What to do when a guy who never raises preflop raises...
 

And you hold KK or QQ (or possibly even JJ)?

Do you try to cap it and hope the flop is favorable (then calling down) or just call it?


Seems dumb I guess, but this has happened to me twice now and I am unsure what to do. First time I had KK and I stupidly just called in the BB and raised the turn when he checked through the flop. He ended up winning because he caught a Queen on the river to get a set.

Second time I did in fact raise (although I can't recall if it got capped or not) and he ended up showing down JJ or something high that weren't Ace's.


Now it could have just been sample size. In one case I only had a couple hundred hands on him and the other one it was probably around 50. But still I would think in that span of cards they would have raised once with something Ace related.

I figure this won't happen too often so even if I make a mistake it won't cost me much, but just curious as to what the correct play would be.

Re: What to do when a guy who never raises preflop raises...
 

I would cap KK and QQ and maybe call JJ and drop if i don't catch a set on the flop. Although a fold probably wouldn't be TOO big of a mistake. (I think?)

Re: What to do when a guy who never raises preflop raises...
 

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Seems dumb I guess, but this has happened to me twice now and I am unsure what to do. First time I had KK and I stupidly just called in the BB and raised the turn when he checked through the flop.

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I don't get the "stupidly" - do you think he would have folded QQ to a flop bet? Also it sounds as if an ace hit the board, but I don't want to assume that.

At any rate, I wouldn't call him "a guy who never raises preflop raises"; I'd call him a guy who doesn't raise without a high pair or possibly AK. Speaking of which, do you have any records on how he plays AK?

One danger of intensive PT-style tracking is trying to infer too much based on a small sample. In limit you should probably always reraise KK and QQ, and either try to get JJ heads-up or smooth call in hopes of a set winning a big pot. I stole that idea from Sklansky and Malmuth btw. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

Re: What to do when a guy who never raises preflop raises...
 

Like everything in poker, it depends. You must distinguish between a loose caller and a loose raiser. Many players are calling stations, but only raise with very strong hands (this is very valuable after the flop b/c you can get away from some hands on the turn that you'd have to call down against other players). But as for preflop, if a player with high raising standards raises, I would still go ahead and reraise KK or QQ because even tight raisers will show up with AK, AQ, JJ, 10-10, etc in this spot sometimes. With JJ, I'd tend to reraise also because your hand plays better headsup in case he has overcards. If the flop comes ragged and you face HEAVY resistance from someone who wouldn't mess around with just overs, THEN you can get away. Basically I would never fold KK, QQ or JJ preflop for one raise. JJ you can get away from if it's 3 cold to you typically. Just some thoughts...

Jeff

Re: What to do when a guy who never raises preflop raises...
 

What limits are you playing? I would mostly cap it if the player turned over jacks with AA, KK, QQ, AKs, to try and eliminate any ace-rag hand and if in MP hopefully drive everyone behind me out. Has the player shown good flop/turn/river play or is he just weak-tight?

Re: What to do when a guy who never raises preflop raises...
 

I think you answered your own question. You said you saw him do this with QQ and JJ, so yeah, with KK you get more money in.

Re: What to do when a guy who never raises preflop raises...
 

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I think you answered your own question. You said you saw him do this with QQ and JJ, so yeah, with KK you get more money in.

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Thats the thing. In these cases they ended up not being aces, but I was still expecting them to show down aces at the end.

Re: What to do when a guy who never raises preflop raises...
 

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Seems dumb I guess, but this has happened to me twice now and I am unsure what to do. First time I had KK and I stupidly just called in the BB and raised the turn when he checked through the flop.

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I don't get the "stupidly" - do you think he would have folded QQ to a flop bet? Also it sounds as if an ace hit the board, but I don't want to assume that.

At any rate, I wouldn't call him "a guy who never raises preflop raises"; I'd call him a guy who doesn't raise without a high pair or possibly AK. Speaking of which, do you have any records on how he plays AK?

One danger of intensive PT-style tracking is trying to infer too much based on a small sample. In limit you should probably always reraise KK and QQ, and either try to get JJ heads-up or smooth call in hopes of a set winning a big pot. I stole that idea from Sklansky and Malmuth btw. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

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I don't recall an Ace being on the flop or turn.

But yeah. I guess in the future I'll just try to cap it. One of those cases where I won't lose too much money (I believe) since I don't see it happening very often.

And I can't even recall who it even was...would have to do some searching. This is just a question I have been meaning to ask the last month or two, but just haven't gotten around to it.

And for the person that asked, this is micro-micro limits ($0.05/$0.10)... [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

Re: What to do when a guy who never raises preflop raises...
 

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What limits are you playing? I would mostly cap it if the player turned over jacks with AA, KK, QQ, AKs, to try and eliminate any ace-rag hand and if in MP hopefully drive everyone behind me out. Has the player shown good flop/turn/river play or is he just weak-tight?

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Guy was very weak. Was why in that one case I bet or raised the turn.

Re: What to do when a guy who never raises preflop raises...
 

At lower limits/in looser games mostly just cap em all, perhaps right down to 99 depending on the game. Its simpler, and theres closer decisions to worry about.