Live 5/5 NL Hand - playing "pair poker" with a shorty

[coltrane]

so I've been experimenting with buying in short at my local action-packed 5/5 game......

I have $300 and the table has me covered....

I pick up AJo in LP (two from the button).....one limper in MP (loose/bad player).....I make it $50 and am called by the button (tightish player - ugh) and limper (yay, dead money)......

flop ($160) comes J64 (two-tone)....

MP checks, now it's on me to act.....

here's what I was thinking.....I'm not worried about MP, it's the button that scares me......when button called me pre-flop I put him on any pair (though probably nothing lower than 88 or 99 and probably not AA or KK which he would've reraised with) or AK, maybe AQ.....I figure this is as good a flop as any for me and I can't check and give a free card in case button checks behind me.....

so I bet $125 and button raises to $300, MP folds.....I figure I'm committed at this point and close my eyes and put in my final $125.....button shows QQ and I get no help...

thoughts on what I could've done differently?.....

as far as preflop, my strategy with my stack size at this table was to play tightish and play no drawing hands and jam the pot preflop with high cards/high pairs and play "pair poker"....I know AJo is a very suspect hand and it's one that I rarely play in a regular game with a regular stack unless I'm playing it for a straight or a small pot.....but with my stack, how picky can I get?.....does playing tight pair poker mean waiting for nothing but AA, KK, QQ, and AK?......surely there must be other hands that need to be added to the arsenal to make this strategy profitable.....

on the flop in this particular hand, it hurt that I didn't have position on the player with the button, but even so, I figured there was only one hand that he could realistically have that beat me, and he had it......just the brakes or was it a bad play by me?......also, even on the flop, should I have gotten away from my hand even with the pretty big size of the pot relative to my stack (i.e. - maybe bet like $75 and fold to a raise by button)?.....

[GimmeDaWatch]

I take it $50 is the standard open in this game? If so, your stack is made effectively alot shorter than it should be at 60 BBs. Anyway, ya you could limp or bet $75 or whatever amount you think you'll be able to get away from on the flop if raised. From the way you described him, it seems unlikely that you'll be raised by any hand you beat.
Are you just looking to buy in short so you can make a big raise with premium hands and then committ yourself on any decent flop? If so, excluding AJ from your list might be a good idea.

[coltrane]

$50 isn't necessarily the "standard" open - because a lot of times people will make small pot-builder type of preflop raises, particularly in late positions.....but, often a $50 preflop bet frequently occurs and is frequently called....I could've limped preflop and then I would've easily folded to a big preflop raise by the button, but I didn't want to limp and then have someone in position make a pot-builder raise and then have to put an uncomfortable portion of my stack in.....I figured it would be better to buy the button, take control of the hand myself, and hopefully isolate the bad player who limped.....since this didn't happen and I was called by the button, I should've bet a smaller amount on the flop that allowed me to get away from it if raised by button......

again, I agree that AJ is a far from premium hand, but how far down the ladder do I go when employing this short stack/pair poker strategy?.....entering in LP in a yet-to-be-raised pot with AJ and then flopping Jack-rag-rag, I would think most times it would be worth going to felt with 60BB's at this table, at least in theory, but perhaps I'm wrong.....

[schwza]

i play the 2/4 party with a 50 bb buy-in cap, and i basically play pair poker (although i'd never heard it called that before). AJo is enough of a hand for me to raise with 2 off the button (although i don't mess around with the 10x raises), especially with a bad limper in the pot. and then i'm happy to get my chips on a Jxx board, because at least on party, you'll often get shown JT, 99, etc.

side question: why do people so frequently ask "what was the standard open?" since when was conformity a good strategy? if i play with people who cold-call pre-flop with J9o, does that mean it should be a standard cold-call for me too? a much more relevant question would be "has this been your standard open in the game?"

[GimmeDaWatch]

side question: why do people so frequently ask "what was the standard open?" since when was conformity a good strategy? if i play with people who cold-call pre-flop with J9o, does that mean it should be a standard cold-call for me too? a much more relevant question would be "has this been your standard open in the game?"

[/ QUOTE ]

I was just curious why he raised so much. No, I dont think you should conform mindlessly to the standard, but had he opened for less, he likely would not have been pot stuck. On the other hand, this would make more sense if he'd had aces or kings, and planned on pushing on most flops.

[turnipmonster]

I have $300 and the table has me covered....


by how much? what's the avg stack? if everyone has 3k, you are going to play your hand differently than if everyone has 600.


I pick up AJo in LP (two from the button).....one limper in MP (loose/bad player).....I make it $50 and am called by the button (tightish player - ugh) and limper (yay, dead money)......


preflop raise is suspect, but it depends on how much button has and how much the limpers have. if the limpers are loose and everyone has big stacks then you can expect button to call with a wide range of hands, but against a player as predictable as he sounds I am not a fan of getting a raise called with AJ preflop.

once you hit the J there's just nothing you can do. but, once you hit the best pair hand and are still nervous about its quality, that to me is an indicator that it was probably a bad raise preflop. you are better off raising a different class of hands entirely in that situation, because tightish players are just going to call you with hands that dominate you (fsuplayer can tell you all about this, he's good at calling my raises with AKs when I have 46o [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img] ).

--turnipmonster

[Loci]

I think the biggest problem you had was the amount committed pre-flop, as other people have acknowledged already. You make it impossible for anyone to call you that doesn't already have you beat. The flop was the best you could have hoped for(well, not the best, but you know what I mean) so it was just a matter of getting bumped hard by it. If you had only raised 3-4 bb(or limped like you said in one response), then you probably would have had a raise behind you and it would have been easy to fold down.
Post flop I think you played it right, if that helps. You were just beat and that happens sometimes.

[coltrane]

thanks for all the responses and I know I didn't really reply back to any of them (sorry), so let me try to clarify a couple of things.....

online games (at least IMO) have different opening standards than live games.....rarely do you see regular 10xBB preflop raises in online games whereas in live games (depending on which ones of course) it's more common....at this particular table, a 10xBB raise was common, though so were smaller raises (and sometimes bigger ones)....

I basically was playing AJ like it was a premium hand because my stack size was such that making a smaller raise preflop would've led to an uncomfortable post-flop pot size.....plus, I would normally expect to get preflop calls at the table with hands that I kill on a Jxx flop (however, not by the particular player on the button)....the other reason I raised big was to try and buy position.....in an ideal world I would've gotten just the original limper to call (he would've called with anything) and maybe a big stack in the blinds......then I'd have tons of options because I'm in there with guys that are playing less than premium hands, I have very little money left compared to the pot size (which makes for easy decisions) and most importantly I'd have position on them (steal equity, free card options, seeing all the action in front of me options, etc.).....button coming in (ESPECIALLY because of the type of tight player he was) really threw a wrench in my spokes.....

the biggest thing I think I learned from the hand though was the following....I think there's a huge difference in linear value from AQ to AJ.......much bigger to me than the difference between maybe even AK to AQ......think about how my hand plays out as a short stack raising with AQ preflop instead of AJ.....if you go through the combinations of preflop and postflop situations, actions by others, as well as hand combinations - the difference is enormous......

lesson learned......

[Loci]

[ QUOTE ]
I think there's a huge difference in linear value from AQ to AJ.......much bigger to me than the difference between even AK to AQ...... [ QUOTE ]


I completely agree.



[/ QUOTE ] lesson learned......

[/ QUOTE ]

And knowing IS half the battle. Get em next time!

[schwza]

[ QUOTE ]
I think there's a huge difference in linear value from AQ to AJ.......much bigger to me than the difference between maybe even AK to AQ

[/ QUOTE ]

i disagree... i would much rather flop top pair with AK and AJ than do it with AQ twice.