4-8 Hand: How to get as little as possible from KK

Lately, I've been mulling over what hands I should be raising (2-betting after everyone else limps) with from the blinds in multi-way pots. When I first started playing Hold'em, I was making the classic mistake of only raising in the blinds with ultra-premium hands: AA, KK, and QQ. Unfortunately, any observant player will easily put you on a hand if you use this strategy. However, I haven't quite gotten comfortable with raising with hands like 99, ATs, and AQo when I can't narrow the field and will be terribly out of position for the rest of the hand. Having bad position drives me nuts.


So, I decided to experiment with never raising from the blinds since I can't get comfortable with raising with Group 2 and lower hands. I'm definitely giving up some equity by not raising with a hand like KK but I at least will not be giving away any information about the strength of my hand.


Finally, the hand:


Five limpers to me. I'm in the small blind with KhKs. It breaks my heart, but I decide to follow through with the experiment and just call. The big blind checks.


The flop is: Kc,Jd,5h


Of course. /images/frown.gif


I check with the intention of check-raising so that I can get some of my damn money back.


It gets checked around. Of course. /images/frown.gif


The turn is: Kc,Jd,5h,6d


Well, now there's a diamond flush draw out there. I bet. Everyone folds. Of course. /images/frown.gif


So, has anybody got some better suggestions on how I can evaluate what hands I should be willing to raise with from the blinds?

My current philosophy is: "Limp in with crap on my blind and I'll punish you"


I'm raising with all sorts of hands from there. Ideally I am raising a late position open limper, this gives me the widest range of hands to raise with. More players means more quality from me, particularly in the 3-4 player range. Once we get to 6-8 way action, the hand types I raise with changes, but I am back to raising for value with a wide range of holdings.


Even if you aren't comfortable raising in this spot, who cares if they know you have AA, KK or QQ? Get that equity in there. If this is in a $1 and $2 blind game then it is even more critical to punish those limpers.


At a minimum you should be raising with AA-QQ, AK, AQ and AJs. The non paired hands outnumber the paired hands even with this range which will keep them from assuming "AA or KK" when you do raise.

If you don't feel comfortable raising with weaker hands, maybe you can vary you're play based on the number of opponents. Against many opponents (say 4 or more) raise with big suited Aces and against a couple (say 2 or 1) raise with big Ax and all pairs down to medium pairs. This will vary your play and few will notice that you are being selective in your raises based on number of players in pot.

I asked myself the same questions a few months ago. I did the opposite to you however. I (and pardon me Tommy) loosened up from the blinds a little more. Most of the games I play in are weak, passive with 6+ players seeing flops unraised. I will often raise from the blinds in these games with good multiway hands like KQs, QJs, JTs and any suited ace with a broadway kicker. I will sometimes raise with mid pocket pairs as well. This seems to be working out well for me. Often I will get free cards on the flop with my suited connectors because people are afraid of my check, fearing a check-raise from AA or KK. The better players who ARE paying attention to what I raise from the blinds with are kept guessing most of the time.


So in my case, it becomes easy to raise AA, KK, QQ, AKs from the blinds.


So basically if I feel that if I have the best hand, or best drawing hand I will raise from the blinds.


Good luck,

smallfry.

if there are limpers...raise the drawing hands. in the BB with 5 limpers,,id raise JTs or Axs. more money if ya hit yer hand. if alot of limpers are in, just call with shorhanded hands like AJos, yer not getting anyone out.


here's an idea i used...mark all the hands down in their groups. take 3 highlighter pens and mark them as Shorhanded, Multi, and both. ex. AKs would be both, AQos=shorthanded, and JTs would be multi. it will give ya some ideas as when to raise by lookin at em in a different way. then just decide how many callers ya want to either call or raise, unles yer facing a raise, then its a little different, but can still be applied...


try it....who knows...


just some ideas...


b

BTW, this is the philosophy (Clarkmiester's) I follow and believe is the best. I just gave you some ideas on moving in that direction so you could become more comfortable raising out of position.