A hand (not grilled cheese)

[random]

This hand is against a super loose passive.

He open limps in MP and I raise him from the CO with 74o. Everyone else folds.

Flop A97. He checks and I bet and he calls. The turn is a nine. He checks, I bet, and he folds.

Okay, I didn't play the hand, but I was sweating a buddy and his plan against this guy who saw every flop was to raise and isolate him every chance he got and bet if he hit any piece of it. Sometimes he would bet with nothing, and sometimes he would check behind and fold on the later streets. The table was, indeed, playing tight, so the isolation raises worked quite often. At first I felt this was chip spewing, but it seemed to work well. Lets assume the passive player would check-call all the way with top pair, play back with better, see a turn with one overcard, and see a river with any straight or flush draw (backdoor or otherwise) - is this so bad?

[James282]

This play is terrible if it is common practice. Even as a hand in a bottle for image purposes it is pretty bad. There are still 3 players to act behind you, for Christ's sake.
-James

[schroedy]

There are a lot of "any two'll do" threads in the overall forum.

My personal preference is to just get ahead and pound them into pulp. Followed by playing a hand that figures to win more often than not but has somehow missed this time, and TRY to pound them into pulp.

I don't really need the ego boost of proving I can win with anything. I am willing to wait (PF, at least) until I clearly have the best of it and I am not yet in games where the opposition catches on (or if they do they can't control themselves to do anything about it anyway) to the fact that I don't want to play from behind.

"Which would you rather have? Better cards, position or a weak opponent?" "All three."

"One fish is not enough. I want six." Harpo Marx.

[AviD]

The grilled cheese at the Borgata is good, on rye is best! Man, I miss those sandwiches...time for a trip back down there! /images/graemlins/grin.gif

47o vs a super loose passive...not a good approach me thinks. Is he making more off raising PF and having the loose passive (who has to COMPLETELY MISS the flop) fold and/or call down with a weaker hand, than he is losing trying to push the loose passive around with a weaker holding?

I think a super loose passive will call down enough to catch on to your trash hands and make him call you down even more. How you apply that could make your plays more profitable, but I don't think you can indefinitely abuse a super loose passive by raising those trash hands 100% of the time.

Afterall, him folding for 1 more bet on the flop should be a rare event per the definition of a super loose passive. So you'll be showing down alot of trash and those isolation raises probably won't last too long with others in the game...even if they aren't the sharpest pencils in the box.

[vmacosta]

I will address the question though I must say that it is purely academic because it assumes you have full control over your opponent, as you described, AND you are positive nobody else will enter the pot (and if you are using this play often you will NEVER be certain unless you're in the BB). Then you have to decide what are the likely hands your opponent is coming in with. If he's coming in with any ace, any two cards above an 8, any Kxs, Qxs, Jxs, and any xxs that can make a straight as well as any two connected or one gapper offsuit, then I think you can play all of his hands plus any Kx or Qx with position for a small profit (provided you bet on every flop and turn, call raises only when you have correct odds, and value bet all hands as good or better than middle pair strong kicker on the river). But you then are giving up WAY to much because your other opponents and even the super LP will obviously catch on and make adjustments. Furthermore, they will diguise their adjustments, if they have any skill, so you will lose money in the transition period before you find out what adjustments they've made. So to answer your question completely, If you can find a game where this is really a winning play when done consistently, then I'm moving to where you play cards!