Strategic play advice?

[Loci]

This is probably better suited for the psychology, but I want opinions from the high limit players.

I used to find that I made a lot of money from little pocket pairs, looking for trips and taking down fairly large pots as a result. I haven't found, recently, that I'm making prime equity out of my low trips when I hit them... I'm looking for plays to increase the level of equity from these hands... (okay, granted I used to be playing Geek-town, which is pretty soft, but the backroom game isn't any better.)
My general play is with mid-low flopped trips to 1/2 pot bet EP, pot-bet from late position, slow play when an A hits.
Questions I have are: opinions on these moves, how strong much should I vary the betting when a 2 or 3 flush/straight flops? Against LAGs? TAGs? etc etc...

[AZK]

I started making a lot more money in mid/late position with 22 - 66 by raising preflop. Nothing crazy unless there were very observant opponents at the table. And granted you're right, my competition is greektown, but there if 6 people are seeing a flop for 5, 6 people are seeing a flop for 20. It's amazing how much more money you make with them when you build a pot.

For your situation, I'd raise too, but probably for different reasons, mostly to keep other guys off of trying to figure out what you have when you raise.

Also as for your question, are you talking about betting a set or betting trips? On draw boards I bet my sets harder, on uncoordinated boards much slower. As for trips, I bet these very differently than sets, because if I'm being called then my opponent has trips. I think I make more money calling down with trips because opponents think it's a great place to bluff.

[LuvDemNutz]

What is Greektown?

[mcb]

Casino in detroit.

In response to the initial poster I think raising these hands in LP can be benificial. It can take down blinds and can win you the pot on the flop with a bet. Mix it up. If you hit a set, all the better.

[Loci]

Greek(geek)town is the holy mecca of 1,000 foolish players, and six smart ones. A softer high limit game can't be found in the country, imo.

[riverboatking]

the great thing about raising w/ the mid pocket pairs in position is that when you hit your set you have increased the likilhood that you will be checkraised exponentally due to your preflop raise.

for some reason people always like to put you on big cards when you raise in late position and i can't tell you how many times i win big pots after flopping small sets due to my preflop raise.

it usually goes something like this.

i make a standard raise preflop, get called by one or two players, then if i flop my set i bet about 2/3 of the pot, which is exactly what they think i would do w/ AK and exactly what they think i wouldn't do if i actually hit a set.

so they checkraise me, and i go into acting mode, staring at the flop looking at there stack, counting out the raise, and then finally reluctantly calling "hoping to hit an A or K on the turn" /images/graemlins/grin.gif

then hopefully no A or K comes on the turn and they lead into you big, and you decide how to proceed from there based on how deep you are.

obviously you can't pull this off everytime or people will catch on, but i tell you it works like magic when used in the right spot.

i took a big pot off of tony d (who by the way confirmed that he did actually fold the J10 to hellmuth in the WSOP, and it wasn't doctored by ESPN, contrary to some popular conspiracy theories posted on 2+2) using this approach.

it really helps if you have an aggressive table image, because then people expect you to auto-bet the flop regardless.

i got lucky to flop the set vs. tony after about twenty minutes of me bullying the shorthanded table, and so he decided to make a stand at the wrong time.

i'm not saying this to try and brag, because tony d happens to be a fantastic no-limit player, and a really nice guy (always a pleasure to play with, and always gracious when he wins or loses), i just want to show that this strategy can be effective vs. even the best no-limit players with excellent hand reading skills.

ps. this strategy is really effective when dealing with stack sizes between 100-250bb. however i would love to hear some bigger players share there approaches when sitting behind mega-deep stacks in the 300+bb range.

[Loci]

I was specifically referring to pocket pair flopped set. I had been making a fair amount of money on these hands back in the day, but I'm definitely not getting the action that I used to off of them. It's difficult to figure out if I'm giving something away, if my approach has been flawed the whole time (but against geek towners and thereby unnoticed), if I've lost something skillwise in my months off, if I've forgotten exactly how I used to make these plays, or if I've gotten so mechanical on my plays that it has become transparent... I'm reevaluating one apparent hole after the other, reading up out of the old books, checking out new ones for strategm, etc... I'm going to reevaluate every rusty gear till I get the spit shine and squeeky clean again.

[Loci]

Taking down the blinds doesn't really interest me in a cash game as much as maximizing the score. An occasional blind steal won't make up for as much as you lose on called/lost raises. It hedges those losses a little, but nothing substantial... 7 or 12 bucks doesn't make the stack, it's the difference in suckering a guy in for two hundred extra here, a hundred extra there that I'm concerned with.
That being said, I do agree that raising preflop is good from a late position, but that always raising a pair will eventually be noticed. Still and silent can be just as deadly. Especially if you flop set of ducks and the other two cards are an A and K... I feel that I lost my fish because of the appearance of the A on a flop. (On a side note, I also made money off this on a different hand, but that was a unique situation and has been written about elsewhere.....)

[MagikKid]

The hand in question with Tony D and Hellmuth showed Tony with JJ in the hole for middle set. Are you saying he really did have middle set and folded the hand (you said JT)? I found it really hard to believe when I saw it on TV, as well as some other "strange hands" that were brought up later. I wouldn't say conspiracy, but creative editing seems highly likely. /images/graemlins/smile.gif

Magik

[AZK]

Hmm, well if it makes you feel any better, the only time I find myself truly breaking people and getting paid off when I flop sets is when I have called a large raise with a lot of people and the flop comes out with my card and an A or K. That's when you are going to make good money. I find in limped pots everyone gives you credit more or less and unless they have a draw what not they are going to fold. The exceptions are when you both have medium sized stacks, that's when you can stack top two...separate out the the money you make flopping sets in raised pots vs. unraised, which one are you not getting paid off in?

[riverboatking]

[ QUOTE ]
The hand in question with Tony D and Hellmuth showed Tony with JJ in the hole for middle set. Are you saying he really did have middle set and folded the hand (you said JT)? I found it really hard to believe when I saw it on TV, as well as some other "strange hands" that were brought up later. I wouldn't say conspiracy, but creative editing seems highly likely.

[/ QUOTE ]

no the hand in play showed tony d with J10 and he turned trips not a set.
and yes he folded his hand.

[MagikKid]

I don't remember that hand. What did Hellmuth have?

Magik

[turnipmonster]

the deeper I am, the more I like a raise with a low pocket pair, especially behind limpers. with 250+BB it's hard to get allin in an unraised pot, and raising doesn't hurt your implied odds the way it would if you were 50BB behind. in some cases you can even stand a reraise.

the other advantage to raising is in deeper games the person with position and initiative wins a lot of pots uncontested, because you are going to be making calling down an unattractive option for your opponent, and can easily test him later.

so for me, raising small-medium pairs is pretty much a function of stack sizes. only other thing that plays into my decision is how likely I am to take down the pot uncontested. if I have to make a hand I generally like limping more and more, but I'll still raise if money is deep enough.

--turnipmonster

[Loci]

Do you feel that my flop technique is proper?

[turnipmonster]

I think for most bigger games it depends too much on your overall play for me to offer a specific opinion on any given flop bet.

the "weight" of a bet is loosely correlated (in opponent's minds) with the types of hands you will make that bet with. that's how people make reads and put you on hand ranges, so for me the question is what sort of hands do I need to make a certain bet in a certain situation? I guess this is like shania or something.

anyways, if you will often bet the pot on the flop on a steal (like a continuation or just a draw), then of course you should often bet the pot with a set. it really depends too much on the specifics of the situation to say in general I think, although I am pretty sure it is probably not much of a mistake to never check a set on the flop.

all this may be very obvious to you already, just my thoughts.