My most difficult flop ever - Am I weak?

[NegativeEV]

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One situation which has been confusing me (so I've just been folding) has been bubble play on say level 4 or 5 where I'm mid stack but clearly <10xBB, maybe even closer to 5-6xBB on level 5. What do you do say in the small blind where you get a pf limper with a hand you'd probably push, but is not excellent, like maybe KTs or A7s or something, if you got two folds to you?

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First let's consider this situation WITHOUT the limper. When you are in the SB with 6xBB on the bubble and it's folded to you, you often don't need KTs or A7s or to even see your cards to push. What often matters is your stack size vs. the stack size in the BB vs. the relative stack sizes of the remaining players. Cards are sometimes secondary. Not your question, but this is important.

As for your question, I'm not dodging it, but it is too general to give an answer. You really need to evaluate these situations individually based on: 1.) the quality of your cards, 2.) your stack size and the relative stacks of those involved and those NOT involved in the hand, 3.) your read of the limper.

[partygirluk]

I don't think the reason to reraise preflop is to thin the field. You want to get more money in the pot when you have the best of it, and you don't want to give people implied odds to outflop you.

Also, your position sucks. Say you call, and more people call behind you.

UTG will lead out on many flops, and if someone with position on you has caught the flop, then you are going to get nastily trapped. I much prefer the smooth call on the button or cutoff, or if there are lots of LAGs behind you who might reraise, allowing you to get all in PF.

The flop is really close. Really close.

[nokona13]

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One situation which has been confusing me (so I've just been folding) has been bubble play on say level 4 or 5 where I'm mid stack but clearly <10xBB, maybe even closer to 5-6xBB on level 5. What do you do say in the small blind where you get a pf limper with a hand you'd probably push, but is not excellent, like maybe KTs or A7s or something, if you got two folds to you?

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First let's consider this situation WITHOUT the limper. When you are in the SB with 6xBB on the bubble and it's folded to you, you often don't need KTs or A7s or to even see your cards to push. What often matters is your stack size vs. the stack size in the BB vs. the relative stack sizes of the remaining players. Cards are sometimes secondary. Not your question, but this is important.

As for your question, I'm not dodging it, but it is too general to give an answer. You really need to evaluate these situations individually based on: 1.) the quality of your cards, 2.) your stack size and the relative stacks of those involved and those NOT involved in the hand, 3.) your read of the limper.

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Thanks again NEV and Suba. So let me refine the question. Say I'm mid-small stack (but not super short, say 6-9xBB). What should the size of the BB stack do to my inclination to steal with any two? If he's about even with me, is it auto-push without the limper? With no limper and BB has 2x my stack, but is not the big stack at the table, do I still push? Only with medium hand? If BB is big stack, >3x my stack, am I inclined to fold anything but very strong hands (for this late), say >=AT, >=77, >=QJs? Or is it the opposite, and I'm more inclined to steal against a big stack (assuming I have enough chips to hurt him if he calls and I win) because he'll be less inclined to risk it with marginal cards since he has the chip lead and doesn't need to catch up?

Getting to lots of questions here, but I'm assuming the answers for stack size of BB with no limper will broadly apply to the limper as well, taking into account my read of his tricky quotient...

[RoyalLance]

I have at least one thing I would have done different. First, I would have made a bigger raise with the pocket aces (about 4 or times the big blind at least). The A [img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] 6 [img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] did a very deceptive play check-raising the all-in when the flop had possible spade flush. I would have to play this myself to figure out if call all in was neccesary.