[kurto]

I still don't think you should be making these small raises. (1) you lose the ability to win it preflop. (2) you now encourage people to stay in with crap because they will all have pot odds.

This reminds me of the guys who always minraised with any good hand. Since he had better then a full stack, I began calling with all sorts of junk because I knew he liked his hand and I was getting better then 3 to 1 on my money. Those are the times when you bust the guy with aces when you call with 8-j suited out of position, hit 2 pair and bust them. Then they yell at you for calling with crap.

For the record, I vary how I play AK in the bb. Either I raise big or I limp. Frankly, I think position is so important and I'd rathar play most hands oop weakly for a small pot so that I'm not forced to bet into a field of callers. But, when I do decide to raise it, I'm going to raise it to at least $1.50.

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My thinking was that if I raise big I only get called by pocket pairs.

[/ QUOTE ] You must be at different tables then me. I have people calling raises with A5os and 5-Q suited from any position at the $25 and $50 tables. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

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So I decided to build the pot so everybody calls. That way I bet my TPTK or check. But that's a discussion for another day.


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I think that's a key factor of this hand and should be discussed today. The problem is you're building a pot preflop that you're going to have to play out of position, you haven't narrowed the field... and now your bets are going to have to be large (and obviously larger on the turn and river). Its because of this why, on the turn, you're betting $3 into a $12 pot, giving any type of draw the correct odds to draw out on you. You've bloated the pot and now you can't play it correctly without risking essentially your entire stack on a TPTK hand.