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buhler26
04-13-2004, 03:47 PM
I have a general strategy question. Sklansky, in his books, advocates raising from very late position with hands that do well in volume pots when you have several limpers already in the pot. For example, 3 people in front of you call the BB, you have T9s on the button. You raise, getting everyone, and maybe the blinds, to put in another bet. The idea is get the pot large so you have good odds on later rounds with which to call drawing hands. My question is this:
Which hands is it favorable to do this with?

I think hands like QJs or JTs are pretty obvious, but what about 67s, or Axs? What about small pairs? Sklansky doesn't seem to go into great detail about which hands will show profit with this play. Any insight?

LetsRock
04-13-2004, 04:07 PM
I would think that just about any suited connector would qualify for this strategy, obviously the bigger the better.

There's a lot of opportunity to flop a good drawing hand with suited connectors.

I would think that small pairs would not be good for this - you pretty much want to get to the flop as cheap as possible so you can release the hand if you don't hit your set.

Axs is only a one dimensional hand - it doesn't give you the additional straight option (unless you're talking about x=2,3,4,5 and we all know how much trouble these hands can be) so you pretty much want to see a cheap flop here as well.

(Not an expert - just my take)

bernie
04-13-2004, 04:08 PM
This play also loses value, not all of it by any means, if your opponents would play farther regardless of the pot size. Henceforth, you dont have to raise to tie them to the pot.

But it's fun to do anyway.

b

Spyder
04-13-2004, 04:31 PM
Suited one-gappers as well?

Spyder

LetsRock
04-13-2004, 04:48 PM
[ QUOTE ]
Suited one-gappers as well?

[/ QUOTE ]

It takes a much more precise flop to make these hands as profitable, so I would tend to say no. I rarely even call with suited gappers as a general rule, so raising would be very unlikely unless you're talking about KJs, QTs type of gappers and even then you're just asking for trouble.

I think the concept is that with suited connectors, there's a lot of combinations of cards that help your hand. Gappers (even one gappers) have fewer straight possibilities than connectors.
Example:
T9 can make 4 straights K-9 (not the nuts - loses to AT), Q-8, J-7 and T-6. There's 3 combination of cards that give you an open-ender (QJ, J8, 87).

T8 can only make 3 straights Q-8 (not the nuts-loses to KT) J-7 and T-6. There's only 2 combinations of cards that give you and opender (J9,97).

Even this slight difference is enough to devalue suited gappers enough to put them in a seperate category than connectors.

(Again, not an expert, just my take)