[elysium]

hi mhoy
hand 1) your hand is dominated without the necessary odds. something like Q7o is better in this situation. i know it looks worse than the 87s, but in this situation you must approach your holding not from a suited point of view, but from a high point of view. what i mean by a high point of view is that you ask,"how high am i?". o.k., so how high are you? your 8 high. your answer would be,"i'm 8 high!" i'm 8 high? whew.....a 9 kills me. that's how you must approach the 87s in this situation. add only 2 more opponents and......nope, nope, even by adding 2 more opponents, you are still only 8 high with lousy position. do you know that even stealing from the button with an 8 high is wrong.

when you are not getting correct odds to do anything with your holding, ask "how high am i?" you like a minimum of Q high in this situation. of course any small pair is now considered a made hand, and instead of asking how high you are, ask "how fast and furiously must i fold out with my made hand?" if your hand is very low......a 33 pair for example, you must raise or fold, while a 77 can almost always showdown on the river.

hand 2) you're likely dominated, but since your call closes the action, call. remember though, this is a different situation entirely from hand 1). now you must flop solidly, and there is 3.5-1 to 5-1 that you will flop something solid in this heads up scenario. you can call here. the ev will not be a whole lot different though from what you would get if you took a couple minutes off to stretch. yes! taking a couple minutes off to stretch your legs and rest your eyes has some non-card related positive ev. by the way, does anyone else ever contemplate non-card ev? some people have very high non-card ev, especially those people who think they play well but don't. they get extra ev simply by staying out of the card-room.