Some pre-flop play. Speculative hands vs. Loose Raisers

[Huh]

I made a couple of calls/raises last night that I usually wouldn’t have against three very loose raisers, and wanted to know what everyone thought.

1) Called a pre-flop raise with 97s from the Small Blind(costs 5/6) with four people committed and the raise coming from a very loose raiser.

2) Called a pre-flop raise with A4s from middle position, with one limper before the raiser, one cold-caller after the raiser, and one person telegraphing a call acting after me. Thought I would get at least one or two more callers.

3) Called a pre-flop raise and re-raise from my big blind JTo, from the two loose raisers. A common theme of the night (maybe happened a dozen times) was the loose-raiser open raising from middle position (sometimes blind) and the person to his left immediately re-raising with anything. I am not particularly fond of JTo, and 99% of the time this hand hits the muck, but I was feeling a bit froggy.

4) 7-Handed, one limper to me and I limp, with A6s, 3 callers, a raise, one goes, called back to the open-limper who limp-re-raise (I would bet my left-nut he doesn’t have AA, KK, or AK), and I limp-cap. Gets called around….Hot 6-way action (BTW, Tyler – stop stealing my lines…Actually I stole the line from my movie collection)

5) Raising KJs from the button in a 6-way pot. UTG limper was solid which scared me, but there were 3 people in with absolutely anything, and one was in with any suited two gapper above 7 or better.

6) Raising KTs on the button in a family pot. The flop fit me like a glove. Ten high with two spades. Bet,bet,bet,bet,bet,bet,check-fold….Oh well, I built a 20BB pot for someone with a deuce.

Comments appreciated.

-Huh /forums/images/icons/confused.gif

[haakee]

1) and 3) are terrible. They're bad hands that you're playing for multiple bets out of position. Get rid of them.

5) is perfect. 6) is fine.

I would get away from 2) and probably get away from 4) (I like a better hand to call the extra two bets, but with a ton of people in it's not terrible) but these aren't as bad as 1) and 3).

[Huh]

On hand 3, I might not have made it clear how random these two sets of cards could be. on the actual hand the initial raiser had 78 s00ted and the pre-flop reraiser had a small pcoket pair (somewhere in the fours-sevens range).

On hand 1, I was practically closing the action....But the more I think about it the more it sounds terrible. Loose Aggressive opponents always give me trouble. I am much better off with the loose-passive type....
-Huh /forums/images/icons/confused.gif

[haakee]

I still don't like hand 3. I don't think anybody who posts here is going to like hand 3. Get a better hand before you go to battle with these guys. You can certainly call a single raise here, but you shouldn't be calling 2. If they're still loose aggressive after the flop they're going to be putting pressure on you when the flop comes A-high, or the flop comes giving you a gutshot and you're going to be tempted to cold-call a raise. Wait for better hands and pound them when you get them.

Reread S&M's section on wild games. You should be playing very tight in games where there are routinely 3-4 bets several ways preflop.

[biggambler]

Sounds like you were having a winning night and just got too loose on your hand selections. Have to think of the game as one long session.

[Louie Landale]

Against tight raisors you should lay down your trouble hands: Its a tough call with AQ against someone who has a least AJ. When against loose raisers, you can now play those trouble hands.

However, the drawing hands really don't gain much based on the standards of the raiser. 97s doesn't really care if the standards are AJ or 63s: you still need to make something and beat everybody else. So I'm saying playing these drawing hands vrs a raise is MUCH more about how many players are in and how you figure the action after the flop will go, rather than the standards of the raisor.

Looks to me you need to tighten up a bit in raised pots, especially with low unsuited hands like JT.

- Louie

[Bob T.]

On hands 1-4, I don't like my position, and I don't like playing implied odds hands for two bets unless it is on installment plan, where I put them in one at a time. In that case, I am not happy with my situation, but I will play.

On hands 5, and 6 you have position, and a bunch of limpers, and hands that can dominate a lot of limping hands. PUNISH THE WEAK! I like these raises a lot.

[Huh]

Yeah, I knew 1-4 were bad. The Axs cards are a particular weakness of mine, especially in a wild game. I know I shouldn't play im', but I like flopping/drawing to the nuts. I also love jamming the flop and turn with value bets. Probably why my SD is so high.

The other hands were just plain bad, but I was bored (In 4.5 hours I got AK once, AJs once and no AQ, AJ, AA, KK, QQ, or JJ. And it was killing me to watch all the action...I think if it were a higher stakes game I would've contained myself.

On a side note, I really do think my play improves with Beer/Scotch. I seem to be much more patient and much less anxious after four or five drinks.


-Huh /forums/images/icons/confused.gif