several questions on one hand from a sh newbie

[citanul]

This morning I was playing in what I would have to guess for my style is basically the optimal sh game. Basically, excluding myself, only one player per hand was folding preflop, there was very very little raising, especially not with good hands, and people were making lots of "good folds."

The following hand came up, and it brought up a few questions I've been wondering about.

Hand with questions:
We're 5 handed, and I'm on the button. Fold call to me with J [img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img]9 [img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img]. I limp.

Question 1: is this a raise a call or a fold?

SB calls, BB checks, flop comes:
Q [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img], 4 [img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img], T [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]

Check, Check, Bet, I call, fold and a call behind me.

Question 2: is this a fold? I mean, I guess I can and do raise here very rarely, and occasionally, I'll fold here, but usually I'm calling.

Turn: 7 [img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img], and my odds are looking up.

Check, Bet, I raise, UTG calls 2 cold, Better 3 bets, I call, as does UTG.

Question 3: I like my raise here, I'm hoping others do to. I don't especially like not capping it though, what do others think? From the prior calling 2 cold, it doesn't look like I'm going to lose UTG, and although I'm almost certainly behind both players, I've got to have a good draw winning percentage here. (Note: I don't actually know my odds here)

The river of course brings my beautiful 8 [img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img], making other concerns not so great, bet, raise, raise, cap, I win, he shows AA.

Mostly I guess my questions boil down to, how much do you push or call with draws in SH more than you would in ring games? I mean, the preflop pot is generally the same size/bigger than a lot of the same limits', and you're likely to get more action when you hit, so how many straight draws, flush draws can you do more with than you can in full ring, and how much more?

Hope someone can make sense of all that.

citanul

[Canada Kelly]

I probably would have raised pre-flop, giving you control of the hand

bet or raised on the flop depending on if this guy checks rather than bets because i raised pre-flop.

Then when the club hits on the turn i again would bet/raise/re-raise because you have the pot size and the outs backing you..... and then obviously bet on the river.

the way you played the hand, the only chance you give yourself to win this hand is to have the nut hand, which you end up getting.

[Nate tha' Great]

Preflop. I'm confused about the action in this hand. Did both UTG and CO limp? I'm getting to the point where, if there's exactly one limper to me, my standard play is to raise on the button if I want to play the hand (and I'd want to play this hand). With just one limper, you aren't really assured of having the large field that you'd like in order to play the hand for its drawing value, and there are enough flops that you'll either hit or can represent that I think raising in order to take control of the hand is not a bad idea. With two limpers, I think a call might be better, since you've got better implied odds, but less chance to take down the pot uncontested.

Flop. Easy call.

Turn. I'm not a big fan of the raise here. You've sure got a nice looking draw, but with just one card to come, it's about 2:1 against it hitting*, and I think it's unlikely that you're going to win this hand without improvement. The problems with raising are that

1) You might knock UTG out, which you don't really want to do.
2) You could limit your ability to extract bets on the river. Remember, you're last to act, and both of your draws are well-disguised enough that I highly doubt that CO would check the river even if one of them hits. So, by playing a bit more passively on the turn, I think I can get an extra bet out of him on the river if my draw comes in.

___

* In other words, against two opponents, raising/capping is neutral at best in terms of value, and clearly negative if it knocks UTG out. There's also a chance that your draw will hit and your hand won't be good if the card that comes off is 8 [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] or K [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]. A bet/raise wouldn't be horrible if it put you in a superior strategic position for playing the river, but instead I think the opposite is true.

[Canada Kelly]

I actually mis-read this original post. definately though raise preflop. and bet for surely if checked to on the flop, because now it might be checked to the raiser. and if checked to on the turn, bet

I would agree with Nate because the fact that you don't want to lose the limpers.

what is the guy doing limpimg with AA. Bad move.