SSHE p.148: Continuing with marginal hands

[Kyle Stevenson]

I've only been playing poker for about three months, but I've been steadily winning by playing weak-tight at 2/4 and 3/6 tables full of players even worse than me, and in fact making a modest living at it. The smarter aggressive players eat me up, but I've been pretty successful just avoiding them.

I read SSHE for the first time (of many, I'm sure) yesterday. I like the idea of moving beyond weak-tight, but I'm very confused on how I'd incorporate all this aggression on the flop into my game, largely because I don't know how to follow up all these aggressive flop raises.

Here's an example from p.148. You have 8[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] 7[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] in the big blind. Four limpers, button raises, SB folds, you and limpers call. Flop comes T[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] 7[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] 5[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img], all check to the button who bets.

Miller says you have to at least call, since you're getting 13:1 on a 8:1 draw, and then advocates raising here to protect your hand in case you're currently best, and to protect some of your outs.

Well, now you're investing at least two bets, so you're getting at best 7:1. It's quite likely that the bettor reraises, or that someone in the middle was waiting to checkraise and will now reraise, in which case you're getting 5:1. Even 7:1 isn't good enough for your draw, so a substantial portion of your investment must be based on the possibility that your hand is currently good.

But if your hand is good, how will you know? My typical opponent is erratic enough that I can't make any laydowns with precision, and aggressive enough that he might well reraise with either a high pair or a club draw, the reraise doesn't mean I'm beat.

If I think unimproved sevens might be good, I'm stuck calling a reraise, calling the turn, and calling the river, even if my hand doesn't improve. At this point we get into the nasty territory of reverse implied odds. I'm not investing one bet to win thirteen anymore, I'm committing to six or seven small bets to win twenty or so. That's 3:1, and on the given action, I don't think I'm winning this hand 25% of the time.

As for driving people out... yes, one bet is a minor investment compared to a pot of 13 bets. But it takes quite a parlay for raising to save me the pot. They need a hand that will fold to two bets but not one, and a better hand than mine or one that would hit a draw, and I need to end up with the best hand among the remaining players, though not a good enough hand to beat the guy that I drove out. I'm not sure that comes in often enough to spend an extra bet on it, or two extra bets if the button reraises.

That's why raising seems wrong to me. I'd call, or maybe even fold if I think a checkraise on my left is likely.

But I suck, and Ed Miller doesn't, and he says this isn't even a close decision. So I figure my reasoning is flawed. What am I missing?