$8-16 Insanity

[Michael Davis]

UTG limps, I limp after with 2h2d. Button limps. BB raises. BB raises a whole lot of hands. BB never, ever stops betting once she raises until somebody raises her or everyone folds, or somebody calls her with ace high in a showdown and she loses. All call the raise.

Flop: 6c 5c 3d

BB bets, UTG folds, I just call, button calls.

Turn: 6c 5c 3d (3c)

BB bets, I raise, button folds, BB calls.

River: 6c 5c 3d 3c (Qc)

Check, check.

-Michael

[mplspoker]

Limping with 22 is questionable, but the way you played it was correct....

[elysium]

hi mike
the flop is raise or fold. you can't call because the button is too likely to raise behind you, so continueing on further will cost 2 bets anyway. that coupled by the fact that the BB doesn't like to be raised makes raising the only thing to do if you are going to continue.

you need to see quickly that the strength of your hand is situational. the ability given you by the flop betout to drive out the button by threatening to trap him between raisers is what you must represent in order to win this hand. you must do everything in your power to let the button know you are launching a raising war against the BB. you need to turn slightly away from the button, and pull the hammer back on the blind. lightly touch and release a goodly amount of chips several times back and forth like that. you want the button to think that you are trying to prevent the blind from reraising, and doing so incorrectly. you want the button to think, 'hey idiot, don't do that. now she's going to reraise you.'. now shake a little and using your head, flick your hair over to the other side, to trigger the blind's betting instict. you want the button to think, 'stop exciting the blind!'. when you flick like that to trigger the blind's primitive reflexes, the button will drop.

dropping the button like this may not be your cup of tea. you might have some other way of executing drive out raises. the thing to remember though is that drive out raising must succeed. there is no safety net afforded by pot mathematics to pull you through the next round of betting. if your drive out raise fails, you lose the most amount of money dollar for dollar for the size of the pot. and you lose any chance of being able to reduce the field later in the hand. so there's no silver lining if the drive out raise fails, however, often it is the only way to win the hand. sucess is crucial. therefore, you mustn't rely solely on the weight of your bet. you must fully bring into full fruition the considerable extra added weight of the situational mechanics and dynamics by forcefully exerting pressure to get in that first complete rotation that gets the situational engine running and rising in the consciousness of the opponents your raise intends to drive out. you throw in the nitro at precisely that instant the drive-outee is the most vulnerable to drop-out thinking and you have just about almost completely willed him into his spectator chair and out of the hand. otherwise they hang in there, captivated by the allure of card deck and pot aromas, oblivious to any possibility of danger, senses incognizantly dulled by the self-induced narcotic ethers of optimism. tenaciously.

a little nitro.

give the situational setting a little nitro when you bet. allow that your engine give birth to flaming naked danger. punch at yellow off, don't wait for green, so that the situational impact crosses the line precisely at the drop-out sweet spot, assigning the driven-out his spectators ticket and seat behind the tranquility of his folden cards.

let's see how you handled this one.....well.

you need to get in there mike and punch. you have a winner. get in there and make it work.

[Zele]

Why wait until the turn to raise? Unless you are positive button will call you, you're letting him continue on cheaply in what is an ideal isolation situation for you.

P.S. Unless you strongly suspected you'd get more than 4-way action, you shouldn't have played 22 at all.

[falsefaith]

Unless there are a lot of unraised multiway pots you should fold preflop. And without question you have to raise the flop. You are very fortunate the turn card paired the three.

[Clarkmeister]

The fact that it's a four flush makes me want to fire one last barrell. You may well have the best hand anyways, but there's a chance that you get a pair smaller than queens with no club to fold. Remember what your turn raise looks like to your opponent.