I Never Lead into a Preflop Raiser

[CruNKinTILT]

Vs certain players, I can understand leading combo draws and sets can be the most +EV way to play them.

But what else can I lead? I feel that after a while, better players know that you are only leading hands that have value and start playing against it more easily. i.e. just calling your flop lead and using superior position - when you could have gotten more money into the pot by using a c/r.

I guess what I'm asking is what kind of hands you can "balance" leading with in order to be more unpredictable.

FWIW, in the last 53k hands I've played at NL 50, 100, and 200, I cannot remember one time I led into a preflop raiser (Though mostly at NL 100). I am a solid 5bb/100 winner and I'm starting to wonder if it's a BIG LEAK to only use a c/c or c/r on the flop in this situation.

[Wolfram]

It's very hard for it to be a big leak. In your case, you only lose value when you're facing a good player that figures out your lead range and can therefore better read your hand.

The other reason I see for leading medium strong hands like top pair is to prevent a drawing opponent to get a free card. But this is pretty much a non-issue because everyone c-bets the flop close to 100% of the time, especially if they have a draw because people love semi-bluffing. If people were checking behind more on the flop with AK unimproved then we might need to start leading more but that just ain't the case in online games today.


I think the biggest reason we lead so rarely is because it has such huge reverse implied odds. We're playing right into our opponents hands, and he'll be able to perfectly control the action after that. If he flat calls, we're hard pressed to bet the turn again unless we improve, and then he has free reign to either value bet us to smithereens, take a free card or bluff us off our hand.

Leading is much more of a fixed limit play, where you don't want to lose value on any street when you probably have the best hand, and position isn't quite as huge as in NL. But then you usually check/raise anyways [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]



Cliffs notes: leading is unnecessary because of how aggro the games are and because it has RIO.