Playin big pairs in stud hi

[robug]

I would like some advice on playing big pairs. Like wired or split jacks or beter.

I have notice in the higher limits like 5/10 and up it seems best to ram and jam with them. But at the micro limits like 1/2 & 2/4 this is a losing stratagy.

And at party skins you have to include the 3/6 and some of the 5/10 games in my micro limit observations.

I can usually tell what kind of draw people are playing based on my notes and their board cards but at the smaller limits it seems like sometimes they dont even know what they are playing. I know when their board pairs to slow down unless I improve.
It really sucks to have someone chase you down with split 4s, failing to notice the two other 4s got folded on 3rd and have him catch 8s up on 7.
I know this is the guy you want in your game but its tough when you are playing with him and his 6 twin brothers.

Should I be playing more 3 straights or other drawing hands?

I know I would not have this problem if I stuck to the higher limits but I have a problem with to many cashouts. And sometimes I leave my bankroll lacking so I have to grind it back up.

Thanks

John

[templar999]

bug,

i understand your frustration. stud's variance drives me crazy sometimes. it's magnified exponentially at lower limits. it's like a roller coaster ride. sometimes it seems like aces or kings up is a curse. othertimes, you cant lose even with 5 callers to the river. just a few thoughts on loose and clueless games from my experience.

1. to protect big pairs, try to make the rest of the field face two bets cold at the first opportunity. this means check raising A LOT. while you will often give out unwanted free cards, the rewards to this usually outweigh the risks. even the loosest players tighten up facing two bets.

2. make sure your pair is live. sounds plain and simple, and it is. i've found trips to be the biggest moneymaker in loose games.

3. make sure your kicker is coordinated and working for you. there's a big difference between a pair of queens with a suited king and a pair of queens with an offsuit jack. not that the latter hand is worthless and unplayable, but there is a difference.

4. big split pairs are actually better than hidden pairs. was counterintuitive to me at first, but then i realized quickly that monkeys are incapable of giving you credit for a big pair in the hole. with a split pair, they might give you credit for what they see.

5. three straights 8 or above are almost always playable provided the aggression level is low and your cards both ways are live. i'd also play three broadways with one gap liberally. however, please note that if more than 3 players are in the hand, 2 or more aces may be dead. much like HE, ppl love those friggin aces.

all this may sound dumb and useless to you. if yes, apologies, if not, glad i could help.

respectfully,
temp

[templar999]

talking to someone who has also succeeded at lower stud games, her experience has been somewhat different and says my advice would not work online. as someone who plays little online, anyone's comments/criticsm would be appreciated.

[boondockst]

Definitely get 7stud for advanced players...the updated 21st century edition has a great section on loose/shorthanded games...i was doing the ram/jam with pairs on 3rd as well but if they're all going to call, you need to NOT raise so that the pot stays small and they are incorrect to call with their gutshots on later streets. and MAKE SURE your cards are live!!!! A 3-flush or 3-straight looks great but when 2 or more of your outs are gone, it drastically goes down in value.

[SittingBull]

if u believe u have the best hand is NOT a losing strategy.
However,when several players stick around with u,expect to lose MOST of the time. But those pots that u do win will more than make up for the pots that u've lost. And u will show a long-term profit.
We do not always bet/raise our big Prs. to protect our hands,but we also bet/raise them for value.
ALWAYS bet/raise ur big PRS if u think u have the BEST hand.
Happypokering, /images/graemlins/smile.gif
SittingBull

[boondockst]

There is one exception...If your kicker outs are taken and one or more of your trip outs are taken, AND YOUR OPPONENTS WILL ALL likely call...it is NOT correct to raise. This of course applies to most low limit games. On 3rd street, not enough is known about your hand, so any slight edge as far as "having the best hand" is not as important as on later streets/hold 'em.

[RandomUser]

I softplay a significantly percentage of my big pairs (probably 20-30% of the time).

When you catch trips or two pair, noone gives you credit since you didn't raise early and you can make some extra money that way.

When you check-raise them when you hit, they often three-bet with lesser hands and you can cap it.

Mixing your play up like this also allows you to misrepresent your hands and make it more difficult for your opponents to figure out what you have. For example, say the hand played out like this:

xx xx K/images/graemlins/heart.gif___calls

xx xx K/images/graemlins/heart.gif J/images/graemlins/club.gif___checks/calls

xx xx K/images/graemlins/heart.gif J/images/graemlins/club.gif 9/images/graemlins/heart.gif___checks/raises/reraises

What do I have?

Kings up?
3 Js?
3 9s?
King high straight?
Pair of Js and 4 hearts?

If I had raised on 3rd, the entire table would put me on Ks and play accordingly. This way, they really have no idea what I have.

[boondockst]

and you save money when you hit blanks in a multiway pot and your donkish opponents all make open pairs.

[PoorLawyer]

[ QUOTE ]
Definitely get 7stud for advanced players...the updated 21st century edition has a great section on loose/shorthanded games...i was doing the ram/jam with pairs on 3rd as well but if they're all going to call, you need to NOT raise so that the pot stays small and they are incorrect to call with their gutshots on later streets. and MAKE SURE your cards are live!!!! A 3-flush or 3-straight looks great but when 2 or more of your outs are gone, it drastically goes down in value.

[/ QUOTE ]

Aren't we forgetting about pot equity here? You have the best hand so the money should go in. It doesn't always get the results you are looking for, but you have too strong a holding to play it weak.

[PoorLawyer]

[ QUOTE ]
I softplay a significantly percentage of my big pairs (probably 20-30% of the time).

When you catch trips or two pair, noone gives you credit since you didn't raise early and you can make some extra money that way.

When you check-raise them when you hit, they often three-bet with lesser hands and you can cap it.

Mixing your play up like this also allows you to misrepresent your hands and make it more difficult for your opponents to figure out what you have. For example, say the hand played out like this:

xx xx K/images/graemlins/heart.gif___calls

xx xx K/images/graemlins/heart.gif J/images/graemlins/club.gif___checks/calls

xx xx K/images/graemlins/heart.gif J/images/graemlins/club.gif 9/images/graemlins/heart.gif___checks/raises/reraises

What do I have?

Kings up?
3 Js?
3 9s?
King high straight?
Pair of Js and 4 hearts?

If I had raised on 3rd, the entire table would put me on Ks and play accordingly. This way, they really have no idea what I have.


[/ QUOTE ]

this is why you raise with a King in the door when you don't have split kings, not softplay them when you do...

[PoorLawyer]

[ QUOTE ]
and you save money when you hit blanks in a multiway pot and your donkish opponents all make open pairs.

[/ QUOTE ]

the players are so bad (at least where I play) at a 1/2 game that you could have 3 players with open pairs and win with your unimproved Ks...and you save enough money by them playing their hands so weak that you usually have a couple checked around free cards if you want them to try and improve your hand.

[Roland]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Definitely get 7stud for advanced players...the updated 21st century edition has a great section on loose/shorthanded games...i was doing the ram/jam with pairs on 3rd as well but if they're all going to call, you need to NOT raise so that the pot stays small and they are incorrect to call with their gutshots on later streets. and MAKE SURE your cards are live!!!! A 3-flush or 3-straight looks great but when 2 or more of your outs are gone, it drastically goes down in value.

[/ QUOTE ]

Aren't we forgetting about pot equity here? You have the best hand so the money should go in. It doesn't always get the results you are looking for, but you have too strong a holding to play it weak.

[/ QUOTE ]


It depends on how big your pot equity edge really is.
With a dead hand you might not even have an edge; but you might have one later on if you improve and others don’t.

Whether to raise or not also depends on how well your hand plays multi-way.
7CSFAP says not to raise with, for instance, Qh7cQd in early position if your raise won’t cut down the field, since this hand doesn’t play well multi-way. So here’s a case where you (probably) have an equity edge but still shouldn’t raise.
On the other hand, you should raise with QhJdQd, since this hand does play well multi-way.

[Roland]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I softplay a significantly percentage of my big pairs (probably 20-30% of the time).

When you catch trips or two pair, noone gives you credit since you didn't raise early and you can make some extra money that way.

When you check-raise them when you hit, they often three-bet with lesser hands and you can cap it.

Mixing your play up like this also allows you to misrepresent your hands and make it more difficult for your opponents to figure out what you have. For example, say the hand played out like this:

xx xx K/images/graemlins/heart.gif___calls

xx xx K/images/graemlins/heart.gif J/images/graemlins/club.gif___checks/calls

xx xx K/images/graemlins/heart.gif J/images/graemlins/club.gif 9/images/graemlins/heart.gif___checks/raises/reraises

What do I have?

Kings up?
3 Js?
3 9s?
King high straight?
Pair of Js and 4 hearts?

If I had raised on 3rd, the entire table would put me on Ks and play accordingly. This way, they really have no idea what I have.


[/ QUOTE ]

this is why you raise with a King in the door when you don't have split kings, not softplay them when you do...

[/ QUOTE ]


I agree.
Slow playing Aces or Kings now and then is fine, but 20-30% seems way too high.
Just my opinion of course.
Also, I don’t think many people three-bet you if you check-raise with that board. And if they do, you’re probably beaten.

[robug]

I am actually about 60 pages into 7CSFAP. I did not think to skip ahead to the "Playing BiG Pairs section" This gives you an idea how much I value the opinions on this forum.

I had not thought about keeping the pot small to make sure its incorrect for them to call...

Thanks

[blackize]

Ok an additional question on the same line. How do you play big pairs in a loose passive game? Ramming and Jamming doesnt work because they will call anyways. You can't use the checkraise because no one bets, it's rare that I find a table with 1 other person willing to bet their hand.

If you do improve to aces or kings up, but someone pairs their doorcard how do you handle it? Most of the time a paired doorcard doesnt mean anything even if it causes the player to bet out. I have tried to raise that bet for information, but even if they do actually have trips they just call and then check call the rest of the hand.

[boondockst]

[ QUOTE ]
I am actually about 60 pages into 7CSFAP. I did not think to skip ahead to the "Playing BiG Pairs section" This gives you an idea how much I value the opinions on this forum.

I had not thought about keeping the pot small to make sure its incorrect for them to call...

Thanks

[/ QUOTE ]


blatant sarcasm?


And with your big pairs multiway wait to make a high two pair vs. their non-threatening boards or trips, preferably hidden trips. It's not important to win every pot in these aggressive games. I can't count the times i've thrown away a high pair or 3-flush because the 7 donks who stayed in all made high open pairs, etc. It sure sucks throwing away a big pair but it sucks more having fives full of twos beat your aces and kings.

[robug]

I could check raise more often thats for sure. I havent because I figured at lower limits the villians may not even notice.

I like your advice on cordinated kickers and split vs. hidden pairs as well. I have been raming and jaming with any old big pair.

Very Helpfull

Thanks

[robug]

[ QUOTE ]



blatant sarcasm?



[/ QUOTE ]

sarcasm... no. brown nosing... maybe a little /images/graemlins/laugh.gif

[wrto4556]

[ QUOTE ]
I am actually about 60 pages into 7CSFAP. I did not think to skip ahead to the "Playing BiG Pairs section" This gives you an idea how much I value the opinions on this forum.

I had not thought about keeping the pot small to make sure its incorrect for them to call...

Thanks

[/ QUOTE ]

im new to 7CS, but calling to keep the pot small seems like an error. In SSHE it talks about this. It says something along the lines that your preflop(or 3rd street) equity is so big that it is correct to expliot that edge rather than any other post flop(post-street?) edge you could get. because players continue with so many bad hands it becomes correct to raise and build the pot no matter the odds you're getting. I question that and would like to hear some feed back.

However, I will agree that if the players are decent players, that calling is better because your postflop(or post-street /images/graemlins/grin.gif) equity now becomes larger as their starting hands are generally better.

[templar999]

[ QUOTE ]

im new to 7CS, but calling to keep the pot small seems like an error. In SSHE it talks about this. It says something along the lines that your preflop(or 3rd street) equity is so big that it is correct to expliot that edge rather than any other post flop(post-street?) edge you could get. because players continue with so many bad hands it becomes correct to raise and build the pot no matter the odds you're getting. I question that and would like to hear some feed back.


[/ QUOTE ]

wrto,

in HE, you can often determine when you have large equity preflop. as an example off the top of my head, say you are in CO with KK and you raise after 3 limpers. the SB folds, and the rest of the limpers call. you have made this raise because you are nearly certain no one has aces and your equity is too large to ignore. however, this is simply not the case for stud. one, because players do not share community cards, the threat of domination is reduced drastically. players, even the worst ones, are rarely drawing that thin as they would be in HE. the only true domination occurs when you have pair over pair with a common sidecard, i.e., (QQ)K v. (AK)A. two, the additional sidecard basically triples the number of hands you may be playing. if you take this one further step to omaha where 4 cards are used, it becomes even rarer where one has such a large equity preflop that a raise is almost always necessary. why do people raise with aces preflop in omaha? not to exploit their equity, but mainly to knock players out. where this is impossible in a loose passive stud game, keeping the pot small is necessary quite often.

it's just the opposite in a game with decent players where they might fold trash like (5K)5 if you raise with something like (QJ)Q. here, you are counting on being able to knock them out before the size of the pot entices them to correctly run you down. get them out early prevents them from making proper plays against you on later streets. again, one is rarely ever drawing that thin in stud.

thoughts, anyone?

respectfully,
temp

[Roland]

[ QUOTE ]
it's just the opposite in a game with decent players where they might fold trash like (5K)5 if you raise with something like (QJ)Q.

[/ QUOTE ]

Not Beer. He's gonna raise you /images/graemlins/grin.gif

[wrto4556]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
it's just the opposite in a game with decent players where they might fold trash like (5K)5 if you raise with something like (QJ)Q.

[/ QUOTE ]

Not Beer. He's gonna raise you /images/graemlins/grin.gif

[/ QUOTE ]

Isn't it correct to raise?

btw, thanks templar. That makes alot of sense.

[templar999]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
it's just the opposite in a game with decent players where they might fold trash like (5K)5 if you raise with something like (QJ)Q.

[/ QUOTE ]

Not Beer. He's gonna raise you /images/graemlins/grin.gif

[/ QUOTE ]

hahaha. if he's anything of a player, he'd do much better raising me than calling.

on a side note, i do appreciate everyone's posts. since i only play once every month or so, it's nice to be able to stay refreshed.

[Andy B]

My local room is almost exclusively a hold'em house, but a lot of people go around saying that you can't beat the $2/4 game because no one ever folds. So they go play $6/12. Guess what? They don't fold either. So they play $15/30. Same thing. And $30/60. The $30/60 players aren't that much better than the lower-limit players--they just have more money. Now a few of them did get this money by being good at poker, but most of them get it by being drug dealers or bookmakers or lawyers or businessmen or whatever. This "problem" of yours is not going to go away if you move up to some other limit.

The reason that these players can't beat lower-limit games isn't that their opponents don't fold; it's that the complainers don't play very well themselves. They also tend not to appreciate the fluctuations inherent in the game, so that when they have the inevitable downturn, it affects them, and they play even worse.

One factor that does make my local $2/4 game somewhat difficult to beat, apart from the danger of dying of boredom, is the rake, which is 10% capped at $4 with a $1 jackpot drop. If you're playing micro-limit on-line, the rake is proportionally a lot smaller, so it shouldn't be much of a factor. If you're not beating the game, it's probably because you're not playing very well, although if you're playing once a month, you're never going to have enough data to draw any conclusions.

The idea of keeping the pot small to make the rest of the hand easier to play is a sound one, but don't go overboard with it. As is pointed out in 7CS4AP (if you're playing once a month, read it through two or three times before the next time you play, and post any questions you might have), if they're calling with anything, you are simply giving up too much equity if you fail to raise with a pair of Jacks.

If you raise with a pair of Aces and get five people calling to the end, it may seem like you never win, but you'll probably win 25-30% of the time. Meanwhile, you've only put in 1/6 of the money. This is a good overlay. Just don't go on tilt when you lose with Aces four times in a row, because it's going to happen sometimes. So in general, I advocate raising with big pairs most of the time.

Three-straights are OK but kinda hard to play. If they're smaller, once you have enough people in to give you the odds to draw to it, you've increased the chances that you'll be beaten enough that it's scarcely worthwhile. Most players lose money on straight draws, because they don't know when to get away from them. I don't make much from them myself. Three-flushes are where the money is in loose games, though.

[PoorLawyer]

[ QUOTE ]
If you raise with a pair of Aces and get five people calling to the end, it may seem like you never win, but you'll probably win 25-30% of the time. Meanwhile, you've only put in 1/6 of the money. This is a good overlay. Just don't go on tilt when you lose with Aces four times in a row, because it's going to happen sometimes. So in general, I advocate raising with big pairs most of the time.

Three-flushes are where the money is in loose games, though.

[/ QUOTE ]

Thank you, o voice of reason...

[SA125]

There's 2 problems you have with the big pairs. H/U and multi-way.

H/U I find that knowing your opponents, or getting a read on them, is the single biggest factor when deciding how aggressively to play them.

By 5th you should have some idea of where you're at. There's plenty of players who'll call your J up raise on 3rd with AKx, AQx, Axx if 2 suited, etc. H/U, they'll probably check/call 4th and fold 5th unimproved. Whether they check/call or check/raise 5th, you're in trouble if it looks like you haven't improved and should check behind on 6th.

The main problem multi-way is what Andy and others have said. You'll lose more often with just big pairs or 2 pair simply because, the more players in, the higher the odds against you. The draws are getting good prices and, the more there are out against you, the worse off you are.

Either way, you should still be aggressive early with them. Four flushes will hit 50% of the time. If it looks like there's 1 or 2 out against you and you're not even top pair, fold like a cheap tent.

[robug]

I agree with you 100% I find the micro limits much easier to beat. It does seem to take a little more discipline though. My swings in big bets is higher in the micro limit games though. I attribute this to my lacking discipline... When I see all those 25+ BB pots I tend to limp with weaker hands. This is not the case in the 5/10 games.
I have also noticed that this is not the case if I play 2 micro limit tables at a time. So I am sure that my lack of discipline is due to boredom.

I have started to pay closer attention to the rake. At the crypto site I play at they have 1/2, 2/4, 3/6 and 5/10 games all in $, pound and euro. The max rake is 3 $, pounds or euros from each pot. They do not cap it in $s, so when they rake 3 pounds from a 1/2pound game they are taking almost 6$. Which is a huge.
Because of this I paid out 4800$ in rakeback to one of my 20/40 pound players last month. In heads up 20/40 stud they take out at least 1 pound in every hand that makes it to 4th. With 200+ hands an hour heads up I dont see how these guys dont go broke paying the rake!

Thanks