ruh roh - AJo is my biggest loser...

[Entity]

[ QUOTE ]
as the game gets more aggressive, you should
discard some of the weaker Group 4 hands such as AJ and KTs.
These can be difficult hands to play out of position, especially if you find yourself isolated by an aggressive player.

[/ QUOTE ]

Hey TT,

I completely agree in a game where the players are solid or otherwise aggressive. But in Party's $2/4, a largely loose-passive fest, raising this is standard -- because worse hands will call the vast majority of the time (value), and because there aren't enough aggressive players to worry about the hand becoming particularly tricky to play (as you should be able to easily see from the postflop play on these hands).

I'm raising this UTG at Party's $2/4 and $3/6 with great success so far (obviously, .5/1 and $1/2 are included as well). I haven't played their $5/10 full ring or above, so I really can't comment much on whether the raise is a good idea there -- but I do know that peter_rus has done extensive analysis with ATo (a muck for me) and raising it UTG in the Party $15/30, which is a very aggressive game, and it's a long-term winner for him.

HEPFAP is a great book for general principles, but it's a bit outdated as far as how games "play" anymore; of course, the most important thing that any of us should remember is to adjust our play according to the game we're playing -- and if you're advising mucking AJo UTG at Party's $2/4 tables, you certainly aren't adhering to that tenet of good poker. It is mentioned by Ed Miller in SSH that whether you raise or call AJo or KQo in EP is of relatively little importance; the subject has been debated here many times, and the only important thing is that, when you are practicing good game selection, you don't fold them.

As far as the raise goes in #2, it's simply value extraction. If raising the hand preflop means you're leading any flop and any turn, however, you should reconsider whether or not you should be raising in the first place. Obviously an A77 flop is a fine one to lead, however, and the only real question in this hand is whether it's better to call or fold to the river raise. The raise from the SB is probably marginally +EV if you play well postflop, and given the fact that the opponents are two typical Party $2/4 limpers, a raise here is for value.

Rob

[Azhrarn]

Hand 1:

Pre-flop and flop are good.

Whether or not to bet the turn should be opponent specific, however. The board is relatively drawless. It is likely your opponent either has a pair or is the type of player who will almost always call a flop bet after a pre-flop raise. Absent an opponent read, decide which is more likely for the typical 2/4 player.

Hand 2:

Pre-flop: Marginal, depending on your opponents. If they're both very loose, I like it. Against unknowns, I don't like it.

Flop and turn are good.

River: It's a crappy situation. A read on the opponent would help a lot. Against a looser opponent, the bet is probably okay. Against a tighter opponent, check/call is probably better. Against a straightforward opponent, bet/fold might be the way to go.

Hand 3:

Pre-flop is good.

Flop: You're out of position and the board didn't help your hand at all. Against typical opponents, I bet. Against very loose opponents (especially if MP2 is loose), you may want to just check/fold. Because you'll have to put in a flop and turn bet to try to win this, and I think that's more than your hand's worth.

Turn: I would usually give up here.

[Klepton]

hand 1 perfect
hand 2 bet and fold to a raise, or check call if you want a showdown
hand 3 check the turn

all preflop raises are fine, hand #2 is awesome

[MisterKing]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
as the game gets more aggressive, you should
discard some of the weaker Group 4 hands such as AJ and KTs.
These can be difficult hands to play out of position, especially if you find yourself isolated by an aggressive player.

[/ QUOTE ]

Hey TT,

I completely agree in a game where the players are solid or otherwise aggressive. But in Party's $2/4, a largely loose-passive fest, raising this is standard -- because worse hands will call the vast majority of the time (value), and because there aren't enough aggressive players to worry about the hand becoming particularly tricky to play (as you should be able to easily see from the postflop play on these hands).

I'm raising this UTG at Party's $2/4 and $3/6 with great success so far (obviously, .5/1 and $1/2 are included as well). I haven't played their $5/10 full ring or above, so I really can't comment much on whether the raise is a good idea there -- but I do know that peter_rus has done extensive analysis with ATo (a muck for me) and raising it UTG in the Party $15/30, which is a very aggressive game, and it's a long-term winner for him.

HEPFAP is a great book for general principles, but it's a bit outdated as far as how games "play" anymore; of course, the most important thing that any of us should remember is to adjust our play according to the game we're playing -- and if you're advising mucking AJo UTG at Party's $2/4 tables, you certainly aren't adhering to that tenet of good poker. It is mentioned by Ed Miller in SSH that whether you raise or call AJo or KQo in EP is of relatively little importance; the subject has been debated here many times, and the only important thing is that, when you are practicing good game selection, you don't fold them.

As far as the raise goes in #2, it's simply value extraction. If raising the hand preflop means you're leading any flop and any turn, however, you should reconsider whether or not you should be raising in the first place. Obviously an A77 flop is a fine one to lead, however, and the only real question in this hand is whether it's better to call or fold to the river raise. The raise from the SB is probably marginally +EV if you play well postflop, and given the fact that the opponents are two typical Party $2/4 limpers, a raise here is for value.

Rob

[/ QUOTE ]

Excellent post, Entity -- we need more posts like this where we get the background behind the recommendation.

The AJo/KQo UTG thing has been posted to death and really its a style choice as you say. I never open-fold either in 2/4 or 3/6 games on Party, but I do sometimes call with trickier guys in the game on my immediate left. I do think the UTG situation is fundamentally different than the situation original poster had in hand #2 where he poppsed AJo for a raise in the SB after numerous limpers.

When contemplating that particular move (raising AJo for value in the SB vs numerous limpers), I never really worry about limp/re-raises because they happen so infrequently, but I do worry about playing out of position against a large field WHEN two or more seriously loose/passive guys are on my immediate left. Reason being they will (inadvertantly) stop me from doing anything to protect my hand a lot of the time if I hit a jack. They'll just happily call along with whatever, and in doing so sweeten the pot so much that anyone in the hand from LP with reasonable draws always gets the odds to continue. And as you've said, the 2/4 tables are very passive, so you may not get the chance to put in a check-raise as often as you'd like to protect against this situation.

Opponents are going to play the same postflop in a raised or unraised pot in most of these 2/4 games, so my preference a lot of the time is to just call and keep the pot small. Their post-flop mistakes will be magnified, and you *might* get a fighting chance to price draws out by the turn. So, that's just a few things I think of in response to your post -- not saying you're wrong at all, but that there are always a few other things to ponder.

[Jules22]

i disagree. i think ajo is a fine hand in limit hold em, and will usually raise it if nobody else has.

[HajiShirazu]

These three hands are fine except hand 3, where you should check the turn.
Keep raising preflop, in fact I think hand 2 is the one where not raising would be the worst, since you almost certainly have the best hand here, nobody limps in with a hand that is worse than what you have. AJ is a hand where you'd like to limit the field and play shorthanded, raising preflop accomplishes this-and even in the SB hand you can try to get the BB out.

[sebastian_d]

When I'm on a table of decent players, I toss AJo from early position. First time I had someone suggest that to me, I thought it was crazy talk, but it's turned out to be good advice. AJo is marginally profitable at best from early position, but especially if you're multitabling or don't have notes on whatever opponent comes in, you can potentially lose a good bit on it.


Tossing AJo from UTG, especially, isn't going to cost you much if anything in terms of expected value, and will probably help you.