hand advice

[questionguy]

I would like to hear your thoughts how to play the following two hands in limit hold'em (the game was typical to loose-passive):

1)I was in bb w/ A9s, someone open-limped from late position and the cutoff and sb also limped so checked and got a freeplay. The flop came A33 rainbow, the sb checked, I bet my top pair/weak kicker, and everyone folded and I won a small pot.

2)I was 2 seats from the button, w/ ATo, a middle position player open-limped, I limped, the cutoff and button folded, the sb limped and the bb checked. The flop came A88 rainbow, everyone checked to me, I bet my top pair-avg kicker and everyone folded and I won a small pot again.

These two hands occurred in the same session and got me thinking that perhaps I should have checked instead of betting in both instances. It seems that by betting I could only win a small pot, but I could lose more than I could win if someone held the trips and ck-called me. If I check, someone else may pickup some kind of hand (either a draw or another paint hits and someone makes two pair- an inferior two-pair to mine). If someone had the trips or an A-higher kicker (unlikely b/c no preflop raise), I'm going to lose anyway, so I may as well check it and allow someone to pickup a 2nd best hand that would warrant calling to showdown.

I bet on flop=I win small amt or I lose medium amt after the trips ck-call me on flop and I get suspicious and then I shutdown and simply ck-call; or
I check on flop=I win medium size pot b/c some1 picks up 2nd best hand or I lose medium size pot (same reasoning as before)

thanks,
quesionguy

[GrinningBuddha]

</font><blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr />
I bet on flop=I win small amt or I lose medium amt after the trips ck-call me on flop and I get suspicious and then I shutdown and simply ck-call; or
I check on flop=I win medium size pot b/c some1 picks up 2nd best hand or I lose medium size pot (same reasoning as before)


[/ QUOTE ]

Don't forget the third option if you check on the flop: You lose a medium size pot when someone who wouldn't have called the flop bet sucks out on you by catching a miracle card (or two)

Also a third option by betting: You win a medium size pot when someone with Ax lower kicker calls you all the way down. Low limit has a lot of ace-chasers.

[Nottom]

Nothing wrong with winning a small pot with a mediocre hand. Thats the problem with Ax you are going to generally win small pots or lose big ones.

I think your play on these hands post flop is fine (I would raise if I'm gonna play the 2nd hand), you will get called by a middle pocket-pair here reasonably often and other random hands as well on occasion. Your hand is certainly not big enough to slowplay, so letting someone turn a draw of some sort seems like a bad idea.

[DaBartman]

The thing to remember here is just what are you trying to accomplish and why. Most of the time in holdem we are trying to build one pair. You did that without much of a kicker in the first instance. Middle of the road hand = middle of the road pot. You got the chips into YOUR stack. Goal achieved. Ditto for second hand although a raise pre-flop would have won an extra half bet with probably only the limper to deal with. Remember when building a single pair, you are ALOT better off with one opponet and it is worth the risk of raising to accomplish this. Otherwise, played just fine.