Jacks and I both play at Canterbury which is why we both see bad players the same way though we sometimes disagree on what to do to about them.

Anyone notice WTF spelled backwards is FTW?

Canterbury Park, Shakopee, MN

Don't you have this backwards bob? The more people in the hand the LESS pot equity you need for jamming your draw to be profitable.

That view doesn’t account for the profitability of free cards.

Fold preflop

Ludicrous advice. Yeah just sit back and wait for aces utg at 4/8 rake town.

I wouldn't generally fold this preflop, but the higher the rake, the tighter you should play, so high rake is an argument for folding, not against.
Like if I were a prop player in a 4/8 game with a $20 rake I would fold it.

Yes I get that more pots played equals more rake paid, I'm not dumb, I'm merely stating that 4/8 is a place of misery and I'm not folding my way to glory while watching people gleefully open limping 87o from mp. All I want to do is play pots with people who make mistakes and I'm not waiting only for premiums to do that.

The rake isn't the primary driver of the decision here. It's the calling ranges of the people behind you.

In an unraked game where people 3-bet top 10% and fold otherwise, this is a snap fold.

In a $7 drop game where people call with top 70% minus top 5%, I think it's a raise.

i may be missing some context here, but you absolutely can have a pretty good estimate of your expected winning percentage. just clarifying that point.

I meant to post this sooner, but FWIW I think there's a lot of significance in this comment.

Even for experienced players it's really easy to adpot hard-and-fast rules and forget that in poker there's actualy no such thing as a hard-and-fast rule. A good example is overbetting the flop - it's really easy to think "If I overbet the pot I'll only get called by a better hand", but if worse hands will CALL the overbet, overbet up a storm!

In this case, it's really easy to fall into the trap of thinking "I'm only going to open 99+/AQso+/KQs because those are the only profitable hands from this position" and forget to adjust one's thinking for the table conditions.

It's already been debated, but I think that a 4/8 table can be plenty profitable even if it's not SO BAD that you can't profitably open QTs from UTG. Don't get me wrong, if Canterbury Park and Winstar were right next door to each other I'd be going to CP . But even if a game is bad enough that a QTs UTG limp will get called by any Ax, Kx, OSB, PP, C or SC in 4 spots but only get called once or twice by a raise (including the BB) I'll still happily play in that game.

Hope this made sense.

I'm pretty sure that this is true:

Mostly because QTs isn't where you're winning big money nor losing big money either way. I'd be surprised if the hand won more than 0.05BB/100. Wild guess but you get the point.

It's when you pass on too many of these slightly profitable hands that your winrate really starts to take a hit. If you fold QTs and QJs? Immediately we should know that the opportunity cost more than doubles because QJs makes stronger hands than QTs in a raw high card/pair sense. The flushes and straights seem like a wash to me combo wise, and QJs makes bigger full houses or quads. So the difference is going to be dependent on your ability to win the pot with a pair more so than your ability to win with a high card. I don't know how big the opportunity cost is exactly here, but the more hands you can play profitably, the higher your winrate will be with rare exception in limit holdem because implied odds are low; you can't necessarily slowplay your way to winning a big stack from another strong hand like you can in big bet games; since implied odds are low, that means that reverse implied odds are low as well in limit holdem. Thus the value of making a pair goes up specifically because it's easier to get to showdown. At a very loose passive table that will let your QTs win on this runout 5 handed you're 3rd to act the whole way:

you raise preflop early position with QTs, get called by two behind in the latest positions and both blinds.

flop: AK4r

checks through.

turn: To

idk strong enough to bet 5 handed? I'd check it again. checks through.

river 2o.

checks through. If we're winning often here, then sure go ahead and raise the QTs pre from early position. If we're consistently getting beat by more tight passive players with stronger ranges, then I think our position is just too poor to play QTs.



I'll stop rambling but I hope it got you thinking.

I'd like to get back to this:

Let's imagine that everyone limps in at a nine handed table and we check in the big blind with 74o.

flop: 53Kr

How do you play your draw if you have this many bets left?:

a) 1 small bet.
b) 2 small bets.
c) 3 small bets.
d) 4 small bets.
e) 5 small bets.
etc.

my thoughts:



Another example:

I raise MP with JTs, three calls behind and the blinds call. 6 hands to flop:

982r gives me a backdoor flushdraw.

blinds check.

How do you play your draw if you have this many bets left?:

a) 1 small bet.
b) 2 small bets.
c) 3 small bets.
d) 4 small bets.
e) 5 small bets.
etc.

my thoughts:

Now compare those situations with a 3 handed spot:

there's a middle position limper, I raise on the button, small blind folds, big blind calls, limper calls.

2cThQh

I don't cbet this 100%, but I bet often here when it checks to me, particularly with any decent draw. If I had to rate the potential draws to bet in order of preference?:

AhKh
AhJh
KhJh
Kh9h
Jh9h
Jh8h
Ahxh
Khxh
Jhxh etc with the flushdraws.
AhKx
AhJx
KhJx
Kh9x
Jh9x

I'd bet these hands 100% of the time.

then from there it gets marginal:

AxJh, KxJh, Jx9h, Kx9h, AJo, KJo, J9o, K9o.

I'd bet these hands selectively vs tight players.