Marginal hand #2 Play or no play
 

Here is hand #2 of my marginal hand series. BTW, By marginal hand I mean "not premium hand" not necessarily a marginal play (although it could be).

What would you do and why?

MP2 is LPP, MP3 is LAP, SB and BB are TAP

Party Poker 0.5/1 Hold'em (10 handed) converter

Preflop: Hero is Button with 7[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img], 9[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img].
<font color="#666666">4 folds</font>, MP2 calls, <font color="#CC3333">MP3 raises</font>, CO calls, Hero ??

Re: Marginal hand #2 Play or no play
 

Fold, but it's close. I'd likely call if there were 4 opponents (other than the blinds) or if the blinds were less tight.

Re: Marginal hand #2 Play or no play
 

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Fold, but it's close. I'd likely call if there were 4 opponents or if the blinds were less tight.

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Re: Marginal hand #2 Play or no play
 

I think if the blinds came along it would make it a call, but since you've pegged the blinds as tight, I would fold this since 3.25:1 isn't quite good enough.

Re: Marginal hand #2 Play or no play
 

Unless you are pretty sure both blinds are coming along, you should fold this one. If you trust the stats you have, then it's an easy fold. Cold-calling 97s in a 4-way pot isn't so good, cold-calling 97s in a 6-way pot is quite nice.

Also, everyone is passive postflop, making it harder to collect when you hit your hand.

Re: Marginal hand #2 Play or no play
 

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Also, everyone is passive postflop, making it harder to collect when you hit your hand.

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This is where I think a little differently. They may normally be passive after the flop but once one of them raises preflop there's a lot better chance he will be aggressive after the flop and give me some good action if I flop my hand or good draw. Plus with MP2 being a fish there's a good chance he will suck along.

Re: Marginal hand #2 Play or no play
 

ok - first post, still learning - taking the advice of folks to post responses to hands to help improve my own play.

I'd fold. The odds your getting on it don't make it worth the investment. If the SB or BB come in, obviously you're getting better odds but its also likely they have something. of course you'd dump on the flop if your draws don't hit, but even so seems like a bad investment to me with the information you have.

that said, i'm just getting started, so what do i know!

Re: Marginal hand #2 Play or no play
 

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Also, everyone is passive postflop, making it harder to collect when you hit your hand.

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This is where I think a little differently. They may normally be passive after the flop but once one of them raises preflop there's a lot better chance he will be aggressive after the flop and give me some good action if I flop my hand or good draw. Plus with MP2 being a fish there's a good chance he will suck along.

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Again I ask, how much more action do you think you can get out them? How often do you flop "your hand or a good draw"?

Even though someone raised preflop, it's not always clear that he's going to pay off everything postflop. This is not a no-limit game. In a 4-handed pot, you're probably going to squeeze out maybe 4-6 BB postflop (2 players for 2 SB on the flop = 2BB, one player will probably see the river from there = 2 BB).

97s is not going to flop a strong enough hand often enough to be profitable with such small implied odds.

Re: Marginal hand #2 Play or no play
 

I'd fold this one. It simply won't hit the flop enough to make up for the times it doesn't. Having the button adds considerably to the value of this hand but you need to make up a lot of bets postflop to make spending 2SB worth it. Put in another limper or make the blinds looser or throw in LAG and I think this is a good marginal call. With this group you probably drag smallish pots the majority of the time you win.

Re: Marginal hand #2 Play or no play
 

Ok, so most everyone here so far would fold this. If nobody had raised would you have called? Nah, don't answer that. I'm pretty sure you would have.

So, you call the flop with 3 others and the BB. What usually happens if you flop a draw? Everybody check to you because they're passive after the flop so you bet. 2 people call. You hit your draw on the turn and bet again. 1 person calls. You bet the river and he calls.

Let's see how much money that is. 5.5sb+3sb+2bb+2bb is roughly 8bb. So you profited 5bb. We'll see what happens in a raised pot.