A few preflop ?'s

[pfkaok]

I'm fairly new to NL, but I've been playing quite a bit lately. One thing that I seem to get into trouble a lot with is playing in either SB or BB with a hand such as JJ, TT, AQ and AK. The games I play in are fairly loose, and many times somebody will bring it in for a raise with hands as weak as KJo from EP or MP.

I feel like if there are no raises my hand is usually best preflop, so should I be making about a pot-sized or more raise to get it heads up? With JJ or TT, i feel like i get into trouble when I limp and then the flop comes rags, or when I raise and get 1-2 callers, then a K or Q comes on the flop. When an A comes I feel its a much easier fold b/c a lot of people will call a preflop raise with almost any Ax. I know that in NL there are never any hard and fast rules, but in general vs. loose players is it better (with those hands) to play a big pot heads up out of position, or a smaller, muliway pot out of position?

Also, when I'm on the button or CO, and there are several limpers, should I be raising with 9's thru J's to try to narrow the field, or just try to get in cheap and win a huge pot if I hit a set? I usually prefer to make a solid raise narrow the field, get the blinds out, and ruin the implied odds for all the suited connectors, small pocket pairs, and Axs' out there. Anyone with more experience please let me know if i'm looking at these situations the right way, or if there's serious flaws in my logic.

[Baulucky]

Nice question. Bump.

[jdl22]

Is it really necesary to bump a 10 minute old post?

Now I'll look up there and read it.

[Baulucky]

Yes. Tough questions (for me). I'm interested in the answers.

[jdl22]

Playing these medium pocket pairs is one of the hardest things to do in NL. I think an entire book could be written on playing jacks alone.

I think it is hugely player dependent. If the table is passive and will likely fold if you raise it preflop and pot it on the flop even when an overcard hits then go for that. The risk of this is that if you are called and are out of position as in your blinds example then it gets very tough to play if you don't spike a set on the turn. You pretty much are surrendering the pot if you check or bet a small amount so the only choices are to fire out that second shot or give him the pot. In most online games if they call a pot sized bet on the flop with no apparent draws out then they are calling the turn bet as well.

If the flop is undercards and I've raised I will normally pot it on the flop and 4th street no matter what turns up. This also can get a little difficult to play on the river out of position if the turn and river were kind enough to give you 2 overcards. Again if the player is still around at the river and there were no apparent draws out there then they will probably call again. In this case that isn't so bad because they could easily have unimproved top pair from the flop which you beat.

I think the simplest way to play these hands in EP is also the most profitable if the games are aggressive - play for the set. This means you limp/call preflop. When you hit a set you are hoping for a big card like an A or K to come with it so that somebody with a big top pair will pay you off. This is also good because while you will lose your money to a set of eights for example with your overpair, you will probably know if you are up against a bigger set if you have a set of jacks. You don't mention this case in your post, but the best case scenario playing for any set is when somebody has raised preflop and you are quite sure that they have a big hand. This is because you are likely to get paid off even if they don't improve. The only major problem there would be if you are up against kings and an ace flops.

In LP these hands are much easier to play. The reason for this is that you can see a showdown fairly cheaply if you don't like the board and you can get paid off more if you do like it. So you're pretty much getting the best of both worlds. If I'm in LP I will almost always raise these hands if the pot is unraised to me. Ideally you buy the button and get called by a couple guys to your right. In this situation auto betting the flop is a better idea because if you are called it's much easier to play. Essentially your position gives you one street for free. You can now safely fire another bullet on the turn and then check through the river if you don't like the board. You can also against weak opponents make a somewhat weak bet. This bet would be one of those on the fine line between value betting and bluffing. As long as they are fairly passive and don't like to pounce on perceived weakness you can get away with it. If they aren't too tricky you can also check through the turn and use their river action to guide through the play there. These last two plays probably won't work against good opponents because you will see a huge raise in the first case and a huge river bet in the second no matter what they hold.

Not sure how others play it but I think a good play when undercards flop is to pot it and pot it again on the turn even if 1 overcard hits. Then if the river brings another overcard check it through. If not, making a value bet on the river is the move.

Especially in position if you get scared of 1 overcard with these pairs then you will get scared out of a reasonable number of pots that should be going your way. Even more so with weak opponents who don't make you pay a high price when they are holding a matching overcard.

[pfkaok]

Thanks for the advice, it seems to makes sense to me. I like the idea of usually being the aggressor when I preflop it and the stacks aren't that deep. I play much tighter preflop than most in the typical small NL games, so I figure that the more money I can get the other guy to put in with inferior starting cards, the more money i'm going to be making. When I'm playing online at small games i'm usually playing 3-5 tables at a time so I like to have a strategy that isn't all about "playing the man, not the cards". I enjoy that aspect when I'm playing a live game, but sometimes I have a difficult times being patient playing in a live game at 20-30 hands an hour after I've been playing 250/hr online. Esp. at Foxwoods where they take a time rake of $5 per half hour at the 1-2 blind games. it seems like a ridiculous time collection to me (anyone else agree), esp when the max buyin is only $100. When you do the math, that means in a full game they're taking off $100 from the game, which is a max buyin for any player, seems a little much, huh? I think that it would make the game almost unbeatable, except for the fact that there are almost always a few calling stations, which is gold at a NL game. How many bad (or awful) players would there need to be at a full table to overcome a rake that high?

I think you're right though that an entire book could be written about JJ alone at NL. When I first started NL I was used to JJ being a monster in limit, but after losing huge pots with unimproved J's when rags flop I've quickly learned how dangerous and complicated it really is to play them. JJ is definately the last hand I want to see when I've doubled up and I'm waiting for the BB so I can leave. QQ is probably 2nd worst in that scenario. Does anyone else feel this way too, or is it better to just cash out when you hit your money goal regardless of position?? would that be smart at all to leave right then, or is that just being too much of a pussy? I think it'd be a very interesting statistical question to analyze. I'm sure you could take your win rate per hand, maybe even rate per hand by position, bankroll, and stack size in relation to blinds. Then you could come up with some formula for which seat you should get up from for any given stack size...Would love to see Sklansky or Malmuth attempt to tackle this prob [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

Any input/advice from anybody with alot of NL experience is greatly appreciated.

[SCchris]

Last night I was playing a game with some rich ballers who pretty much call everything even if they just have middle pair or bottom pair. I found that against these types of players where money doesn't mean much to them, playing small pocket pairs and raising them preflop kind of sucks because they'll call and you will not end up hitting your set. I found it better just to limp in with decent drawing hands and high pocket pairs, and better yet if you hit a set or if youre on a decent draw, then play it out with them and you'll end up getting paid off. But against players who know what they're doing it can go either way.. personally i hate raising preflop with a medium or low pocket pair but it all depends.

[jdl22]

If you are close to leaving after reaching a goal simply play jacks or even queens for a set. Limp in and if you hit a J get excited otherwise drop it. That's much better than raising and playing scared. It's also profitable.