AJs

[amoeba]

you are right soah, you should be raising with an even worse hand strictly speaking.

I don't feel its a waste reraising here though as your EV from the reraise is higher than your EV from just calling.

although strictly speaking it would be better if you reraise here with 72o as the EV difference between reraising and folding is even bigger.

techinically its not a bluff though. because if we expect all better hands to call the reraise then its not really a bluff but rather trying to pick up the pot and force opponent to fold a hand that while worse than ours has odds to call.

[soah]

Your EV of raising may be better than calling... but I must argue that this alone does not make it the correct play.

Much of your equity is derived from the fact that your opponents will give you respect, they will put you on a big hand, and they will not play back at you much unless they flop something very big. Thus, you must make this move sparingly, or else your image will become tarnished and your reraise will not get respect, they will not put you on a big hand, and they will start looking you up or playing back at you.

Suppose that you are to play two hands... AJs, and 76s. Your opponent will have a random hand in the range of JJ-55, AKo-ATo, AKs-A6s, all suited broadway, KQo, and T9s-43s. Your opponent doesn't know what you are being dealt, but he believes you to be a tight, rational player. The poker gods inform you that you must reraise preflop with one of these hands, and call with one of these hands.

As a good player in position we will assume you can show a profit calling with each of these hands, and a bigger profit reraising them. I believe that the difference in EV between reraising/calling with 76s is greater than the difference in EV between reraising/calling with AJs. Therefore, I choose to play AJs for "best hand/steal unwanted pots" value and 76s for "force him to flop huge, and then make a hidden straight to bust him" value.

(And of course, this is all based upon the assumption that the reraise will indeed force him to play very tight on the flop. If he will still check/call the flop with unimproved 99, etc, then much of this analysis is useless.)

[amoeba]

I know what you are saying.

I said pretty much the same thing.

it is rather counterintuitive though.

what I should have said is, if you haven't raised or reraised in a while, make this reraise regardless of what you have.

I still don't think the EV of calling is neccesarily that good. when we call with say 67s, we aren't attached to paired hands, which we predominately make. When we make paired hands with say AJ though, there is a degree more difficulty getting away from it.

But yes, if you feel that postflop you are as good as villain, then it makes more sense to call AJ, and reraise a more trash hand.

[Bco1/75]

If I understand your rationing correctly. This is just my opinion but, i don't think you get a loose call 1/4th of the time when the pot has been preflop raised then potted after a check. With this agression, I would put the loose call ratio closer to 1/6th and flopped monster closer to 5/6th. THus not as good

ADDED:

Your loose call is most likely to come before the flop. say with KQ?....TT....99?

talk about dissapointment. This thread had 33 replies so I had to see what all the kafuffle was about, and it turns out the hand was pretty simple. Yeah I like hero's line, and yeah I like a call.

Preflop: Me personally I like to call here, and would rather put a small suited connecter in my reraising hand range

[freehat]

Wow amoeba you are wrong calling here preflop is perfectly fine. How can you have so many posts and not understand this basic play?

[jkkkk]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
smart LAG

[/ QUOTE ]

so you are saying smart LAG flopped something that beats my TPTK.

thats fine.

if he needs to flop something to beat my TPTK then it makes my reraise all the better. lets say he has 55.

you are failing to account for the times the flop comes say 2 6 K, and I win more money.

I have essentially forced him to outflop what I'm representing, which is big overpair or AK.

you said earlier that the only hands that calls our reraise are hands that dominate us. Thats fine. thats the way I want it. villain is rising 20% of hands. hands that dominate us are maybe maybe 5%, 3/4 of the time we make 16, 1/4 of the time we drop 25.

[/ QUOTE ]

So I should be doing this w/ 72o...

I'm not going to elaborate on my opinion further because I believe soah has pretty much outlined why calling is better in this situation.

[BobboFitos]

i sometimes check this flop, given how it's played out, you make the crying call on the turn.

I think pf is good, folding raising calling are all viable. I haven't poured through what people say but intuitively reraising is best.

edit:* Although I would call more often then reraise [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[Lucky]

gettting almost 4 to 1 with top against Super Lag, yeah i call.

He'll show you a straight a lot, but a worse 2 pair enough to make it a call.

[AKQJ10]

Sorry to bump up an old thread (it is on the Digest, though), and sorry in advance for the tangent.

[ QUOTE ]
If you're going to bluff, why waste a strong hand to do it with? Bluffing should be done in cases where it's the only way to win the hand....

[/ QUOTE ]

This is a new concept to me, and flies in the face of much of my understanding. In essence it negates any sort of semibluffing, unless the quote applies only to the strictest definition of bluffing (betting or raising when you have no chance or a tiny chance of winning at showdown). But in fact, the reraise PF with AJs is a semibluff, not a total bluff, because AJs could outdraw a dominating hand several ways.

So I guess I just don't understand that quote. Is it accepted conventional wisdom to save bluffing for lousy hands?