move on, next hand.

There is NO point in slowplaying here.

[Antinome]

I'm looking to put enough in on this street that I can make a little more than 1/2 pot turn bet, and a river valuebet, and have all the moneys in.

getting 8 in on the flop means a 16 dollar pot, I bet 8, pot is 32, 9 dollar value bet on the river, done.

8ish is fine. I wouldn't do less than that, and I would err a little on the high side.

[danny8]

im largish raising this!

if he has a set then its better to get it ai now before a scare card like 2,6 or 7 comes.

If he has an overpair then he almost def isnt folding, especially 55 since he has a draw too(!!!!!!!!!!)

if he limped with Ax and hit a pair, hes not gonna believe that flop hit you so likely will push back, or at least call. especially with a gutshot too(again, !!!!!!!!!pair+drawomgomgomgomg)


dont see any reason to not raise this up!

and good work with miss pokey!

[doppelganger]

I'm minraising here. Our goal at this point is to get his whole stack in the middle by the river. If he's got a big overpair, flopped the low end of the straight, or caught a set, that's pretty easy - he'll push to our min raise and we get it all in right now.

If he's on overcards (more than likely) then we don't want to scare him away with a largish bet. Our goal in this case is to build the pot to a size that we can keep drawing him in on the turn without scaring him away. A minraise (assuming he just calls) will make the pot about $15 and leave our poor unsuspecting victim holding $18 in his stack.

Depending on the turn card, we will be left with the choice of a smaller, weak-looking bet like $5-$6; or a 3/4 pot bet for half his remaining stack.

I know the min-raise is generally frowned upon but in this case I believe it leaves us with the most flexibility in manipulating villains chips into the pot on later streets.

Thoughts?

[benpoker12]

Preflop i voted for fold because i don't like to play these types of hand OOP. I can see how it is profitable though. I also voted for taking pot on a later street.

I don't know why so many people chose for deception, because I think 90% of the micro stakes players don't even pay notice to other people hands.

Second part i voted for smooth-calling at first, but now i think about it it might be better to just get the money in before any bad card comes on turn and scares your opponent away. Also the chance that he will fold to your raise is rather small.

[sww]

I think we should raise here sometimes with a draw and a bluff. Minraising those hands feels terrible, let it be a largish raise. Also, if we never raise here without the nuts or the villain is an aggromonkey, maybe we could just call.