KK4-type hands Stud/8

[texasrattlers]

OK so I got Zee's book and he talks a lot about playing high hands. However, if I get a hand like KK4, even if the KK is hidden, I have zero confidence in playing these hands. In the low limit games I play on Stars it seems there is almost always a decent low that stays in, and they will jam the pot and big pairs often lose to low straights or two pairs. So, how do you (or don't you) play hands like KK4?

[B Mando]

You have to play high only hands with extreme caution! I usually only play them when there are not many people in the pot. If I am in late position and no one has come into the pot before me except the bring-in I often times raise with big pairs and try to get heads up or just steal the antes. If you are playing them in a multi-way pot where there are one or two people with lows jamming you need to improve big time! BTW where did you buy Ray Zee's book? I assume you bought it online somewhere but just checkin...I need some new poker reading. Maybe if Ray is reading this he just sned me one himself...that would be cool...! [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

I am reasonably new to Stud8 and when I was very new to the game I felt that the best way to learn how to play certain hands was to just try it out and experiment! Obvouisly poker is a "depends" game and there is no specfic way to play each hand. If you play a lot you can learn what to do in each situation.

[texasrattlers]

Borders had Zee's book in stock. That's where I bought it.

I play these hands the same way as you. I am wondering if there is a better way to play them tho.

[Nick_Foxx]

i definitely will play buried kings in stud/8 especially if my doorcard is a baby like in your example of (kk)4

your deception value is extremely high IF you usually raise with good 3-card lows too like (25)4... since the latter type of hand occurs more frequently than a hand with a big buried pair and small doorcard, opponents are more likely to put you on a low draw, which may allow you to bluff them out later in the hand if you continue to catch babies... in addition, if you make trips or 2 pair, it will look like you caught a brick and you can check-raise on 4th or 5th

these hands are definitely worth playing

mike

[Hauser_III]

They have good deception value, but are hard to win with at a full table unless you've narrowed the field to one or, at most, two players. With a baby card up, however, any 3rd street raise is going to look like a 3-card low, so that won't scare any any high hands that have decided (whether correctly or incorrectly) to play, and won't scare away the good low draws. So, with the buried high pairs, when I play them (which is not a given if the pair is QQ or JJ), I just call the bring-in on 3rd. And then the fun begins. If you catch a low card, and are facing other good low boards, any bet you make looks like a low draw, which again means that you're not likely to drive out any other good high hands (depending, of course, on what the other boards looks like, and whether the other high hands are alert enough to realize that weak highs should be folded against numerous strong-looking low boards, with straight and flush potentials, which is NOT always the case on PartyPoker, where I play). So you're going to have a tough time narrowing the field on 4th, just like you did on 3rd, which means I check and call again, and fold if there are good-looking low boards against me. If the lows all catch a high card on 4th, however, I'll likely throw out a bet or, if the opportunity presents itself, a raise. 5th, 6th and 7th are so board dependent that I don't think I can make any useful generalizations, but the biggest problem you're likely to face is that, if you've been catching low cards and betting the high buried pair for deception purposes, and you continue all the way through 6th and haven't improved, you're never going to be able to drive out the hands that started off going low and hit two baby pairs along the way. That's one of many reasons why I treat high pairs, whether buried or not, with extreme caution in hi-lo. While I don't always avoid them, I can't fault anybody whose strategy in hi-lo is to fold all high pairs other than AA, because they're normally fighting for at best half the pot, and it's an easy way to bleed chips.

I believe Zee's advice on 4th with an unimproved high pair is to take off another card if facing one player with two low cards, and then probably fold if he gets the third low card on 5th, so I've never gotten the impression from his book that he's strong on playing high pairs into two or more low boards past 4th; maybe I'm wrong about that.

Short-handed, the game plays more, but obviously not exactly, like high-only stud. In the later stages of a single-table tourney, which is where I play all of my stud hi-lo, I'm ramming and jamming high pairs.

[Nick_Foxx]

at the lower limits, the way i interpret zee's recommendations on play of high hands is to go to fifth street and fold if you haven't improved to trips or kings up

if you HAVE improved, you pretty much go the distance heads up against any opponent that appears to be going low... against more opponents, you have to have some idea of where you stand in the hand... sometimes (not frequently) if you are in a 3-way pot with your disguised high hand against a rough low draw and an obvious high hand, you can raise or check-raise one of your opponents out on 5th street and get the hand heads up against a poorer high hand (who is going all the way because it looks like you are going low) or against a low draw (where you will very likely split the pot and/or scoop if the low draw busts out or makes 2 small pair)

mike

[Hauser_III]

I agree with your interpretation; I probably should have written the portion of my post talking about facing one or two lows to say fold on 5th if you haven't improved.

[Andy B]

Seems to me I've made this post before, but back when I was in elementary school, high-low stud was played with no qualifier. This made hands like a pair of Kings completely unplayable, because the low hands were free-rolling on them. The advantage for the low hands is so great that Albert Morehead recommends dropping rolled-up trips in this game! (I think ol' Al went a bit overboard in this case, but it does serve to illustrate a point.) The live ones would play big pairs because they're such good hands in high-only games, and would consequently get killed. Since the live ones almost never won, the game died out.

Long about junior high school, someone got the bright idea of adding a qualifier, so that the punishment for playing high hands wouldn't be so harsh. High hands are much more playable in stud/8 because they have some chance to scoop when the low hands bust out. They're still tough to play, and most players lose money on them. I put them in about the same category as middling straight draws in high-only stud. I don't make much with either, and I like to think I have a decent handle on this game.

When you have a high pair, you want to be up against no more than one or two opponents. If you have a high pair, and you're up against a lot of players who are showing lower cards in the 9-Q range, that's pretty good, too. When you're against a large field, your scoop chances go down, and your hand consequently loses a lot of its value. Most of your profit comes from other hands, and while you're starting out, you might be happier if you just avoided these hands. If you're playing a game where there are a lot of heads-up pots, then you'll need to learn how to play these hands.