When small pairs cost too much?

By
Pocket pairs can prove profitable but can also be expensive.  The villain is VP 21, PF 17 over 65 hands. When would you fold this hand?

P


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Poker tip #1: Big Hand Big Pot, Small Hand Small Pot

By
Image
Reading and studying poker either online, reading forums, talking to friends or reading books always leads to different tips and tricks.  Deciphering which tips you are going to employ in your play takes time.  Whenever I ask a question about a hand I have played almost always the response is 'it depends' and then questions are asked about stack sizes, player behaviour, position, number of callers, number of limpers, history of the players, table image.  All of these are of course relevant questions and when developing as a poker player more and more I am able to ask myself these questions and consider how I want to play the hand.  Being able to do this consistently of course is key and still something that I want to develop in my game. Probably the one piece of advice that sticks with me however is one that I read in one of the Harrington on Holdem books.  If you haven't read any of these they should definitely be part of your library.  Harrington has bo...
Read more

Microstakes Mastery: Analyzing a Big Blind Defense Hand

By
Playing microstakes online poker can be a grind, but it’s also a fertile training ground for honing fundamentals and exploring optimal strategies. After quite a few years of playing poker, I am still in microstakes. In this post, I’ll break down a hand I played at 0.01/0.02 NLHE, discussing my thought process, general play principles, and GTO (Game Theory Optimal) considerations. The Setup Table Dynamics: A 6-max table with one seat empty.  Stacks: Hero (Big Blind): $2.00 Player5 (Button): $3.95 The action folds around to the Button, who raises to $0.06, a standard 3x open-raise. The Small Blind folds, and I’m left to act with [2d, Ac] in the Big Blind. Preflop Action Hero’s Spot: Facing a button open, I have a decision to make with Ace-deuce offsuit. This is a borderline hand, but calling is reasonable for several reasons: Pot Odds: I need to call $0.04 to defend $0.09, giving me direct odds of 4.25:1. That’s sufficient to justify continuing with a hand that ca...
Read more

Feeling the bad beat

By
Image
It is of course part and parcel of the game.  Having a strong hand, or maybe even the nuts on that street, and someone coming along and hitting the one card that they need to make the hand that beats you. What do you do?  Swear and curse? Vow to get your vengenace?  Shrug it off like you know you should. Make a note and hope you play them in lots more hands yet. Of course I know that there have been times when I have had no right to be in the hand, or been too aggressive, and Lady Luck has shone on me and somebody else has the bad beat. Welll yesterday in one of my microstakes hands I felt the bad beat good and proper.  Here's the details. I'm fully stacked on  table full of unknowns and I find myself with AQ spades.  UTG bets 3bb and I make it a 3 bet.  The big blind calls and the player UTG folds.  The flop comes 5, 10, 2 all spades.  I've got the nut flush in position.  Just need to make sure I make some money. What does...
Read more