Barron's Article.

[phish]

I thought your example illustrated a point opposite of the one you made. I thought it showed the error of raising pre-flop with a dominated hand because it can trap you for so many more bets post-flop.
Yes, building the pot pre-flop will cause people to chase when you hit a good flop, but the bad players would've chased anyways and you want them to chase with worse odds.
One of the greatest advantage a good player has is that he can outplay his opponents after the flop. But by making the pot so big, the bad and good players will now be playing pretty similarly.
You happened to have gotten lucky in the hand, but in most cases, I think you would've preferred to have not raised pre-flop so that you don't feel obliged to chase a gut-shot for 2 bets cold on the turn.

[BarronVangorToth]

[ QUOTE ]
I think you would've preferred to have not raised pre-flop so that you don't feel obliged to chase a gut-shot for 2 bets cold on the turn.

[/ QUOTE ]


If we want to be results-oriented as to what the flop was and knowing my competition, I would rather fold pre-flop.

In this situation, though, the key to the hand is the barrage of cold-callers. I don't care if I have a weaker hand than my opponent pre-flop IF there is enough dead money in the pot and if I believe I'll make better decisions then them after the flop -- especially easy when I have position.

With the hand being a live game at these stakes, remember, the competition is softer than the similar stakes online. Regardless if the original raiser has solid standards, while that would make my decision different if it was folded to me, I believed (and still do) that you raise this pre-flop every day of the week and twice on Sunday.

It's all about making the +EV plays. Even given the read on the early competition, that's what this is.

PLUS, something people always forget when you put a range of hands on an opponent, they might sometimes deviate from that range ... for whatever reason. Not always - but that has to factor in, at least to a degree.

Barron Vangor Toth
BarronVangorToth.com

[Justin A]

[ QUOTE ]
This pot wouldn't have been possible if I hadn't raised king-queen suited, which built the pot to a size where I could play a draw, whereas I wouldn't have had the odds otherwise.

[/ QUOTE ]

I just want to point out that this is a very bad way to think about it. Raising so that you have odds to draw later is not correct. Raising when you know you're dominated by all but one of the raiser's hands is not correct.

[BarronVangorToth]

I raised because I believed (and still do) that raising in that spot is correct.

Because I did, it gave me the odds to draw correctly -- whereas if I hadn't've, I wouldn't've....

How do you believe that is not correct?

Worrying that one player might "dominate" me when the action is what it is, the money in the pot is what it is, my position is what it is, and my knowing I can lay down post-flop as I do, doing differently (or, THINKING differently) is almost bordering on being weak-tight... Perhaps still profitable, but not +EV to what it should be.

Barron Vangor Toth
BarronVangorToth.com

[Chris Daddy Cool]

i just read the last month's article.

and it makes me cringe.