4 hands, 3 big slicks, 10th place

[curtains]

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How is this post benificial to anyone who reads it?
How are those ppls replies benificial to you?

For all hands: you had good reason to put your money in the middle. you won some, you lost some.

Are you looking for a shoulder to cry on? Want a cookie?

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Umm maybe he posted the hands because he wanted advice? It's not really rocket science.

[curtains]

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Hand 1) Am I nuts to go all-in after my raise is smooth called on the flop on a fairly raggedy board? (I really don't think I had a choice, but maybe a check/call line on the turn?)

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Someone correct me if I'm way off base (I've been having an affair with the 6-max NL tables) but isn't all-in about the worse possible play? Either you've just given away all your chips or you've failed to extract anything out of a winner. It looks like a panic/tilt move.

Slim

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it is very likely that the villain has Ax and will call

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Gosh no, no one at the $33 sit and go's would call an allin with just top pair weak kicker. They would all be super tight rocks and fold due to the obvious show of strength.

I would move allin as well, the 9 was an slightly unpleasant card and any bet I make is going to pot commit me anyway. It's possible I would bet less than allin only with the purpose of extracting some chips, depending on how I felt about the strength of my opponent's hand, but by no means do I think allin is a "PANIC/TILT" move, whatever that is anyway.

[curtains]

btw I may be one of the few people on this forum who think so, but I really don't like making large open raises with a hand like AK. I mean I really really don't like open raising to 70-80 or whatever when the blinds are 10-15. I'd rather do so with a hand like QQ, but even so I think it's best to just raise to 40-50 (I usually raise to exactly 45) with almost all opening hands in round 1 in every buyin of sit and go.

This is of course my personal preference and obviously not the clear correct way to play. However it makes your decisions postflop a lot easier, especially with a hand like AK. You can make a continuation bet against one opponent without risking too big a % of your stack, (Have fun raising to 75, getting one caller and having to make a 100-125 chip bluff bet as opposed to a 65-75 chip bet) AND if you get more than one opponent and miss the flop, you can get away cheaply. Also when you flop top pair, it's less likely that someone has you beaten as opposed to having an overpair with AA, so I don't feel that it's as important to protect your hand preflop.

I also like to play this way with QQ+JJ, because I feel I am generally good at figuring out whether my hand is good, and the deeper stacks give me more betting leverage to find out where I'm at. If I make a huge open raise, I basically lose the chance to make smaller information type bets on the flop.

[dfscott]

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btw I may be one of the few people on this forum who think so, but I really don't like making large open raises with a hand like AK. I mean I really really don't like open raising to 70-80 or whatever when the blinds are 10-15. I'd rather do so with a hand like QQ, but even so I think it's best to just raise to 40-50 (I usually raise to exactly 45) with almost all opening hands in round 1 in every buyin of sit and go.

This is of course my personal preference and obviously not the clear correct way to play. However it makes your decisions postflop a lot easier, especially with a hand like AK. You can make a continuation bet against one opponent without risking too big a % of your stack, (Have fun raising to 75, getting one caller and having to make a 100-125 chip bluff bet as opposed to a 65-75 chip bet) AND if you get more than one opponent and miss the flop, you can get away cheaply. Also when you flop top pair, it's less likely that someone has you beaten as opposed to having an overpair with AA, so I don't feel that it's as important to protect your hand preflop.

I also like to play this way with QQ+JJ, because I feel I am generally good at figuring out whether my hand is good, and the deeper stacks give me more betting leverage to find out where I'm at. If I make a huge open raise, I basically lose the chance to make smaller information type bets on the flop.

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I'm really glad to hear this because after reading this thread I was starting to doubt some of my basic strategy. After leaking tons of chips with the sequence of: AK, big raise, big continuation bet on missed flop, check/fold turn, I'd really backed off of it a lot pre-flop. Now instead of hitting level 4 with 650 chips, I'm hitting it with 775. With AK, I'm not looking to score big and double up -- I'm looking to preserve/build my stack for the later levels.

IMO, the small pre-flop raise lets you do two things when you miss. First, you can see the flop relatively cheaply. This means that you can afford a continuation bet which often takes it down right there. If re-raised, the pot is small enough that you can easily let the hand go if re-raised. If called, you get another shot at hitting your TP on the turn, and if you have position, you can often see the river as well. This may sound weak, since you won't get people pot committed when they hit their weak ace on the flop, but I think it's a viable trade-off in the early levels.

With QQ or JJ, I don't really care about seeing all five cards. I'm looking to drive out the junk with a decent sized pre-flop raise (4BB or t100, whichever is more). I might raise more in LP with tons of limpers. Once the flop comes down, I'm looking to either go to the felt or check/fold. I don't have much chance to improve, so I want the drawers to pay.

[hummusx]

I don't think I agree with this - I think you are giving up a lot of value when you have a great hand. If you are trying to get by cheap with AK you're going to end up with too many people in the hand. If you raise it to 45 and get 4 callers, the pot is now 225. What kind of continuation bet can you do for cheap? If you raise it to 70 and get 2 callers, the pot is now 210. Plus, you've got a better chance that someone did not hit their 2 pair when the flop came K76.

Like I said before, I'm not real big on raising AK more than a normalish raise, but I think your line of thinking is a little off. AK isn't going to make a big hand most of the time - you don't really want to 'see the flop cheaply' because that's going to tend to let other people 'see the flop cheaply' as well.

[curtains]

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I don't think I agree with this - I think you are giving up a lot of value when you have a great hand. If you are trying to get by cheap with AK you're going to end up with too many people in the hand. If you raise it to 45 and get 4 callers, the pot is now 225. What kind of continuation bet can you do for cheap? If you raise it to 70 and get 2 callers, the pot is now 210. Plus, you've got a better chance that someone did not hit their 2 pair when the flop came K76.

Like I said before, I'm not real big on raising AK more than a normalish raise, but I think your line of thinking is a little off. AK isn't going to make a big hand most of the time - you don't really want to 'see the flop cheaply' because that's going to tend to let other people 'see the flop cheaply' as well.

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First of all everyone here is insane, you simply don't expect 4 callers when you raise to 45 preflop with AKo in the $33s. I've played enough of them to know, most of the time you will get one or maybe two callers, and will have a pot size that is very managable.

Also when you get a ton of callers you don't use a continuation bet. I basically do a continuation bet a large majority of the time against one opponent, and less so against 2. Against two opponents the board has to be right, or I just have to have some kind of other feeling to do it. Most of the time I will just check and fold to 2 callers, although it depends on the flop texture/position and so on.

[curtains]

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IMO, the small pre-flop raise lets you do two things when you miss. First, you can see the flop relatively cheaply. This means that you can afford a continuation bet which often takes it down right there. If re-raised, the pot is small enough that you can easily let the hand go if re-raised. If called, you get another shot at hitting your TP on the turn, and if you have position, you can often see the river as well. This may sound weak, since you won't get people pot committed when they hit their weak ace on the flop, but I think it's a viable trade-off in the early levels.

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I think you'll do just fine against a $33 player if they flop top pair along with you and you have them outkicked, whether or not you raised to 45 or 75 preflop. Also please for the love of God, don't open raise to 100 with QQ+JJ if the blinds are 10-15.

[dfscott]

Yeah, sorry -- that last paragraph was convoluted -- I don't know where I was going there. I'm generally open raising JJ for 3BB most times (although maybe 4 on level 1) and limping behind 2 or more limpers. I'll be a bit more aggressive with QQ, raising to t60 on level 1 and usually around t100 on level 2, and maybe as much as t100 on level 1 and t150 on level two with 2 or more limpers ahead.

[1C5]

Ok curtains, you raise to 45 if early in the pot with AK, I do the same.
What about you are in late position with AK and you have 3 or 4 limpers at level 1. AK plays better vs 1 opponent than 4 so how much do you raise here? Raising to 45 won't do anything to drive anyone out of the pot.

[adanthar]

I've actually made my standard raise size 60 in level 1 because of this problem. No big deal if I get more callers, the point is to outplay them postflop anyway.

Same thing with AK in LP; at that point, you have two options - raise to 60 and just build a pot you have the best hand in right now, or do something weird like raise to 150 or push. The real problem is that the last thing you want with AK is exactly 1 caller, because you will miss too often (2 callers gives you odds to hit). Therefore, if your raise size is too big, what will happen is you'll get one donkey calling with 77 and he'll have the best hand on the flop most of the time. That's bad, and in this situation, you should try to just build the pot.