Hi all,

Two hands I played today at plo 1/2 $5 bring in. Wondering if you would have taken different lines then I did and your thoughts on these sorts of hands in general.

1. Action player who I have developed a good rapport with puts on the blind $20 utg1 over a utg straddle and I just won a really big pot and put on the blind $35 to his immediate left to give some action. (I know heÂ’ll like this and I want to keep him happy and playing.) There is a call and the btn pots to $170, two calls including the action player who calls and we look down at KQT86ds Q-high T-high with one straight flush draw. ItÂ’s 20bb eff. with the blind raises on.

2. We open QJT86 utg with q-high diamonds and there are a few calls until the action player in the straddle pots it to $180 with $350 eff. We are a little deeper with one of the callers but not too worried about him. We have a snug image pre.

These are speculative hands in my mind with decent potential on certain flops and fair equity versus upper tier hands. Not having nut flush draws hamstrings them somewhat which favors driving out higher one way flush draws pre if possible. Not always having top of range when raising pre balances and gives us board coverage too.

Thanks,
DT

Hand 1 I call and see a flop. I'd much prefer my K were suited, but you can get away from non-nut flushes against the right players. Not a great hand, but deep enough and the table sounds right for it as long as you know the other players and their tendencies.

Hand 2 I don't open UTG, especially with an action player behind me, and I just fold now -- anything else is just gambling IMHO. One of the players in between could have been just waiting for this to happen.

Hand 1 is actually kind of close, our hand looks better than it actually is and playability is worse than it looks multiway. This is probably a good, disciplined fold. I won't bash a call, its just better to have a good awareness of implied odds and solid, technical skills post-flop if someone does call.

Hand 2 is a fold pre-flop and its not close, at all.

It's live, call.