The woes of being out of position

[Ed Miller]

Good 10-20 game at Muckleshoot. It is relatively passive preflop (maybe 20% raised), but can get sort of aggressive postflop, and there is a poster (with a dead small blind) in the CO, so I decide to limp UTG with the 4 /forums/images/icons/spade.gif 4 /forums/images/icons/diamond.gif. Two limpers to the CO who checks. SB completes and BB checks. 6-handed for 1 SB each.

Flop is K /forums/images/icons/spade.gif K /forums/images/icons/club.gif T /forums/images/icons/club.gif. Checked to me and I check. Checked around. 6-handed to the turn with 3 BB in the pot. Turn is the 4 /forums/images/icons/heart.gif. SB, a strong postflop player, bets. BB folds. What is my best action?

[bernie]

this is an interesting one. if you raise, theyll put you on trips which may kill your action. however if anyone has a K they have 6 outs to beat you. i would probably raise. but id be tempted to go for the overcalls. of course, then ya get drawn out on. but that may happen anyways since no K is folding to youre raise. but no str8 or flush draw is likely either. they may not put you on a FH. it may look more like a protection raise.

id raise it.

b

[brad]

i think raise, make it four bets, and then hope a low club comes off on the river and not a Ten or a King /forums/images/icons/smile.gif

[Jeff V]

I don't think this is a time to rope the dang thing as not many people would call the single bet anyhow. But any K,T or even mid pp's might pay to see the river. Jeff

[MtSmalls]

I think I would raise here. A raise would most likely indicate trips, with an unknown kicker. There is at least one K out there, and probably at least one flush draw. Unless you have a truly dominant table image, you should get two more calls here, then more depending on the river. Plus the information value of a re-raise coming from behind or from the SB may give you the chance to get away from the hand, if you need to.

[Philuva]

Raise. It is unlikey anyone has any sort of draws here, as they probably would have bet the flop. So those people are not going to call 2-bets, but they would not have called 1-bet either.

It is also likely that someone has a K and decided to slow-play it, this does not mean it was the person who bet out on the turn. So you could get 3-bet from a big K behind you or the original better, in which case you get to make it 4-bets.

I think you make more from raising than looking for overcalls.

[PokerPrince]

Raise the turn. You'll get action from anyone sandbagging trip Kings and any flushes that took a free ride to the turn.

PokerPrince

[elysium]

hi major
yea, you see a lot of players coming in with small pockets from EP because they are sure to get 5 way action. but you must remember the theorm of poker here. when you make a less than advantageous play, your opponent wins a little battle. you might win the war, but a little battle here and there can start to add up. no, that isn't mr. sklansky's theorm, that's grandpa elysium's. but the point is still valid today.

when you play a set out of position, you almost always don't get as many bets as you could. now i know you're thinking, 'but i still won. doesn't thst improve my over-all ev?'. and the answer is no. you actually lose ev. and it is the loss of ev that requires that you not play small pockets out of position, even when you know 5 will be coming in. why? because you will more often than not fail to play your hand as you would if you could see your opponents cards. this begins to make sense when you realize that a set doesn't always win. now, you lose more money because of poor position than you would otherwise.

so the reason not to play small pockets out of position isn't because you can't be sure about how many will come in; it's because you can't play your hidden set as though you knew what your opponents were holding. this means, from EP position, you need about 7 in the hand to adjust for the fact that you will be playing your cards more openly and your opponents will be playing theirs more hiddenly. but i think that having a field of 7 people in the hand is doable from EP, only now of course, there is no way that you can anticipate that many coming in, even in the games that have the most populated flops.

[Ed Miller]

So I decided at the table that pretty much anyone willing to call one bet would be willing to call two, so I raised. Sure enough, everyone (including the original bettor) folded. In fact, the CO waved AA in my face and demanded, "Is this no good?" and then mucked. I told him, "Of course it's no good... it's in the muck."

AA would definitely have called one bet... as would tens, perhaps, or other pocket pairs. I actually think I did the wrong thing here... there are only 4 BB in the pot when it gets to me, so there is no real need at all for me to protect my hand. So if I raise, it's because I think I'll make more money that way. But raising forces out anyone except a King and maybe a flush or straight draw (though some might correctly throw those away now). I think this is one of the rare instances where I should actually slowplay my hand on the turn.

[34TheTruth34]

Too bad for the cutoff. He played it well and just got unlucky to lose to pocket fours. Those darn aces never win...