Floped trips, had bad kicker. He raises, I fold. Need advice on my playing style. Long question
Join Date: Mar 2010
Posts: 2,280
Ok, so this is what happened: there was a caller from UTG1+2, and I look down and see A4. I have 15. I decided to call as I doubted a raise-steal wold have worked.
the flop comes, AAK, rainbow
SB raises 2 blinds, followed by UTG1 who reraises it 3 times, to a total of 6 blinds. up to me. What should I do in this spot? I cannot call with the intention of seeing his next move, as he would raise there if he is bluffing or actually got it. Since there was two raises one of them must have an ace, and if they did, it would most likely beat mine.
I ended up folding the hand. For this reason I usually fold these sorts of hands, but lately I have not been running particularly well and thought that I should loosen up a bit. I have only been playing hands with at least a 10+ kicker, only reasonably good positions unless the hand is a monster. I call with pockets if they have 15+blinds and call with suited connectors if they have 50+ blinds. When I decide to play a hand, I raise it to 3 blinds + 1 for every limper. These raises are huge compared to a good majority of the players I'm up against. This has not been working very well; last night for a little under 2 hours of live poker I only played 2 hands, one of them which I would not normally play but I thought I better play some hands. I was particualry card dead than night, usually play a roughly about 1 card per 30 mins, maybe more; we shuffle fairly slow. I can get away with steals a bit because of my super tight image, but they're too many calling stations where I play at to do it often. Last night I probably lost 15% of my original stack to the blinds. We got down to 5 players so I started making some moves.
So, should I loosen up a bit more? A decent majority of the players I'm up against player any k, q, no matter the kicker. So if I start playing hands with 8+ kicker I will still be ahead most of the time. Or is what I'm doing fine? I haven't mastered push fold mode so when I do this might go well with my style. What do you guys think? Honest criticism please.
Join Date: Mar 2010
Posts: 2,280
oh, by the way i play in turbos
Join Date: Oct 2009
Posts: 1,449
Please specify stacks and blinds in your threads;at first sight I think you should fold A4 pre (if it's suited and your very deep,you might want to limp in cheaply but folding is ok);as played you've got to go broke on this kind of flops.At least in MTT tournaments,you can't fold in this spots,being a cooler if you lose.
The reason for prefering to fold A4 is exactly the kicker's quality....Which isn't so important when you have trips imo,since it's more unlikely your opponent also have an A,but the kicker is crucial when you spike just top pair.
Join Date: Mar 2010
Posts: 58
Well you are certainly putting a lot of thought into it, and that may be your problem. Poker is a game where you learn while you play. Each facet of your game will be continualy evaulving, sometimes with one ahead of the other. I believe you have a lot of the basic concepts down in your head but your play honestly read to me like you were uncomfortable at the table. Maybe it's still that you need to find yourself or you own unique style of poker. But I would just say right now your game will improve by riding out your bad run and getting a lot of hand experience. If you want to loosen up everyonce in awhile that is fine, just remember what you're doing and why you're doing it. And remember have fun, because if it aint fun there's no sense in doing it.