I cant really elaborate without more detail, past history, dynamics, flop texture etc.

For example, flop of Jd 2h 3h and a 4 way pot of 60$, Im betting 35$ in this spot a lot of times because Im going to get everyone to fold, or hands w/ 6 outs calling, and more than likely can push JT, JQ, KJ off a hand if I have been playing like a rock, you do really need to know your ALL of your opponents tendencies, how they are currently viewing you etc (ie you have to know what you can and can not get away with post flop). It is all highly situational and opponent dependent, but raising to build a 60$ or so dollar pot is ideal as it allows the most room for maneuvering, raising to 20-25 makes a 120$ -150$ pot (leaving no room for maneuvering), raising more is insane and is indicative of a player who is playing fit or fold poker which is highly exploitable.

Very well said.

How much more would you make it? There is still high chance they call $40 here so dont be thinking if I raise more, more people will fold.

If the plan is to take it down preflop then we dont a hand like pocket 9's to do that with DUCY?

You also have to figure that the two other players had a T and a Q each or at least between them. Yes he is loose, only with his calling range not his raising range.

We dont have outs to a straight.

But we have two nines making it less likely Q9 and I think he bets the flop with 44/QT a lot more than he checks it.

And we can assume that a queen has been passed, maybe 2 queens, or a Queen and a Ten. So we have 8 outs at the worst.

My bad. Must have put the wrong hand in pokerstove earlier. You have 23% equity if he has KJ.

The pot (for you) is $100+$50+180 = $330 and you have to call $180. You need to win this 36% of the time. Fold now, you don't beat him often enough.

say we are up against KQo and JTs, do the poker stove on that, you are just about splitting equity 3 ways (99=30%, KQ=37%, JTs=31%); limping is fine, raising is better (control on teh flop/free card, you can CBET the perfect amount 30-35$--a lot of peoples folding point for floats), raising a 15% of your stack as people are saying he should do is ridiculous. Keep the pot kind of small w/ your raise, learn what boards you can fire on, and how much to fire

raise 12$ > limp > raise 30$ > folding

this raise already is too high raising more is just throwing money away...people at this level aren't that savvy so your raise sizes can reflect your hand strength without anyone ever being the wiser...i would raise AA here to 20 and 99 to like 8-12 or so and be fairly confident not one of these guys will recognize the difference

If everyone is going to call the preflop raise, is it horrible to limp here with a "marginal" good hand?

Yes, 99 has a equity advantage over what these jokers are limping with. But I'm guessing it is a fairly slight advantage and we're going to hate most flops. Is it so horrible to just limp along, play for set value and then try to build a huge pot when we actually have a huge hand?

I think I'd be more apt to raising this hand (or other "marginal" good hands) in LP after lottsa limpers if there was a decent chance we could get things heads up with dead money in the pot, so we could then c-bet, win the pot, buy a hot dog, and move on to the next hand. From the OP, that's not going to happen here.

GfairlydecentchanceIdon'tknowwhatI'mtalkingaboutG

It's obviously better to limp and play cautiously than to fold but raising is better.

We like a lot of flops. If 3 people call, we only have to "like" 25% of flops to be happy, but we like more than that and some flops we love. Yes, sometimes we like the flop and they like it more, but more often they will call postflop bets with worse hands (like A8 on 8-3-2) and we won't have to put much/any money in when we're beat (like Q-T-4).
99 as an overpair is a marginal hand in an unraised pot (i.e. don't go broke with it) but in a raised pot against a loose lineup, with 2 streets of postflop betting, we've made an overpair into a hand we can use to safely extract value from jokers.

I stoved a few hands,





Even if I bet the flop there is a good chance that an overcard or two cards will hit turn and river with 2-4 players willing to call a flop bet with two overs.

Harrington suggests trying to get 25:1 implied odds when set mining (pretty conservative since we get paid off more often in LLSNL). We can make it 8 and still meet his requirement. If the standard raise at the table is 10, I would go ahead and do this ignoring the limpers so that you hand isn't so obviously a PP.

So why raise?
1) We get $32 more dollars when we take downt the pot with a c-bet on favorable textures (we also get the initiative to make this happen and we can fold to donk bets when we miss and save a c-bet).
2) We set our opponents up to play a big pot when we make our set.
3) As played, it increased your chances of hitting a set by 33% and it actually came through for you.

So if you think these guys will let you (or help you) build a pot after the flop when you flop a set, no need to raise. However, if they are fairly passive and fold to larger size bets (or play pot control) after the flop, you want to get some money in there so they are more likely to want to call your bigger bets on a made hand and stack themselves with TPGK hands.

The bigger raise tends to turn our hand into more of a bluff, but it also makes it easier to c-bet and win. The downside is we have just built a huge pot with a pair of 9s on a flop that probably has overcards. As played, the check-behind is fine.

I'm honestly not sure on the turn. I'm not sure I agree with the narrow ranges being assigned. A fold may be the correct play, but I'm not sure I'm finding it if I'm playing the hand. <searches for spew monkey icon>

When you raise, you're not set mining.

To me set mining means playing our hand for set value and this is clearly part of our intent with a small raise. But our hand also has outright value and there is no reason that this same bet can't also be a value bet. There are clearly elements of both and one does not preclude the other.

I thought it meant that you only play it for set value. Once you raise it PF, you have the chance to win it right there, by everyone folding.

Setting aside minor differences in definition, do you agree that a small raise gives some of the benefit of a value bet without diminishing the ability to get implied odds on our draw to a set? Is your point that this is more of a value bet and we should simply bet more to take it down or charge to draw? Or do you think simply limping here is a better play?

Based on OP's reads I like the small bet for the reasons stated previously, but if these guys are willing to play a big pot and call overbets post flop and still get it all-in, I could see the benefit of seeing the flop as cheaply as possible.

This seems to be an interesting question, since there is little agreement. It's probable that limping, raising smaller, and raising $20 are all +EV and which one has the highest EV is not an easy question. The table you describe and this exact situation seems very common, so worthy of discussion. I am only going to discuss the preflop decision.

I raise preflop to $15-$20.

I am generally pretty TAG and likeable. I want people to know that I might be raising my button, next time they think about limping a weak holding. I also want them to be frustrated with me, since it was me who caused them to limp/fold or put $20 in the pot with a weak holding. For this reason $20 is more effective than $9. It seems beneficial to have people frustrated with you at the poker table. I have considered trying to be a diq, but I don't like it.

Anyhow, although we will not win most of the time, we will win enough to make this profitable. In this example, we put in $20, building a $103 pot. If we bet and everyone folds 19.42% of the time and we fold the rest, this is even money. As a bonus, when we hit the flop and bet, we can confidently build the pot larger than $103, with position on the everyone. Also, as Man of Means pointed out we like the flop 33% of the time (over pair 21%, set 11%). This seems like a pretty good investment to me and thus I want to invest a lot in this. Of course, you have to balance this with keeping the pot:stack ratio high enough for when you stack someone.

I like $20 more than a larger bet, for probably the same reason others like $9. I want to keep my stack to pot ratio from getting too small. I'm not exactly sure how the numbers go with this, but it seems like you wouldn't want it any lower than it is with $20 ($180:$103). That is probably already too low. One difference for me is that I mostly start hands with at least $300 (max buyin at my casino), so when I am making this decision my pot:stack ratio is even higher ($280+:$103). If anything, having a smaller stack might cause me to lower my raise to $15 ($185:$78). Probably, I keep it somewhere in between ($15-$20).

That is how I think about it. Sorry, didn't mean for that to be so long.

There is something to be said for players turning into L/P at L/P tables but in this case it's just not so. Certain table conditions and player types change the playability of different hands. In this particular case middle pp's have to he considered drawing hands that want as many ppl in the pot while seeing a cheap flop. Set it or forget it and stick to multi way hands, big dominating cards and big pp lose value given they play better against fewer villains.

I don't understand this argument for raising small on the button to "build the pot" at all. The table is already described as loose passive so there is plenty of value to extract for set mining limped pots multi-way. The whole idea of raising small to build the pot should be completely eliminated from anyone's preflop options. I mean, are you gonna raise 4x with 33's in this spot?

You make a value/iso raise to an amount you think will get you HU or at least 3 ways. If you get more callers and face aggression on a bad flop you dump your hand, take note, and raise more preflop next time this situation gets up.

grunch: raise to $25, be prepared to let it go, not going crazy 4-6 ways

check and done with the hand unless an 8 or 9 comes.

don't have stove at work, but think its a puke-fold on the turn

05-12-2010, 07:42 AM

Sick bump

That's what I was thinking. Sicker because OP and others have all gotten the ban-hammer.

haha, i didn't notice that at all...do'h

just saw a PAHWM and decided to post