suited connectors

[richardf]

10-20 Loose Game, good mix of loose passive, loose aggressive, tight passive players.

Raised under the gun with 9S 8S, as suggested by Sklansky as an variation on open raise requirements.

Two cold callers, SB folds and BB calls

Flop JS JH 4C

BB checks, I bet, one cold caller calls, BB folds

Turn JS JH 4C 10S I have an open ended straight flush draw.

I bet, cold caller raises, I reraise, call

river JS JH 4C 10S 7C

I bet, call. My straight is good.

This time the "unusual" UTG open worked out. My question is how often should this be done in loose games, how often in tight games?

[Ray Zee]

looks to me you played like a maniac, unless this was a very unusual hand for you to play like this. you bet and reraised what looked like obvious trips with your draw. that cant be right. you may be trying to become too creative. tighten down. good luck.

[richardf]

In retrospect, you are right.

My thoughts at the time were that the player is loose aggressive and may be testing me. His call told me he had trips, as I figured he would fold w/o a jack. If he raised again, he had J 10 and I would need the straight flush and I could safely fold.

[jdoe]

I will make this play from time to time, but i think it tends to be a better image move out of the big blind.

also, when you raise preflop with a "longshot" i think the texture of the board that follows will play into your image. If you make your str8 flush players will tend to forget about you pre-flop play and be distracted by the great hand you make.

but if you raise with 89s and take the pot down with top pair, they will remember that one.

just my $.02

[Ed Miller]

The preflop raise is the sort of play that should be made a couple of times a year and only against players that you know will notice and remember. Otherwise, it is just -EV.