Some specialized draw plays

[bigpooch]

If it's not "reasonable" for someone to 3-bet you with a
medium 2 pair when you raise from CO you are playing way
too tightly - getting 3-bet by a big pair isn't unusual for
me. If you are not playing too tightly, and are not dealing
with a strange sort of clueless loose players who turn weak-
tight after a raise, I am quite certain raising is more +EV
than open limping with this hand (and almost every playable
hand).


Reraising with AA is actually -EV against a theoretically
correct CO raise and similarly with a hand like ATT22. If
you are playing with typical players on the button and the
SB, I'll stand by my statement that limping rather than
raising will gain you 0.1 to 0.2 BBs extra in the long run.
Most of that gain comes from the SB being in the pot. Of
course, if the BB defends with shorts or other inadequate
hands, you should raise.

On the other hand, with small flushes or weaker opening
hands, almost in all situations, you are better off to open
with a raise.


So the real test is play after the draw. Again your
"typical tough opponent" may be different from mine, but
when my opponent checks to me after the draw, they almost
never have aces up, and they can't have trips unless they
started with KK. If I now bet my unimproved AAK, my tough
opponent will call me with AA the majority of the time
(think about this, this is really the perfect situation for
value betting a pair). Had I drawn 1, I can no longer value
bet unimproved, because I am less likely to get called by
AA, and it's more likely SB is checking aces up.


First, let me state that the improvement chances are not the
most important factor. The two most important numbers to
examine are: 1) how often you have the best hand; 2) the
long run EV differential when compared to drawing two cards
(drawing three I will ignore).

I'll look into drawing two versus drawing one versus when
both players play close to optimally (when I have some time)
and you may be right that drawing two could be better than
drawing one. Of course, most of the draw players, even the
tough ones, won't play optimally for one reason or another!
[img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

Practically, I'll agree that if you draw 1 or 2, you'll less
likely be paid off by AA even though it's clear that the SB
should be paying you off 19/27 of the time in the 1-2, so
most of these payoffs will be with one pair. But if you are
open raising with hands such as an ace-high flush draw or
KQJT, you will be paid off here even when you draw one to
AAKQ and it's possible that your opponent will less likely
pay you off when you draw two, unless you often draw two to
a pair (which in most cases is -EV).

Admittedly, the EV differential will be small, and I will
guess that it will be less than 0.05 BBs when comparing the
cases of drawing one to AAKQ and drawing two to AAK.

[schubes]

It seems you are only talking about the theoretically correct play between optimal opponents. I am talking about my experience as to how the regular players at the 3/6 and 5/10 paradise draw games actually play.

It may not be optimal to 3-bet my CO raise with AA or KK, (However, look at tables 3.6a and 3.6b in Zadeh's book, he recomends 3 betting with AA-3322 to a minimum opening of TT-JJ) but in practice this happens. As a matter of fact, I remember a long time 2+2er 3-betting my UTG raise with KK.

If you play to steal the blinds on the button and SB, and you always open for a raise, you will get played back at from any position. As I said before, I strongly believe there are very few situations where limping would expect to make more than open raising. And since I don't open limp with draws or shorts, open limping would usually only be more profitable against the most unobservant opponents - and these players tend to play too loose against a raise anyway.

As far as the AAKQ hand, the drawing 2 with AAK value bet isn't something I came up with in theory. I've been using this play and it works very well.

I don't mean to be too critical, I think finding the optimal strategies in these situations is interesting. But don't confuse the "optimal" strategy in the game theory sense with your optimal strategy given how your opponents actually play.