Laying down a full house
I used to play a lot of no limit draw poker, with a bug. A bug is a wild card that's good for aces, straights, and flushes.
The bug creates 5 key cards when playing draw with a bug --- the aces and the bug itself.
For example, the two pair AA55x is not as strong as JokerA55x. Both are aces and fives, but having the joker makes it quite a bit less likely that someone else will make a straight or flush. Having a card that blocks other players hands can be pretty valuable.
Key cards don't come up as much in hold'em, but the concept of "if you have it he doesn't" is still something to keep in mind.
For example, if you have Ah and something else and an opponent is getting frisky on a flop with two hearts then he's less likely to be semi-bluffing a flush draw than if you don't have the Ah. That's because many players tend to not semi-bluff less than nut flush draws. That doesn't give you any definitive answers about his hand, but it does help you shift the balance at times.
But, that's not what this blog entry started out to be. I was just going to tell you about a laydown a friend of mine made pre-draw. He layed down a pat full house, before the draw.
It was a $1 blind, 10c ante game, with a $2 minimum opening bet and the stacks were all deep. Well over $100 stack for each player. For a game that starts at $2 and only has two betting rounds, that's pretty deep.
The betting went like this --- $5 open, raise to $10, call, raise to $20, my friend called, raise to $30, then back to the opener who called, then raise to $40, call, my friend flashed a 33355 to me and said, "that's no damn good" and folded.
He was right, he was beat in 4 places. There were 5 plaers with pat full houses in that hand.
How did he know? Well, in no limit games there's no limit on the number of raises (some online sites have limits on the number of raises, but I've never seen a live game with such a limit). But the idea of a bunch of little minimum size raises just was absurd on the face of it. Everybody seemed to want to be called. They must have some real hands.
If just one of them had a full house there was no way he could win with his small threes full.
That's a lesson that applies across all forms of poker. When they obviously want you to call, then don't.
The bug creates 5 key cards when playing draw with a bug --- the aces and the bug itself.
For example, the two pair AA55x is not as strong as JokerA55x. Both are aces and fives, but having the joker makes it quite a bit less likely that someone else will make a straight or flush. Having a card that blocks other players hands can be pretty valuable.
Key cards don't come up as much in hold'em, but the concept of "if you have it he doesn't" is still something to keep in mind.
For example, if you have Ah and something else and an opponent is getting frisky on a flop with two hearts then he's less likely to be semi-bluffing a flush draw than if you don't have the Ah. That's because many players tend to not semi-bluff less than nut flush draws. That doesn't give you any definitive answers about his hand, but it does help you shift the balance at times.
But, that's not what this blog entry started out to be. I was just going to tell you about a laydown a friend of mine made pre-draw. He layed down a pat full house, before the draw.
It was a $1 blind, 10c ante game, with a $2 minimum opening bet and the stacks were all deep. Well over $100 stack for each player. For a game that starts at $2 and only has two betting rounds, that's pretty deep.
The betting went like this --- $5 open, raise to $10, call, raise to $20, my friend called, raise to $30, then back to the opener who called, then raise to $40, call, my friend flashed a 33355 to me and said, "that's no damn good" and folded.
He was right, he was beat in 4 places. There were 5 plaers with pat full houses in that hand.
How did he know? Well, in no limit games there's no limit on the number of raises (some online sites have limits on the number of raises, but I've never seen a live game with such a limit). But the idea of a bunch of little minimum size raises just was absurd on the face of it. Everybody seemed to want to be called. They must have some real hands.
If just one of them had a full house there was no way he could win with his small threes full.
That's a lesson that applies across all forms of poker. When they obviously want you to call, then don't.
posted by Gary Carson at 10:56 AM
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