Soko; anyone play?

[John Bedtelyon]

What's the standard play on second street? Would you limp, raise, call a raise, reraise, hands like TJs? With TJs what's the chance of making a four flush or four straight? Is it worth it to reraise if hitting a single pair will most likely win the hand for you?

You have TJs on the button and and someone raises with an 8 showing. You know he has a pair of 8's, do you play with a hand like this?

I have yet to actually ever play a hand of Soko but I've been watching it on Martins. I'll cash into Martins Poker tomorrow and play for some cash if I have time.

One more quick question, How is NeTeller for changing funds from USD into Euro for purposes of playing on sites like Martins Poker?

JMB

[timprov]

I haven't played Soko at all, so no help with your early questions. There's some worthwhile threads in the archives.

Neteller will take 1.9% in each direction for currency exchange fees. So don't expect to go in and out of there very much, or you'll get hammered by them.

The big (novdeposit) bonus at Martin's is still on their page, but I don't believe it's still active. You're probably better off going with 24h or HeyPoker and hoping Martin's eventually runs theirs again.

[Tom Bayes]

Here's a thread that I started several months ago when I started to play: Old Soko thread

I really haven't played much of the game since then. I can tell you that B2B players (at least in small ring games and tourneys) LOVE to chase and LOVE to call your pot-sized bets on 3rd and 4th streets. You'll just love this game when some gambooler from the Unibet skin of B2B cracks your wired aces by filling a gutshot 4-straight on the river.

Also, since soko is a variation of stud, it might be worth checking out the Stud forum in case they have any info on soko and/or regular 5CS.

[BadPenguin]

I've played in 4 low buy-in soko tournaments at 24h and have managed to make the final table twice, and get close to the money one other time. (There are usually somewhere in the neighborhood of 100 entrants.) There are a few tough players but for the most part the level of play is pretty poor.

I have to believe there are lots of people in these who are coming from limit games because making minimum-sized bets and raises is very common. In the one I played this morning I couldn't count how many times I'd see somebody with a big pair and up against two flush draws bet 50 into a 600 chip pot, or something similar. Maybe they just haven't figured out how to work the slider...

As for the example of having JTs versus 88, what to do would depend heavily on how live your cards were and what cards were still to act. I'd probably be inclined to call here if the upcards were favorable - the combined chance of making a good draw or a pair by 3rd make it worth seeing a card, I think. (I'd definitely call if the pair of 8's was one of those guys who always bet the minimum, since I wouldn't be afraid of being pushed off a draw by a pot-sized bet.)