Quote:
Originally Posted by Spring Mustachio
I played a couple of hands this weekend that are bugging me and I wanted to get your perspective on them. They actually both played nearly identically.
Much good advice upthread but let's go meta.
YOU DEMONSTRATE SERIOUS LEAKS IN HOW YOU THINK ABOUT HIGH ONLY HANDS.
I know this because in (1), your opponent's play with KKT9 (any suitedness) is atrocious but you don't mention it and because in (2) you capped with a hand that's among the very worst AA hands. What was the reasoning behind your raise? (Trick question.) What about your cap?
And for that matter (3) because these hands are completely different preflop. AA64 ss is almost-but-not-quite-premium mutiway, a monster HU. AAT9r is extremely marginal multiway, OK but not great HU, and pretty bad unimproved once the third low card hits the board.
Take some time to learn more about the theory of this game. In particular the ability to make a low, any low, is immense preflop HU. J
8
6
3
is a mild favorite hot-and-cold heads-up against your hand. It can often win the low half and win high a third of the time. To scoop you'll have to both fade a low coming and fade that one time in three he wins high.
More generally,
high only hands are drawing hands in this game. They want lots of opponents. They want to get in cheap. They want the board to come 2- or 3-high and they want all the low hands to chase crappy flushes or backdoor lows or, best of all but rarely happens, just fold the flop in a huge pot.
Occasionally I'll raise some great hand like AKQTds or AATT ds for pure value and to mix it up a bit. Consider those like KQs in hold 'em. I'd still rather have A23K ds even though its hot and cold equity is bad.
You're talking as though your opponent had holdem KK in hand #1 and you had holdem hand AA in #2. That means you need to work on your O8 theory.
Quote:
Originally Posted by LUCIUS VARENUS
On your point about aces never being a bad hand HU, I really don't disagree, but you didn't know it was going to be heads up when you opened AAT9r from UTG, and while yeah this hand and others in this AA-rainbow-nolowpotential category are better than an average hand, they're also difficult to play well and they are not exactly good, they're just not bad. So question, do you want to play hands that are only "not bad" from UTG, even if it is only 6 handed, when the world and his wife can potentially call your raise from MP, CO, BTN, and the blinds?
This is a good post. I'd still limp bad AAxx when I expect the pot to be limped multiway.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Spring Mustachio
In summary, I hate aces in LO8 and always manage to misplay them/get married to them. Thoughts?
You have systematic leaks playing high hands, so it's reasonable that you would hate aces until you improve this leak. Until you're better at this fold non-premium high only aces or AA8x, AA7x, AA6x where the x obviously isn't a wheel card. Call good high-only aces and pretend you're drawing at a high board or top set.
In the hands: #1 would probably call down anyway except against a passive opponent. Good opponents should bet down two pair or something like A2JT. You're not likely to have QT or a set so why not?
On the river it's very much a crying call and against some opponents I would fold figuring my two pair draw missed. Against an opponent you almost KNOW has QT or a set obviously fold at whatever point that is.
#2. Trick question because there's a good reason to raise if you think you can get it HU with dead money which is what happened. But in most live games UTG that's rarely happening.
Capping is very bad here. You effectively have a drawing hand and prefer a 7-bet pot where you can get away from AA ui more readily than in a 9-bet pot.
As played probably BF flop. Your pair and gutshot is bad on this board, the backdoor low is still live for half, obv any two clubs crush you and are never folding, and you're out of position laying insane implied odds. It's close to XF but you need to pick up the pot if he completely missed somehow.