POLL/Question on calling standard from the BB in pot limit

[Al_Capone_Junior]

Suppose you're in the BB in a party 50c BB POT limit game. Everyone has near or more than the $25 max, and you have $40. UTG raises the pot, to $1.75. It's a full table, and everyone, or almost everyone calls to you, your call closes the action. What hands, suited, unsuited, or pairs do you call with?

al

My answers:

Any suited connector no-gappers to 43s.

Any suited connectors one-gappers to 53s.

Any suited connector two-gappers to 96s.

Only suited connectors three-gapper ATs.

Unsuited no-gappers to 54

Unsuited one-gappers to 64

Unsuited two-gappers AJ only (reluctantly, at that)

Any pair

If you don't want to reply in detail, but wish to take the poll, you can say if you'd play looser, about the same, or tighter than I would...

[Guy McSucker]

I voted for "tighter" because I am not keen on making a drawing hand out of position.

It's a lie though. I probably call with anything.

Guy.

[crockpot]

i definitely think that when considering drawing hands like this, you should play significantly tighter in big blind than to call cold on the button, since you will be building a draw out of position against possible aggressive betting.

oh, and my answer is tighter than you, because i'm a tight bastard.

[sam h]

Al,

I'm folding a lot more hands than you here - especially the unsuited ones with high cards that may be dominated AJo, KJo and don't play well multi-way. I would rather have 53o.

[Zag]

I can't vote, because I would be both tighter and looser.

Playing out of position, with humungous implied odds, I want the nuts or a good draw to them. I need to have a hand that I can comfortably play strongly. Therefore, I don't much care about the suitedness of my low cards. It's nice, but it doesn't affect my likelihood of calling with them.

Also, it is a critical point that I am closing the betting. If there is even one person after me who has to call, I tighten up noticeably.

Any no gappers, all the way to 23o. With the lowest of these, I have to flop the straight, and I will go for the check-raise. I won't be drawing unless I am drawing 8 clean outs to the nuts. In other words, say I have 65 and flop K34 -- I still wouldn't call a bet unless the flop is a rainbow. Note that there is a crucial advantage to the low straights, which is that the raiser very likely has TPTK with his AK when your 34 flops a wheel. (I won a huge pot with 34o vs AJ and A5 recently -- board was A 2 5 J when we got all in.)

With the one-gappers I will also go all the way down to 24 if I know that the raiser is someone who will go all in with TPTK. Otherwise, only to 8T or so. (In fact, I might play 24 and 35 but not 46-79.) Again, I see equity vs a preflop raiser when I can make the nuts with a ace on board.

Two gappers I wouldn't play at all, except maybe AJ if I know the raiser is very loose with his UTG raises. This is because two-gappers rarely make the nuts, and when drawing, they only have 4 outs to make the nuts.

I would play any suited ace, and suited kings down to K9s. If the Kxs flops a flush, I will start strong but try not to go all in. It depends who is calling me down.

[felson]

With small unsuited cards out of position, I don't think you should call for more than 2% of your stack.

[Zag]

I don't fundamentally disagree with you. It is a very speculative play that usually costs you the amount of a big blind.

However, it is interesting that you say "small unsuited cards" (emphasis mine). When you are out of position, do you really think that the suitedness of your little cards matters much? If you flop a flush, what are you going to do? You can't put too much behind it, because you have small cards and are deeply in danger of losing to a better flush. If you bet it and you are called, you don't know if the caller has the flush already and is waiting for you to bury yourself, or if he just had the ace and is drawing. Are you going to bet again?

I suspect that the upside and the downside of the suitedness of your low cards is very close. And it certainly increases the variance of the hands. Perhaps it makes a difference by one step but no more than that. (i.e. if your bottom offsuit hand that you would call with is 89o, then your bottom suited hands shouldn't be any lower than 78s)

[felson]

I agree that you have to be very careful if you flop a flush. However, I still think it makes a big difference if your cards are suited. With suited cards, you have more semibluffing possibilities such as pair + flush draw, flush draw + straight draw, etc. These additional possibilities are significant.

[Al_Capone_Junior]

Zaq, I especially like your response, particularly your thought out reasons for why you would do this or that. Also, you understand about straights, and rainbow boards being important.

Again, I'm going to do real work and won't be around much for a week or so. Thanks for the replies, and I'll be looking again at these and other threads of interest to me when I get back.

al

[1800GAMBLER]

My first post was going to be:

I agree with everything apart from fearing another flush when you flop a low flush.

/images/graemlins/spade.gif /images/graemlins/diamond.gif /images/graemlins/heart.gif /images/graemlins/club.gif

Then i thought i might expand it to:

I agree with everything apart from fearing another flush as compared to another player drawing to a higher flush.

/images/graemlins/spade.gif /images/graemlins/diamond.gif /images/graemlins/heart.gif /images/graemlins/club.gif

Now it's:

When you have a _low_ flopped flush you'll run into another flush 1 in 5 times, aka 4:1 shot. Regarding these are X,ys players.

When you have a low flopped flush you'll see someone drawing to the nut flush, 32 out of 100 times. 2:1 shot.

Game of players with balls who will draw with A or a K:
50%. Evens.

All calcs assume 10 handed.

So yeah, it's more likely that players are drawing than have it, but not hugely. It's not often you'll see another flopped flush as well.

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An interesting hand came up the other day were i folded my K high flush draw on the turn due to odds. The flush got there on the river; the better showed a Q high flush, caller showed a J high flush and nice amounts of stacks went in. I was just amazed that the flush made it. Would have been funnier if i had stayed and it didn't make it and my K high won after all that action.