[rharless]

<font color="brown"> "When you can get in for $2 and there are plenty of callers, chase the draws." </font color>

Yes, this is correct. You want at least 5-6 people in for only $2 to play your draws.

Because you can raise so much preflop (basically tripling the bet) and then bet so much on the flop, however, you want to play your big cards faster. Basically, give people opportunities to make mistakes with their drawing hands. I've only recently become so aware of how important this fact is, thanks to helpful posts by majorkong, Clarky, and JR. I used to just play with the basic preflop advice that was dispensed for structured games, and while that was successful for me, I have found that shifting gears this year based on their advice has been even better. I don't have enough of a sample size to draw a meaningful conclusion but it just "feels" like it's working.

<font color="brown"> Seems to me small pairs are a 1 in 23 shot </font color>

That would be correct odds if the flop was only one card [img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img]. Your odds of flopping a set are roughly the same as your odds of flopping a flush draw.

When you flop a set, you will win (much) more often than you lose.

When you flop a flush draw, you will lose more often than you win.

A hand from tonight, only slightly relevant but a good excuse for me to tell the story. I raise with QQ preflop, get two callers. I flop a set. Flush card hits the turn. River paired the board. Both of my opponents have the flush (T9s, 54s). One of the guys was a big ole baby about it: kept moaning "that was such a bad beat" etc.

The dealer said to him "yeah I really hate it when my 5-4 suited gets run down by pocket queens." [img]/forums/images/icons/grin.gif[/img]