[Redd]

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so you wouldn't play A7s PF for the top pair value? with two limpers in front of you wouldn't it be likely that you're ahead? does that mean you would check/fold if you dont hit your flush draw on the flop?

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I'm actually saying that I don't just play for flush value. In most circumstances, I play pretty aggressively if I hit either of my pair outs with A7s. This is of course highly situational, which is exemplified by this hand where I don't hate calling TPMK with our read on Villain.

You're absolutely right that we may have the best hand after two 'typical' limpers in a micro game (note that this is less likely to be true against the limpers specified in this particular hand). And check-folding if I hit a hand weaker than a flush draw (ie, TP hand) is not my normal play. It happens to me occasionally, but not often.

My point is that it's unwise to call suited aces just for flush value. Since flush-over-flush is so rare (I don't know the exact numbers but I'd estimate it happens <15% of the time? Anyone have time for combinatrix?), we usually don't need to worry much if our flush is the nut flush or not. Sure, it's great to be able to play aggressively with the nuts, but T5s is going to make almost as many winning flushes as A7s. Since A7s is a common limp and T5s is usually a mistake, we must be playing for more than just flush value with Axs.

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i just thought it would be better to raise MP with two limpers because it would drive out the weaker, but stronger A than you (A8 through maybe ATo if passive enough) in which case you'd be buying outs. not only that this raise would set up the flop aggression. am i wrong in thinking this?

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This is partially true IMO. If I were raising this hand, I'm usually trying to isolate a looser EP player here, since my hand is a big favorite against his range. So a raise is simultaneously trying to get folds from better, dominating hands and calls from weaker hands that we have an equity edge against.

Note that both of these won't necessarily happen at once, and quite often only one or the other will happen. Generally in low limit games, forcing an opponent make a bad fold is tougher than forcing an opponent to make a bad call. I usually raise weakish hands preflop (say ATo), expecting cold-calls from many hands, only a small fraction of which dominate me. So while it's true that we're trying to fold better hands, IMO it's more important to extract value from worse ones at microlimits. In this particular hand, I don't like a raise because the chances that we're dominated by one of the tight EP limpers is high enough that I don't think that we have the equity to do so. This hand is actually a poor example of a typical microlimit game for me to answer your questions with, because the two limpers have such low VPIPs.