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Server Time: 11/21/2008 11:57:23 AM PACIFIC |
 second pair good kicker, mongi, 27. May 2003 17:08 | ||
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| I am just curious how you guys play hands that you are not sure are the best from the flop onward. For example you limp in from utg with AJ offsuite,its a typical 4-8 holdem game not very many hands are raised before the flop. say the flop comes 8JK 6 players in the hand. How do you proceed? In an unraised pot I usually bet out if it is checked to me to see if my hand is good. If their is alot of action behind me (raise, call ,call) I'll of course dump the hand. If everyone just smooth calls behind me there is a chance that my hand is good and the other players are on draws or second pair worse kicker. Somebody may have a big hand and is waiting to pounce on the turn. If a rag hits on the turn Im going to bet again. If I am raised I am done(usually). If everyone calls I will just check the river and see if my hand is good. I know there are many other factors that I am not getting into such as my table image, the image of the other players etc. I am just curious how you play hands like these. Also what do you do if you are not the first to bet on the flop. Assume the betters in front of you could just as easily be betting a draw as they are top pair. How do you proceed. Do you raise? do you just call and pay off the hand hoping yours is best? | ||
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| Re: second pair good kicker, Andrew Wells, 28. May 2003 04:16 | ||
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| I'd say you've got it about right, except for the limping preflop. This is a raise or fold hand depending on many conditions, primarily how loose the table is. The looser the game, the less likely I'm going to play it at all. You're getting into some difficult area when it comes to middle pair on the flop. Often this depends on whether you think the remaining players would have flat called or raised with hands that could now be top pair. It's also not that great an idea to continue without at least top pair when the board could help obvious draws. In this case I usually let go of middle pair on the flop, since it's more likely the pot is going to be raised behind me, and less likely I can win this uncontested on the turn. If someone bets in front of me, I have to know how they play. I also need to believe that a raise on my part is really going to get me last position on the turn. That it is unlikely I'm going to get cold called by someone. It would not be too often that I would want to continue with second pair if someone else already bet. Some other factors to consider are any cards that could fall on the turn that wouldn't improve the pair but might give me some extra outs to a nut draw. That may turn a marginal decision from fold to play. If I think I have five outs with middle pair, the possibility of a runner runner nut draw when looking at the flop changes my outs from five to six. A runner runner straight flush possibility I value at about two extra outs. So if I have almost enough odds to call with five outs, a backdoor possibility is enough now to continue. I don't think you give up much by often just folding middle pair, particularly in a loose low limit game. | ||
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| Re: second pair good kicker, shorn, 28. May 2003 05:28 | ||
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| I agree with Amdrew here. If you are going to play AJo (or any unsuited high cards UTG), you have to raise to try and limit the field. Frankly, the game had to be pretty much perfect for me to play AJ, AT, KQ, etc. UTG. However, these hands do not play well in multi-way pots (especially since you are out of position), so you want to limit the filed as often as possible. Once the flop comes with your middle pair, then it is all about board texture. As Andrew points out, there are two cards in the playing zone on this flop, so leading out might not be the best play here. You will be giving at least 8-1 to any str8 draws, so it might be time for a checkraise if you think someone else will bet. This is true even if you are behind at the moment. The ideal situation is if one of the blinds bets into you, then you can raise and make drawers pay 2 bets to see the turn getting closer to 5-1 to continue playing. It also increases your chances of winning if another J or an Ace falls. Hopefully, you can isolate one of the blinds and play heads up, taking the free card on the turn if you choose. Bottom line, I try to avoid these hands up front in looser games because they are money suckers long run. But if you are going to play, you need to play aggressively to increase your chances of winning. | ||
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| Re: second pair good kicker, JunglingS, 28. May 2003 07:17 | ||
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| I have to disagree partly. AJo is a drawing hand, whether we think of it as one or not. It requires improvement, and also then requires pot odds. While it improves to the best hand a number of different ways, a preflop raise is likely to drive out hands that are not likely to beat it if the flop hits (56s, A4, etc.), but not those that are favorites against it (AK, KK, JJ, maybe even AQ). Depending on your position (players yet to act behind you who might get dead money in with the lower connectors, etc.), and the disposition of the table (loose-aggressive, etc.), you might want to limp in to keep these in for a flop. I would typically do this when you have players that will call bets to see if a gutshot pans out, if their bottom pair with an overcard might improve, etc. On a tight table, on the other hand, a fast raise can do wonders (with the right image), sometimes driving out hands like AQo, JT, etc. Like many other things, this is an "it depends", but I don't think it is necessarily a raise or fold situ. | ||
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| Re: second pair good kicker, shorn, 28. May 2003 08:01 | ||
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| I would agree with you to limp if you are in late position and a bunch of people have already called; at this point, you are GIVING implied odds with this hand so you want to see a flop cheaply. However, UTG you have the ability to force out hands and try to play the hand agains 1 or two opponents which is much better on the off chance that your hand can hold up without improvement. There is no way AJ will win unimproved against six players. While I agree that you are a big underdog to all the hands that you mentioned, you would lose to them no matter what you did preflop (with the exception of hitting two jacks on the board). However, this cannot be a factor into your decision-making of whether to raise or not because you don't know whether one of those hands is behind you or not. Two of the points you make are correct: AJo is a drawing hand and it is an underdog to KK, AQ, etc. But, in order to maximize your chance of winning the hand (if you choose to play it), you must raise UTG to force out the "middle" hands that you spoke about. I am confident that if you limp with AJo in a loose game upfront, it will be a money loser for you over the long run (again, IMHO it is a marginal hand to play at all, but if you are going to play, I think it is a must raise.). | ||
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| Re: second pair good kicker, Andrew Wells, 28. May 2003 17:45 | ||
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| Just because a hand needs improvement is not a reason to avoid a raise. Considering AJo, I most often don't play it up front. I'm not simply calling because the most likely way to hit that hand is with one pair. If I get my one pair, I would like to play further with only a few opponents. If raising before the flop will seriously cut down on the number of opponents, then there are more cards in the deck that will be blanks I may need on the turn or river. AJo is a marginal start up front, and I'm careful not to get too involved with it if someone else shows strength. I'm going to often give it up as one pair on the flop, even if I think someone is raising for a free card as it's too tough to defend against that play. Limp, no thanks - now I would just be playing a weak hand like the rest of the calling stations and puting in another bet anyway if someone takes a late position raise. When I raise with AJ, AT, or KQ instead of just AK and AQ, anytime a big card falls on the flop I am a threat to have top pair. This makes it harder for someone to outplay me. | ||
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| Re: second pair good kicker, noiseboy, 28. May 2003 09:16 | ||
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| If the game is loose, AJo is a loser to begin with UTG and should just be dumped. Like others mentioned previously, AJ doesn't like many opponents, so usually you want to play this from middle position on in an unraised pot, and you should raise to limit the field to two or three players. 2nd pair with an overcard kicker is a good semi-bluff hand if you have a short-handed pot and you might try to bet or raise, depending on your opponent, being less likely to try this play against strong opponents or frequent check raisers. With more players, you should usually check and then if someone bets, see what your odds are, and if the pot is big enough you might take a card off to hit your kicker, otherwise fold. Hope this helps, there really isn't a set way to play these hands as a lot depends on how well you know your opponents and how well they play. | ||
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| Re: second pair good kicker, SendMoney, 29. May 2003 04:01 | ||
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| In the example you mentioned you had AJo and the flop came KJ8 in an unraised pot with 6 players. For the sake of this hand we could say it's KJ8 rainbow and rule out the flush draw. In my opinion you should either check/fold or check/raise this hand in early postion, or make a position bet or raise from late position. Even though you might still be an underdog, your raise might knock out hands like Q10, 910, QJ and MIGHT even force out a Kx hand like K2 or K3. Now if you check and everyone check behind you, you'll have gained that much information and the free card isn't so bad because you don't really have a completed hand on the flop anyhow. If the flop came KJ8 and you had AJo, someone else had K9o and another person had Q10o and you failed to knock either of them out then you would have 2 outs to your jacks to make trips. Both K9o and Q10o would call one bet in this situation, but the extra bet from a check/raise could give them something to think about. If you were able to knock out hand like Q10o and get head up with the K then your A would become a live card and you 5 outs (3 aces + 2 jacks) instead of just 2 outs. All that said the average person who flops an open-ended nut straight draw vs. 6 players probably will absorb 2 bets or even 3 bets on the flop if there are at least 2 other players. | ||
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