I still don't get this at all. Please help me understand:

[bernie]

If you can find them, John Feeney was in 2 or 3 threads about this. I think it was involving AK preflop. I think it was 6+months ago if not further back. He had some fantastic stuff about it that really put it into perspective as far as the whys and whens.

Along the same lines, there are a ton of threads about waiting for the turn that would probably serve you better and may put this move into clearer terms.

b

[tshak]

This discussion definitely applies to Limit Hold'em, more specifically to the micro limits or any loose game. PLHE and NLHE games give you much more power to protect premium starting hands than Limit Hold'em does.

In MP and sometimes even EP I may raise (opening or not) with a hand like 88 or AQo (hands that generally don't hold up against a lot of draws). However if I was in LP with one or no limpers, and especially if the blinds call raises with a very wide range of hands, I may choose to limp on occasion as well. Consider a similar scenario to the one above where you flop rags. This is an extreme example but good to illustrate my point. Preflop your 88 against two players with over cards has ~34% equity. This isn't very exciting in a pot laying you 2:1. Contrast this with the rag flop, and you've got ~51% equity. You are now a huge favorite to take down this pot and with much better pot odds. Your opponents are now drawing as slightly worse than 3:1 dogs in about a 3:1 pot (much worse if a lagger value bets into you and you raise, which is the optimal situation assuming you're ahead of course). The turn can allow even more errors if no one improves. If the pot was raised they'd be getting 7:1 on the flop and they will be unknowingly making a very correct call. On the other hand flopping a set is a nightmare because you could have built the pot up preflop, which is why I like raising with these hands in MP or LP with a few limpers. So as with anything in poker this play is very situational.

Apply this example with AQo against offsuit lower broadways, suited connectors, Ax(s), or maybe a small pair in the blinds. If you hit your Q you do not want a big pot to allow for correct draws to beat you. Preflop against a certain range of hands, your edge is probably not that large. Yes you don't want 73o in the BB to flop two pair or trips for free, but if it was something like 75s they're calling anyway, and with the small field and decent pot odds (at a 1/2 discount) they are probably making a correct call. So as you can see limping with strong hands that don't easily improve on the flop against a small field may be the most profitable play.

I'm pretty new to poker in general (taking it seriously for well less than a year), and especially Limit (I'm a NHLE player learning Limit), so take what I say with a grain of newbie salt [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[Louie Landale]

Malmuth made a big mistake in that article about checking Aces after the flop so that the opponents fold for a single turn bet. That's easy to prove to be false.

That Manipulating The Size of the Pot stuff is mostly crap. First, MTSofP means you fail to bet or raise as a favorite or do bet or raise as an underdog. This "mistake" can only be justified if it will [1] cause the opponents to change their behavior later because of the pot size, and [2] this change in behavior is a bigger mistake than the one you made originally.

#1 means if the loose opponent is going to call all bets anyway then you are better off flailing away, even if it gives him the "correct" odds to call due to the bigger pot: if you are a 6:1 favorite when he calls on the turn then you make 5/7ths of a bet when he calls no matter how big the pot is and no matter how many "Sklansky dollars" you earned. (That Sklanky Dollar notion is used to compare reasonable options, but if the opponent is going to call no matter what then he has only one option and there's nothing to compare it to).

#2 means the opponent has to incorrectly adjust for the new pot size. Raising with a small pair figuring the opponent will call with just overcards on the turn against your set is a reasonable example, since you've manipulated him to change from folding to giving you a whole bet, which is a huge mistake.

#2 also means that if the opponent is going to play correctly based on the size of the pot, then you cannot MTSofP profitably. All in all its askying way to much and comes up profitably rarely.

Having said all that, playing "tricky" early (making a cheap mistake) CAN cause the opponent to play terribly later. Not raising the flop to get a double bet on the turn is an example. But that's tricking the opponent into making a big mistake and is NOT MTSofP. His mistake is due to your actions and not due to the size of the pot.

Also having said that, there is sometimes some small benefit vis-a-vis the notion of compounding outs, where you are a little better off getting a couple of the bad calls to fold. But that notion has been blown so far out of proportion to reality in Pop literature (mostly here) that I'd rather not give it more power.

Also having said that its often to the best pair's advantage to narrow the field because its easier to outplay fiew opponents later. Its less because you make more money in show-down equity and more because you make less mistakes later which is typically very profitable. Again, that has nothing to do with MTSofP.

- Louie