Playing 234 or 235?

I have been playing these hands cautiously if at all and wonder if I shouldn't be playing them more often. For example, 2356 has been a huge hand for me lately, cause when it hits, it tends to hit big. If I really want to see an ace, and figure my chances of flopping an ace are just under 25%, if 5 or more people are gonna see the flop then it's correct for me to call. Am I calculating that correctly?

[sy_or_bust]

234, 235, and sometimes 236 can develop into strong hands. I wouldn't worry about the math - play these hands in multiway pots, and openlimp most from EP in typical loose/passive games.

[Ribbo]

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I have been playing these hands cautiously if at all and wonder if I shouldn't be playing them more often. For example, 2356 has been a huge hand for me lately, cause when it hits, it tends to hit big. If I really want to see an ace, and figure my chances of flopping an ace are just under 25%, if 5 or more people are gonna see the flop then it's correct for me to call. Am I calculating that correctly?

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Play them if you like losing all your money. Do not play them in limit o/8 and only see a flop if it is 6 people seeing a flop and you are certain when you limp there will be no raise after you. You keep playing 234 and I will keep playing A23, just wait for the ace to flop then.

[sy_or_bust]

I think your example is a little unusual. These hands are looking for a multiway pot in games where limpers are loose/passive and make typical postflop mistakes. Playing the raw nut low draw is usually OK against bad players 3+ handed (and needs better odds facing tight/semi-loose players), but the this hand is really looking to flop an ace plus a wheel card. These flops tend to generate a lot of action from non-nut hands (i.e. 2-pair, 2nd nut lows) and offer great scooping opportunities.

I can only offer a limited sample, but over ~15k full ring hands from .5/1 to 3/6, these hands are solidly in the black. In tighter/more aggressive games at these levels, and in most of the 5/10+ games, I play these hands differently, but in loose/passive games I'm convinced you give up EV by mucking indiscriminately.

[mxyzptlk]

In PL, if I have a 234x hand, I don't want the action TOO multiway, because most people need an A to play their hand, and too many players may mean my As are dead. This makes it easier to muck pre-flop. 23xx is usually a real crap hand because it only plays for half the pot, but 234x can be played very carefully post flop, especially if your cards are suited. But you are most likely looking for a big wheel draw (A5x flop), or some flush draw to go with your low if an A hits, and preferably both. In limit, these are hands are automuck, because the implied odds just aren't there. And for PL, I agree with previous advice that you can automuck these hands without affecting your win rate very much. 234x hands are only very mild winners for me.

[mxyzptlk]

Another point about flush draws with 23 hands: I would prefer my flush draw to involve the A from the board. Otherwise, it is more likely (at lower limits, at least) that the nut flush draw will come along for the ride, and if that makes it 3 way with A23, you're getting quartered for sure. However, most people are not going to draw to some J ot T high flush with no low, and if your flush draw is small, hopefully those kind of hands will fold with two players already competing for the pot. Ideally, I'd want it HU with A23 after the flop, and if my flush hits on the turn, you can jam there, and most players with A23 will take you all the way the river. Again, this kind of thing probably turns up so infrequently, you can safely not worry about it.

[sy_or_bust]

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if I have a 234x hand, I don't want the action TOO multiway, because most people need an A to play their hand

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If this is true, you are playing in the wrong games. [img]/images/graemlins/crazy.gif[/img]

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In limit, these are hands are automuck, because the implied odds just aren't there.

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This is just silly. "Implied odds" aren't static, and they certainly exist for 234 combos in all sorts of situations. If you disagree, it is much better to explain why, rather than clumsily citing something about implied odds, which you appear to misunderstand.

Consider the situation in Hold 'Em, where you are in the big blind closing the action, and the pot is laying you 6:1 odds. Many strong players will call T2s in this spot. This has to do with implied odds and immediate pot odds, which both vary based on the money in the pot (i.e. pot odds) and the expected action (i.e. implied odds).

Against weaker, predictable opponents, implied odds are both larger and better defined - this occurs all the time in LO8 and is basically the reason I'm advocating playing 234/235 hands in many spots. Preflop open-limping works in these games because you expect a large multiway pot for a single bet (and in fact encourage one with the limp), which is a profitable situation for the hand. Failing to identify and exploit profitable situations sucks.

[mxyzptlk]

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if I have a 234x hand, I don't want the action TOO multiway, because most people need an A to play their hand

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If this is true, you are playing in the wrong games. [img]/images/graemlins/crazy.gif[/img]

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This is a cheap jab. The ace is a key card in many O8 hands, and even the worst players know this. I admit, you can make decent money off of people playing total crap hands like 5568, but there are a fair number of people who play any a{wheelcard}xx. If you got a 5-6 way pot, I feel there is a good chance your aces are dead.

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In limit, these are hands are automuck, because the implied odds just aren't there.

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This is just silly. "Implied odds" aren't static, and they certainly exist for 234 combos in all sorts of situations. If you disagree, it is much better to explain why, rather than clumsily citing something about implied odds, which you appear to misunderstand.

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It is well appreciated that implied odds are generally higher in PL and NL than in limit. You may be able to extract high implied implied odds in limit, but you really need to be against a real donk, your opponent have a very close second best hand, or somehow get a ton of chasers when you have the nut/nut. What I mean about 234 having better implied odds in PL is that you may be able to cheaply see the flop and then make a killing of a hand when someone who holds an ace and won't give it up. Some bad players won't. In limit, I may get a couple of big bets out of them. In PL I can get their whole stack when they go to war with something like top and bottom pair and no low, and I have the nut low and am freerolling them for high. However, as it was pointed out later by others, this situation I feel comes up somewhat rarely, and thus results in a fairly low win rate for these kind of hands. In addition, even when you hand good hand selection, things don't work out and you get quartered by A23.

[Brad F.]

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I have been playing these hands cautiously if at all and wonder if I shouldn't be playing them more often. For example, 2356 has been a huge hand for me lately, cause when it hits, it tends to hit big. If I really want to see an ace, and figure my chances of flopping an ace are just under 25%, if 5 or more people are gonna see the flop then it's correct for me to call. Am I calculating that correctly?

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Doesn't playing hands like these say "I'm looking to split a pot" when we should be scooping them?

Brad

[Wintermute]

My take on 23xx hands in general, coming from a PLO8 perspective, is this:

1) They do not win significant (if any) money in the long run. My personal PTO stats confirm this, perhaps others can play the hands more optimally and have them show strong profit. As such, I think these hands basically suck.

2) By playing 23xx hands, however, you're implicitly encouraging action for other, stronger hands you play. That is, by adding some weaker hands to your mix of playable hands, you increase your VPIP and therefore better disguise your truly strong hands.

Whether (2) is enough of a factor for you to outweigh (1) is a matter of your own playing style; if you're uncomfortable playing on the loose side of the spectrum, then fold 23xx's more and wait for the nuts. If you're comfortable LAGging it up, I think playing 23's is essential to an overall winning strategy.

It's sort of a fine art to find the balance between playing too many weakish hands and not enough weakish hands; if you play too many, your weak hands aren't protected by your strong hands enough because there's too many, although your strong hands will get plenty of action. If you play too few, your weak hands may be well protected by strong ones, but your strong hands won't get tons of action. There is an optimal balance in between, and it depends on game conditions and so forth. The best players probably find this balance (or close to it) instinctively.

I should've just linked to Srendhi's post about Shania again and saved myself the trouble of typing all this out--I more or less stole everything he said and put it here.