100/200 O/8 shorthanded hand

[gergery]

My two cents:

Raise preflop. You have a good hand, but one that will still miss frequently so you’d be happy to just take the blinds. Your hand’s relative advantage vs. your opponents is perhaps slightly better with 1 opponent vs. 3 or 4.

Checkraise the flop. Since your objective is to scoop or ¾ how can you do that with this flop? Well, 75% of the lows that come put a straight on the board. Any A or 2 that helps your high put a low on the board. So unless you get a K or backdoor spades its pretty hard to scoop if your opponents stick around. So your objective is to get them to fold, or least minimize the competition so your TPTK might hold up for hi. If the old guy has been raising but can fold to action, then I like a checkraise to try and push lady out. Especially since free cards might help you more than your opponents. If you lead out then I like a reraise to put the lady to the test.

Call the turn. You’re getting 11:1 odds, and between the chances that your high is good and the chances that your low might come in make this worth continuing when heads up.

Call the river. There is a decent chance the 4 counterfeited her since her turn raise represented a low hand and you have the 2’s, so your low might be good here. And if she had a hand like 3467 or AK45 then you’d scoop or ¾ respectively.

So Ray, how’d I do?

--Greg