Playing 88 and 99 after a raise.

[joker122]

Without a read, what's your SOP here? I've been 3betting unless the raise came from EP (i.e. UTG or UTG+1) but I'm starting to wonder if that's correct. At best, I'm a coinflip and at worst I'm dominated. Any thoughts?

[Schneids]

Call me loosey mcgoose but I 3-bet both unless I have a specific reason not to.

[joker122]

Well I have been as well, but do you see what I mean about best case = coin flip, worst case = domination?

[Schneids]

[ QUOTE ]
Well I have been as well, but do you see what I mean about best case = coin flip, worst case = domination?

[/ QUOTE ]

I see what you mean but there's dead money in the pot from the blinds, plus sometimes you'll actually be against a lower PP, plus you have position which should help you even more in all situations, plus there are times you run into clowns that raised 87s utg and your 99 suddenly looks much stronger, finally cold calling too often allows another player or two in and now you're stuck in no-set-no-bet mode most of the time. I think all that adds up to a 3-bet.

[Peter_rus]

I 3-bet many PP's often including even 55. Dead money from blinds save you from big pair domination. Big hands like AK or AQ tend to pay you unimproved till SD. You can easily fold on flop if encounter agression while hand like AK cannot.

[Trix]

It´s only a flip if it goes till the river.

[Cleveland Guy]

It's usually a 3-bet. It's also a good chance to see where you are in the hand. AA, KK, QQ or AK will usualyl cap.

Other hands that may get raised are Ax -J10, KQ.

By playing agressive pre-flop you'll probably use that 3 bet to make it heads up, and have a good idea what your up against.

The times it's a coin flip are much more than the times your dominated. YOu can outplay postflop to make this a worthwhile long term positive situttion.

I think the key to the 3bet is to try and get it heads up.

[spider]

[ QUOTE ]
Without a read, what's your SOP here? I've been 3betting unless the raise came from EP (i.e. UTG or UTG+1) but I'm starting to wonder if that's correct. At best, I'm a coinflip and at worst I'm dominated. Any thoughts?

[/ QUOTE ]

I had applied some similar reasoning to AJo and decided it should be folded to an EP raiser. Would you all 3 bet AJo in this case? (I'm thinking more about 5/10 than 10/20 if that affects the answer.) Thanks.

[Grisgra]

[ QUOTE ]
It´s only a flip if it goes till the river.

[/ QUOTE ]

Exactly what I was going to say.

I think you do have to decide what your call-down rules are going to be. If the flop has only one piece of "paint", my rule is to generally raise his inevitable flop bet. If it has two, though . . . well, that's when I get all confused.

[kiddo]

Easy reraise. What are you raising UTG? The hands dominating you, AK, AQ, AA, KK, QQ, JJ are only a small part of the hands you raise UTG in a SH-game.... You have TT, 99, 88, 77, 66, ATs, ATo, KQs, KQo, KJs, KJo, QJs, JTs, Axs (at least I raise Axs from any position)... To lazy to do the math now but gues you are ahead 65% against a fairly normal raiser. And you have position. And you are the one showing aggression.

[Peter_rus]

I did some math about what is a *correct* (+ev on SD) 3-bet against my set of UTG raise.

My set is 66,ATo,A7s,KJo,K9s,QTs

So correct 3-bets are AQo,99,AJs.

But when YOU have position you must 3-bet a bit more hands against me as you have some options to buy card when you're behind and win more when you're ahead. So AJo,77,ATs could be fine i guess.

[spider]

[ QUOTE ]
I did some math about what is a *correct* (+ev on SD) 3-bet against my set of UTG raise.

My set is 66,ATo,A7s,KJo,K9s,QTs

[/ QUOTE ]

(replying to kiddo also since I think you guys are making a similar point)

My UTG raises are close to this, but a little tighter. and I have this board to thank for this, because I was certainly too loose before I started reading posts here.

But my reason for not liking AJo against the average EP raiser is that the average player at PP 5/10/6m limps too much but doesn't raise enough.

So, the average UTG raise at 5/10 represents a better hand than an UTG raise from kiddo or peter_rus. The number I have for average PFR at PP 5/10/6m for other players (excluding my stats) is 9.3%. Now that will include steals, so this may imply a UTG raise of more like 6 or 7%?

If we assume 7%, that implies Sklansky hands G1 to G3, and I plug that into PokerCalculator to see that AJo would be about 38% to win heads-up against that range of hands.

So my reasoning is that 38% is not good enough, even with position, but I'm relatively new to the 5/10 game. Is position worth that much?

This is not to say, of course, that the re-raise with AJo is not good against a loose raiser. Also, I think the PFR% is going to be a bit higher (more like 11%?) at 10/20, so maybe a default re-raise with AJo makes sense there, but not at 5/10?

[Peter_rus]

Of course you're right. 3-bets PF are greatly depends on type of raiser and AJo 3-bet isn't a good idea to do against one with PFR 8 or 9. Position can't override 24% (62-38)disadvantage PF but really can override 2-5% of disadvantage IMO.

[spider]

OK, thanks for the explanation. I always hear people talking about the importance of position but it is nice to see a numerical estimate on it -- of course, it's not something you can put an exact number on, but still nice to see an estimate from an experenced player.

[Peter_rus]

Please don't take so much attention to numbers as i take them from ceiling. Just my opinion - no more. Here are much more exp players in this forum to hear thoughts.

[spider]

No, don't worry, I am not taking the 2% to 5% as a hard number. I just thought that for the scenario I described that positional advantage could not overcome a 62/38 disadvantage and you confirmed that.

And I only have about 12,000 hands at 5/10 so you are an experienced player relative to me.

[MisterKing]

Maybe someone already made this point, but part of the reason its not a coinflip unless you go all the way to 5th street is that big unpaired hands need time to catch their pair. Thus if you're 3-betting 88/99 against a UTG PF raiser, and you suspect AK-AT, KQ-KJ, QJ, JTs are strong possibilities then a 3-bet looks great. All of these hands need the 5th card to make it even close to a coinflip, so if you can snap them off prior to then, you're maintaining a significant edge (the dead money only magnifies this).

I was intrigued about the remark earlier in the thread about how much paint you can tolerate on the flop. I think bullets are particularly worrisome, as people do tend to raise a wider range of aces than anything else PF. But it its coming down K75/KT5/Q62 or something like that, esp. if I have any kind of backdoor draws, I'm raising the flop too. You'd much rather get an idea of where you are early while the price is cheap than flounder along calling on the more expensive streets.

With two "paint" cards on the flop, I scale it back quite a bit, though a flop raise is *not* out of the question. I just go into check/fold mode if re-raised, and get cautious if called. The interesting thing about two paint cards on the flop is that if your opponent has still not made a pair, he's almost a 100% lock to have a gutshot broadway straight draw (ex: he holds KJ and flop comes down AQ5). Adding this draw to his overcard draws, he's got 10 outs. With 7.5 SB in the pot (3 bets you and opponent each, SB and BB fold), he'd be crazy to fold on the flop for two bets at those odds.