Don't fall in love with top pair
I ran across this hand on the internet.
Our hero is in a 50c/$1 game (I think) with slightly over $100 and brings it in for $3 with JTh. Button makes it $6. He calls, everyone else folds. Flop is jack high with 1 heart and two diamonds, he checks, button bets $3, our hero makes it $10.
I don't like the check/raise for so many reasons I'm not sure where to start. A bet would have been fine. A check/call would have been fine. But his hand just isn't strong enough for the check/raise. A mediocre top pair with a mediocre kicker with a player behind who had re-raised preflop is not a strong hand.
But that's what he did, I think setting himself up for big trouble. The turn is a 7h, putting a pair on the board. He bets $15, the button goes all in, raising about $70 more.
Now he just has to give it up. He's shown much more strength than his had warrents, and the other guy doesn't seem to care how strong he thinks he is. He's already lost more money than he should, there's no need to go broke here.
Our hero is in a 50c/$1 game (I think) with slightly over $100 and brings it in for $3 with JTh. Button makes it $6. He calls, everyone else folds. Flop is jack high with 1 heart and two diamonds, he checks, button bets $3, our hero makes it $10.
I don't like the check/raise for so many reasons I'm not sure where to start. A bet would have been fine. A check/call would have been fine. But his hand just isn't strong enough for the check/raise. A mediocre top pair with a mediocre kicker with a player behind who had re-raised preflop is not a strong hand.
But that's what he did, I think setting himself up for big trouble. The turn is a 7h, putting a pair on the board. He bets $15, the button goes all in, raising about $70 more.
Now he just has to give it up. He's shown much more strength than his had warrents, and the other guy doesn't seem to care how strong he thinks he is. He's already lost more money than he should, there's no need to go broke here.
Labels: top pair
posted by Gary Carson at 1:36 AM
2 Comments:
My favourite comment was "Although it may sound nitty, raise to 4x the BB preflop, not 3x." Erm, why?
I hate this hand all the way through. I'm not that keen on the raise preflop. I don't play much (any) 5-max, but I wouldn't have thought multiway hands like JTs are much good. I am going to be hating a call from the button, playing J high out of position. Hero's not in a tourney. If he wanted to play, he could just limp this one.
The flop is so-so. I guess you could read the minreraise as AK-AJ or something similar trying to get it heads up and consider you're likely ahead. We are fivehanded, after all.
I don't understand hero's play on the turn at all though. Okay, he c/r'd the flop to "put villain to the test". Well, villain passed the test, so why are we betting the turn?
He gives the answer later:
"I have to watch my limit autopilot "
He played it exactly like a limit hand: raise to steal blinds, C/R your top pair, lead turn.
Playing no limit as though it were limit seems to me a fine way to lose money.
That's a really good point and I didn't think about it -- he was playing it like a limit hand at every step along the way.
People are critical of my hold'em book because it was written before the no limit craze. I don't say much in it about no limit (3 pages).
What I do say is in limit always ask yourself about the odds and in no limit always ask yourself whether you're beat.
If our hero had asked that simple question he'd have played differently at every step along the way.
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