Quick PF Question

[toss]

A loose passive callingstation limps on the Button. You have A4o in the SB. BB is also semi-loose passive. Blind structure is 2/5. Is it worth playing here?

[MyTurn2Raise]

I'd raise

[gh9801]

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I'd raise

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I'd actually fold here

[Obliky]

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Is it worth playing here?

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Yes, its not even close.

[gh9801]

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Is it worth playing here?

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Yes, its not even close.

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Really... how so? If BB's tighter I'd be more willing to raise this. Threehanded oop with a hand that doesn't have too great of an edge against anything doesn't make me happy. And even if it's heads up I'd rather have position when I'm beating up on a donk. With such a good seat I'd wait for some other time instead of push such a marginal edge

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A loose passive callingstation limps on the Button. You have A4o in the SB. BB is also semi-loose passive. Blind structure is 2/5. Is it worth playing here?

[/ QUOTE ]

I would fold. No flop is going to be really that great for you. If you flop a pair of fours it is unlikely to be top pair. You are unlikely to get a lot of action if an ace flops, unless someone has a bigger ace. You are playing OOP which makes everything even harder. If I thought that any of the players folded a lot post flop, I would bring it in for a raise as you would likely have a lot of fold equity on the flop.

[MattC]

how is this easy given this structure, someone explain please.

[Obliky]

Im calling mostly because we are playing against two loose/passive players. Even though we are oop i would be feeling resonably happy playing post-flop with them.

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its not even close.

[/ QUOTE ]

Thinking a little more it may be closer than i had originally thought..but i still call.

Edit: I imagine this kind of situation comes up quite often in 6-max games (which i dont play) where you cant just:

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wait for some other time instead of push such a marginal edge

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Id be interested to hear some 6-maxers thoughts...

[limitholdemshark]

no fold and get on to the next hand.if someone forced me to play i would raise to go heads up w the button.But why get involved.You need a hand that has high card values such as A10o 0r A9s or better.Or,pocket 7s or better to get involved and then u would raise.A4 suited or not just dosnt cut it.

[private joker]

I've generally been folding this. With a tight BB it's an easy raise. Calling is the worst option. Ace-rag 3-handed sucks.

[toss]

Thanks for the replies. I'm not even happy playing A4 out of position against a Loose Passive so I'm even less thrilled against two.

[nervous]

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I'd raise

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I'd actually fold here

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I think folding is the worse of the 3 choices. You aren't going to play an ace 3 handed for a discount?

I'd probably raise this 75% of the time.

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Thanks for the replies. I'm not even happy playing A4 out of position against a Loose Passive so I'm even less thrilled against two.

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I am a very tight player (15-17%) and in my opinion your hand is just to good to fold in this spot. The player limping on the button surely has a very weak hand, and the big blind has a random hand. There is a great probability that your hand is the best right now. And keep in mind you dont have to necessarily hit a flop to win! If the flop comes out Q72ish or K83ish, or any paired board, a bet will likely win the pot. And if you flop a gutshot wheel draw the board will likely be ragged enough for this to easily be a profitable semibluff. And also dont forget that if the flop gets checked around you are in the best position to bluff the turn if a blank hits. And if you actually flop an ace your hand is very likely to be best since if the button had an ace he wouldve likely raised. And then you can chose to either bet your top pair or check it and induce someone else to bluff or bet a weaker hand all the way down. Also If you flop your 4 there is still a good chance you will have the best hand against just 2 opponents. Understand there is a very big difference between playing A4o in the small blind against 2 people vs against 3 people. If 2 people had limped in than you have a clear fold since you are much less likely take down the pot when the flop misses you and there is a sigificantly greater chance you wont have the best hand even if you hit the flop. But with just one limper this is a must play as you will have many ways to win post flop. Granted most of the time you will be checking and foldling postflop, but there will still be enough opportunities to steal the pot against two players with weak hands to make A4o a profitable play here. Now the only question is should you raise or call. With no read you should just call, as you dont want to put yourself in a position of betting every single flop cuz you raised preflop and possibly following through on the turn with not much of a hand, this will be too costly. Forcing the BB out is just not worth this trouble. If however you have a read that the button really respects your raises and will fold easily postflop then by all means raise it up, now getting the BB out is important. To reiterate, you should not be folding A4o in this spot becuz this situation is just too good to pass up. Sometimes the specific situation you encounter is more important than the actual cards youre holding. This is a good example.

[freehat]

I call, for pair value, high card value and bluffing and semi-bluffing value on the flop.

[MyTurn2Raise]

ok...before I just said I'd raise...now I will explain. (I thought about this in the shower today.)

First of all, these seem like the type of players that don't adjust their standards much for the number of players in the pot or position. Thus, if they take the time to think about your hand, they will put you on something huge. After the flop, you can bet out with nothing. If they don't hit their hands, they likely won't play back at you. I wouldn't expect anything tricky on their part to trap you for big bets on later betting rounds. My big fear is the BB having something nice or getting called down by AT or 66 and losing. You have to play decent after the flop, but I think the raise puts you in the best +EV situation.

My 2 cents

[rmarotti]

Fold unless you're a postflop master. To those who like entering this pot with this hand: you need folding equity. You don't have it.

[colgin]

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Is it worth playing here?

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Yes, its not even close.

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You want to try to back this up a little.

That actually may be hard to do since you're wrong.

I fold this without a second thought, but to the extent it is playable it is close and not at all a no brainer.

Against two RANDOM hands, A4o barely has a pot equity edge (around 37% or so according to Poker Stove).
But you are not necessarily against literally random hands. Button is loose-passive so his limping standards may include sub-average hands but not necessarily any two. In fact, he may have a decent holding but have just limped, rather than raised, merely because he is passive.

And you have to play the hand out of position against two loose-passives so it will be hard to define where you stand after the flop. If you don't hit your Ace are you going to keep firing at the pot? Button, because he is passive, may well have open-limped on the Button with a slightly better Ace-rag hand. Being against two calling stations is great when you have a hand with a significant equity edge. But when you don't have one I would like to have some fold equity as well, which I doubt you have here.

[winky51]

I'd fold. out of position, blek!

In position with one limper I'd raise the suited one BUT only on the button.

Lets see.

37% PE vs 2 random cards
36% PE vs random BB and a typical fish calling hand like T7s, T9o.
38% PE vs random BB and a typical fish calling with 2 paint like (KTo)

Not very good in my opinion. being suited is a 6% shift. -3% from them +3% to you.

Calling yields this 3.45% to hit 2 pair, trips.. and above. No draws counting. 14.5% to hit an ace. About 18% to hit one of the above. 1:5 on the pot 1:4.5 to hit a hand. Probably you won't get paid, there are redraws, and your out of position.

Doesn't seem profitable. What happens if you raise and miss? Now what? Most likely someone hit that flop, around 50% for just a pair. If they call the flop bet (assume they have a pair) then you got really 3 outs for the ace or a 6% chance to hit. If they have a draw and you miss they can have as many as 15 outs (9 flush, 6 for pair)

I hate Axo, althought my poor KKs always run into them annoyingly /images/graemlins/smile.gif

[jat850]

Unless you think your Ace rules, fold. If you think your Ace rules, raise. I do not like calling. As others have noted, you will be OOP and you won't get any feedback from the passives and you won't be able to push them off their cards - they are calling stations, remember? The raise might be enough to shake them off a small pot when the cost doubles so a PF raise to a bluff bet out on the turn looks OK to try but I would prefer it HU instead of against 2.

[Justin A]

Calling > folding > raising.

I think calling and folding are close, but raising is spewing unless the BB is really tight and will fold a lot. Then a raise is best.

[toss]

Lets say we called this hand and the BB checked.

Flop is Ks7s9h. Checked around.

Turn is a 2d. Do we lead here or check again against these loose passive types?

[Entity]

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Calling > folding > raising.

I think calling and folding are close, but raising is spewing unless the BB is really tight and will fold a lot. Then a raise is best.

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I definitely agree. You don't need to be a postflop master to turn a profit with this hand.

Rob

[Justin A]

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Lets say we called this hand and the BB checked.

Flop is Ks7s9h. Checked around.

Turn is a 2d. Do we lead here or check again against these loose passive types?

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We check.

[sfer]

I'm not folding.

[sfer]

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37% PE vs 2 random cards
36% PE vs random BB and a typical fish calling hand like T7s, T9o.
38% PE vs random BB and a typical fish calling with 2 paint like (KTo)

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This is a good argument to complete.

[sfer]

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Is it worth playing here?

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Yes, its not even close.

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You want to try to back this up a little.

That actually may be hard to do since you're wrong.

I fold this without a second thought, but to the extent it is playable it is close and not at all a no brainer.

Against two RANDOM hands, A4o barely has a pot equity edge (around 37% or so according to Poker Stove).
But you are not necessarily against literally random hands. Button is loose-passive so his limping standards may include sub-average hands but not necessarily any two. In fact, he may have a decent holding but have just limped, rather than raised, merely because he is passive.

And you have to play the hand out of position against two loose-passives so it will be hard to define where you stand after the flop. If you don't hit your Ace are you going to keep firing at the pot? Button, because he is passive, may well have open-limped on the Button with a slightly better Ace-rag hand. Being against two calling stations is great when you have a hand with a significant equity edge. But when you don't have one I would like to have some fold equity as well, which I doubt you have here.

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Peter, you're being offered 4 to 1. As for postflop, it's easy. Flop an Ace and bet. No need to continue beyond that.

[BigEndian]

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Ace-rag 3-handed sucks.

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As an excercise, which is a better situation to be in generally:

a) A-rag in the SB with only a button limper.
b) A-rag in the SB with 5 limpers.

- Jim

[mtdoak]

Yes.

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Ace-rag 3-handed sucks.

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As an excercise, which is a better situation to be in generally:

a) A-rag in the SB with only a button limper.
b) A-rag in the SB with 5 limpers.

- Jim

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A is much better than B. You should always fold in the B situation. In situation A, you can possibly win without even hitting your hand, there is lots of bluff equity in situation A as you will have the first chance to bet once the flop comes, if the flop comes out KK3, you will bet, they will fold and you will yell ship it! In situaion B you will actually have to hit your hand to win, and even if you flop top pair, you could easily still be trailing or get turned or rivered. Sitation B is going to cost you alot of money in the long run so dont be turned on by the pot odds.

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Calling > folding > raising.

I think calling and folding are close, but raising is spewing unless the BB is really tight and will fold a lot. Then a raise is best.

[/ QUOTE ]
You must consider the BB and the Limper b4 you even think about raising.

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Lets say we called this hand and the BB checked.

Flop is Ks7s9h. Checked around.

Turn is a 2d. Do we lead here or check again against these loose passive types?

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On that board, I would still check the turn depite the fact that we got an awesome turn card. The board is just too scary and theres still a decent chance that this board hit one of the other players even though they both checked the flop. If the flop was Kc 9h 3s, and it got checked around, then you definitely should bet the turn if the 2d hits.

[detruncate]

I think it's fairly close between calling and folding. In the end I probably make the decision based on how confident I'm feeling about my post flop play that session.

You're getting 4:1 with a reasonable chance your hand is best right now.

Against loose-passive types, these are the perfect type of opponents to be in with with this kind of marginal hand. You don't want to be raised off the best hand if an Ace flops (against aggressive types), so this seems like an easy call.

Raise out of position? I think not. You put in 8 dollars to try to win 12 out of position? Doesn't seem like you have much fold equity here.

I think you will have the best hand more than 20% of the time, so $3 to win $12 seems like an easy call to me.

[Luv2DriveTT]

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Blind structure is 2/5. Is it worth playing here?

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I think the majority of responders seemed to ignore this important part of the question. As Sfer pointed out, the Hero is getting 12:3 (4:1) on his money... he better play on every time. If the BB is tight, then raise. If the BB is loose and often calls a raise in his BB, then a call is fine.

TT /images/graemlins/club.gif

[colgin]

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Is it worth playing here?

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Yes, its not even close.

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You want to try to back this up a little.

That actually may be hard to do since you're wrong.

I fold this without a second thought, but to the extent it is playable it is close and not at all a no brainer.

Against two RANDOM hands, A4o barely has a pot equity edge (around 37% or so according to Poker Stove).
But you are not necessarily against literally random hands. Button is loose-passive so his limping standards may include sub-average hands but not necessarily any two. In fact, he may have a decent holding but have just limped, rather than raised, merely because he is passive.

And you have to play the hand out of position against two loose-passives so it will be hard to define where you stand after the flop. If you don't hit your Ace are you going to keep firing at the pot? Button, because he is passive, may well have open-limped on the Button with a slightly better Ace-rag hand. Being against two calling stations is great when you have a hand with a significant equity edge. But when you don't have one I would like to have some fold equity as well, which I doubt you have here.

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Peter, you're being offered 4 to 1. As for postflop, it's easy. Flop an Ace and bet. No need to continue beyond that.

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OK, Dave. Getting 4:1 with about an 18% chance of flopping an Ace you are about breakeven if calling put you all in and that your Ace-bad kicker will often be good (which it will be). But calling doesn't put you all in. Normally I worry about reverse implied odds with an Ace-rag hand (especially OOP), but here against two calling stations you should get called down by one or both of them often enough to offset the times when the Button limped (or the BB checked or raised) with a better Ace (or otherwsie hits some luckbox hand against your top pair). So, since these guys suck, you have implied odds in your favor and not against you and you don't even need folding equity.

My question for you (and others as well) is how low you would drop, asuming all other facts being the same, in terms of high card-rag to complete here. Let's just leave the rag as 4 for simplicity sake. In each case you will be getting 4:1 assuming the BB does not raise. Do we call with K4o? How about Q4o, etc? In those situations top pair still looks decent although you become (obviously) more and more susceptible to overcards as you drop down and risk getting sucket out on more even if you get a decent flop. Where do you think the cutoff point is here.

I assume that unimproved showdown value here versus our initial starting hand of A4o doesn't matter since we weren't talking in that case of getting to the river unimproved anyway.

Against one weak limper, I believe its ok to play Ax, K9o,Q9o,J9o,109o,98o. What you must understand here however is that I am not playing these hands based on their intrinsic value becuz intrinsically they are almost worthless. I am playing them to see a flop against two players(button+BB) who likely have weak hands themselves, and I believe I can find enough bluffing/semibluffing opportunities, to make these hands profitable, plus if I flop decently I can still get away from my hand if the action says im beaten, so Im not worried about getting trapped here either. And theres little risk of bluffing my chips off either since If I bet a K83ish flop with nothing, if im called in one spot, im done betting for the rest of the hand. I hope I answered your initial question well enough, cuz thats how low I will go in this situation.

[Chris Daddy Cool]

raising is clearly the worst option here.

[sfer]

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Against one weak limper, I believe its ok to play Ax, K9o,Q9o,J9o,109o,98o. What you must understand here however is that I am not playing these hands based on their intrinsic value becuz intrinsically they are almost worthless. I am playing them to see a flop against two players(button+BB) who likely have weak hands themselves, and I believe I can find enough bluffing/semibluffing opportunities, to make these hands profitable, plus if I flop decently I can still get away from my hand if the action says im beaten, so Im not worried about getting trapped here either. And theres little risk of bluffing my chips off either since If I bet a K83ish flop with nothing, if im called in one spot, im done betting for the rest of the hand. I hope I answered your initial question well enough, cuz thats how low I will go in this situation.

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Well, my plan is to flop a pair or get away. If I miss, I have zero intention of bluffing into two weak calling stations.

I'd play hands like K9o, Q9o, J9o, but that's about it for the paint-rag combinations.

Even a calling station can miss a flop. If the flop comes out K33r and the passive player has Q4s, he's not calling in a small pot. Another advantage about being against a passive player is even if you miss the flop, you can check, the BB checks and unlike most players, the passive player is more likely to give you a free look at the turn card which is important. Also with an Ax hand, it can get checked around all 3 streets and you can win unimproved. This can happen against passive players. Against this type of weak player, I am going to see a flop with a submarginal holding every time in the small blind, but if you think you must hit your hand to win, then obviously every hand i mentioned playing should be thrown away since the hands i mentioned will not hit enough to make calling out of the SB playable.

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raising is clearly the worst option here.

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With no read this statement is correct, but if the big blind is tight and the button player respects your raises(ie he will fold a decent amount on the flop) Then a raise is the best strategy.

[sfer]

Did you read my posts? I'm not advocating folding. I'm saying that betting flops with Ace high isn't going to get far against these players.

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Did you read my posts? I'm not advocating folding. I'm saying that betting flops with Ace high isn't going to get far against these players.

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There are many flops that you must bet with Ace high since you probably have the best hand. If the flop comes out 992 you must bet since you probably have the best hand and you need to protect it. And I dont think you should be so scared to bluff the flop on many boards like K72ish. Nobody said the button or the big blind was a big time calling station, I dont remember a read saying either one will call the flop with no pair or no draw. There are many flops that can come down where betting with almost nothing can be profitable. The pot is small and being in the small blind gives you the advatage of the first attack and even most loose passive players dont like to call flops in a micro-sized pot without a pair or some kind of a draw. Im not saying to bluff every time in this spot, in fact the hero should be checking and folding the vast majority of the time, but there are many flops the hero should be betting even without a pair.