Some advice from an online article

[Michael Davis]

This advice is pulled from:

an article posted by rr2000

This article is written by Ashley Adams, who is supposedly going to include his thoughts in a book that I am pretty sure I will not be buying. Here is some advice that I think is terrible. The advice is supposed to concern low spread limit stud games. Please respond with any comments:


In some situations, unlike in fixed limit, it isn't wrong to just call with your Premium Pair. Here's why. Much of the time you'll be folding this hand on Fourth Street when it doesn't improve and when there are many opponents. So you'll be saving money by not making an unhelpful and unnecessary raise.

A pair of Jacks, for example, especially without an Ace or King kicker is a dog if there are three or more players chasing Straights and Flushes. So you don't want to lead with it in a way that gets a bunch of callers. If your raise on Third Street didn't have the intended affect of significantly limiting the field, don't stubbornly push this hand on Fourth Street. Instead, you need to think about either thinning the field on Fourth Street or getting out if there is any action. Be less inclined to be as aggressive as you would be in a typical fixed limit game on Fourth Street with the lower tier of Premium Pairs: 10s, Jacks and Queens for example.

When this is the case, when players are less aggressive, looser, and more passive, it often pays for you to be similarly so. It seems contradictory, but your response to the bad play of your opponents may be to become more like them in certain ways.

Quick story. I remember when I first started to play spread limit at Foxwoods Casino. I had just read some poker books and thought that I understood the game.

I remembered that I was suppose to play Premium Pairs aggressively. So I was dealt a split pair of Jacks and raised. I got four callers including a King. I didn't improve on Fourth Street. So when the King checked I bet. I got four callers. I did the same on Fifth Street, Sixth Street and on the River. On the River I had Jacks Up. I finished fourth out of five players.

A better strategy would have been for me to slow down on Fourth, check after the King, and possibly fold if someone else bet on Fifth Street and I still had my Jacks. If I saw someone who had what looked like a four flush or a four straight I should have folded to a bet. Stubbornly playing aggressively in the face of many drawing hands was a mistake.

[Michael Davis]

After examination, this advice may not be as bad as I originally thought, but I am still greatly troubled by the line that you will often be folding premium pairs against many opponents if you don't improve on 4th. You mine as well just stop playing these hands.

Also, his example about the Js up hand he played at Foxwoods is completely unhelpful. It is not representative of actual trends or a range of actual hands or anything. It is simply one hand the guy played and finished 4th out of 5 with Js up.


Mike

[Lin Sherman]

I think Ashley's advice is pretty much right on target.

His example is a bit extreme (it's rare for five players to go to the showdown) but, in my experience, it's typical of what happens to players who push hands like jacks-up in a multiway field against a bunch of stubborn players who are showing higher cards and/or probable flush or straight draws.

The problem may be the term "premium pairs". TT-QQ just aren't in the same league as KK-AA, especially in multiway pots or versus opponents with higher door cards. TT-QQ are pretty much dogmeat in multiway pots unless you have a live ace kicker or a live flush feature.

Lin