Thursday, December 10, 2009

Playing medium connectors on the button

This was the second hand from a $13 6-max last night. Limping behind with medium connectors and one-gappers, suited or unsuited, on the button at Levels 1 and 2 has worked out pretty well for me lately. (I went on to donk off a bunch of chips and finished second.)

6 comments:

  1. Lol, that's a funny hand. I've had some success myself in limping behind with suited gappers (My QT in the 6/45 being one of them) early blinds. Here's an interesting post;
    http://www.poker-tomorrow.com/poker/strategy/texas-holdem/suited-single-gappers/

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  2. Correction though, my QT was not early blinds, but point being that if you're a typical TAG player, the opponents have a hard time putting you on that type of hand at any level.

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  3. Nice one! I call preflop in that situation too. However, I tend to check the flop unless I had an open ended draw. In the turbos you can be certain of an Ax caller. Nice line rest of the hand.

    I think the biggest problem for many players is what to do when you flop top pair and someone plays back at you. Then it gets difficult to know where you stand.

    Question: you have nice connected cards, but they aren't suited. With sc I'll limp (if there are already 2 limpers) with as low as 45s. With unsuited cards I'm not going lower than 910o unless I have a big stack. What about you?

    Nice example

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  4. The same, 87o is a hand I rarely play. I throw in 34o sometimes, seems they have a tendency to connect with the wheel more often than medium sc hands hit mid-str8's (re; my suspiscion that the sw is rigged, lol).

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  5. No doubt about it, playing hands like T9o can lead to some tricky flop situations which is why I'll play them on the button but rarely from the cutoff -- they need every edge they can get! If I flop TPNK with T9o, I'll try to keep the pot small even if it means giving some free cards.

    On the flop, if it's checked to me on the button and all I have is a draw, I generally prefer semi-bluffing the flop rather than checking: (1) no one has shown any strength and a flop bet could take down the small pot, buy me a free river card or enable me to bluff later in the hand; (2) a flop bet builds the pot in case I do hit my draw; (3) it also provides cover for the many times when I want to bet my strong hands. On the flip side, I can get check-raised off my draw (but I find that rarely happens at low buy-in SNGs) and I'm building a bigger pot even when I miss my draw (but the flop bet often buys me a free card on the river).

    In this particular T9o hand, even though it was only a GS draw, the fact that (1) the flop was rainbow so I knew I was drawing at the nuts and didn't have to worry about a FD and (2) I had two overcards which might be 6 additional outs if the hand got checked down, influenced me towards betting rather than checking the flop. I couldn't know, of course, that I would get three callers and then fill the nut straight on the turn but in this extreme case, investing a mere 60 chips on the flop resulted in a post-flop pot of 330 chips instead of only 90 chips (if I had checked behind on the flop) which in turn enabled me to play a big pot on the turn instead of only a medium-sized pot.

    The term "relatively deep stacks" which I like to throw around is, of course, relative but when formulating a standard play, I ask myself, "if this were the first hand of a [$13 6-max], what would I do in this situation?" With unsuited connectors and one-gappers, my current "Hand One" standard line would be to the limp behind on the button with hands down to 54o and 75o. (I never did really understand the "two limper rule", which I first saw formulated in a book by Tom McEvoy. At least in the SNGs I play, with even one limper, if I limp behind on the button, there's a good chance the SB will also limp, resulting in a 4-way pot and even if the SB folds, 3-way is pretty good in position.) Of course, my views are probably skewed by playing only 6-max SNGs these days where you have to play more hands and I really want to defend my button but increasingly at Levels 1 and 2 I'm beginning to see the advantage of the implied odds "junk" hands (including weak suited aces) over hands like AQo and even big pairs which can win you a small pot or lose you a big one.

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  6. Nice comments Benkogambit!

    I seem to follow the same line as you with one difference. In the 910o example with the GS draw, vs 1 player yes I'll make a semi-bluff bet, but vs several players I'm more timid and simply check fold. I have no feel for what is "correct" here, this was simply an observation.

    Regarding the "2 limper rule". I too am a bit flexible here. As you point out, the btn and sb often come along for the ride making it work. During the early levels, I will usually open limp in mtts where the pressure to build a stack is greater than a sng, with Axs and any pair. I'm folding SCs to an unopened pot unless I'm on the btn, then I may limp. With one limper I tighten my range but often limp 10J+ SC.

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