Many people have written that NL Holdem is an art and Limit holdem is a science but I am here to tell you that Limit Holdem played at the highest level is very much a combination of both. Without the tool of the Big Bet you have a very limited arsenal with which to work to get the job done. AI finely crafted limit hand is a thing of beauty and the extra bets extracted don't hurt too much either:). Here are two hands from a recent session of 36 holdem at Empire. I will post the hands without showing you my hole cards to see what you come up with and then later perhaps discuss the play of the hand once you know them. Hope that thinking through these will be of some help in your own playing of hands.

$3/$6 Hold'em - Friday, January 14, 20:39:07 EDT 2005
Table Table 12501 (Real Money)
Seat 1 is the button
Total number of players : 10
Seat 1: Stochaster ( $161.5 )
Seat 2: tb2374 ( $36.83 )
Seat 3: divides_by_0 ( $184 )
Seat 5: No24601 ( $301.5 )
Seat 7: Lucia_Cortez ( $186 )
Seat 8: bluzecruzer ( $247.5 )
Seat 9: palmerf ( $184 )
Seat 10: Role5 ( $71.5 )
Seat 4: Niwram ( $156 )
Seat 6: waubeeka ( $200 )
tb2374 posts small blind [$1].
divides_by_0 posts big blind [$3].
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to Lucia_Cortez [ X X ]
Niwram folds.
No24601 folds.
Lucia_Cortez raises [$6].
bluzecruzer folds.

palmerf raises [$9] AKo. Seems to be a straight forward player although I don't have many hands in my database for him. But generally from a non maniac a three bet signals a minimum of AK usually and if you know who you are raising it should signal much more:)

Role5 folds.
Stochaster folds.
tb2374 folds.
divides_by_0 folds.
Lucia_Cortez calls [$3].

** Dealing Flop ** [ Th, 3d, Qd ]

Lucia_Cortez bets [$3].
palmerf calls [$3].

** Dealing Turn ** [ 5c ]

Lucia_Cortez checks.
palmerf bets [$6].
Lucia_Cortez raises [$12].
palmerf calls [$6].

** Dealing River ** [ Ah ]
Lucia_Cortez checks.
palmerf bets [$6].
Lucia_Cortez raises [$12].
palmerf raises [$12].
Lucia_Cortez raises [$12].
palmerf calls [$6].
Lucia_Cortez shows [ X X ]
palmerf doesn't show [ Ks, Ad ] a pair of aces.
Lucia_Cortez wins $97 from the main pot



2nd Hand


$3/$6 Hold'em - Friday, January 14, 20:27:31 EDT 2005
Table Table 27568 (Real Money)
Seat 5 is the button
Total number of players : 10
Seat 1: pokergrl_83 ( $252.5 ) A fairly solid player
Seat 2: th2521 ( $38 )
Seat 3: Fence111 ( $96 )
Seat 4: hartford999 ( $152 )
Seat 5: cnova2nd ( $32 ) FISH
Seat 6: indianocean1 ( $103 )
Seat 7: jmac147 ( $172.75 ) FISH
Seat 8: Lucia_Cortez ( $191 )
Seat 9: myhighhorse ( $115 )
Seat 10: MassagePimp ( $248 )
jmac147 posts small blind [$1].
Lucia_Cortez posts big blind [$3].
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to Lucia_Cortez [ X X ]
myhighhorse folds.
MassagePimp folds.
pokergrl_83 raises [$6].
th2521 folds.
Fence111 folds.
hartford999 folds.
cnova2nd calls [$6].
jmac147 calls [$5].
Lucia_Cortez calls [$3].

** Dealing Flop ** [ 3s, 6s, 8d ]

jmac147 checks.
Lucia_Cortez checks.
pokergrl_83 bets [$3].
cnova2nd calls [$3].
jmac147 calls [$3].
Lucia_Cortez raises [$6].
pokergrl_83 calls [$3].
cnova2nd calls [$3].
jmac147 calls [$3].

** Dealing Turn ** [ 4h ]

jmac147 checks.
Lucia_Cortez bets [$6].
pokergrl_83 folds.
cnova2nd calls [$6].
jmac147 calls [$6].

** Dealing River ** [ 5h ]

jmac147 checks.
Lucia_Cortez bets [$6].
>You have options at Table 12501 Table!.
cnova2nd calls [$6].
jmac147 calls [$6].
Lucia_Cortez shows [XX ]
cnova2nd doesn't show [ Qh, Ah ] high card ace.
jmac147 doesn't show [ 8c, Qc ] a pair of eights.
Lucia_Cortez wins $81 from the main pot

First hand: I think you have QQ with smaller possibility on TT which are both possible to raise in EP preflop. You bet the flop to see if there is any interest in the hand. He just calls so you can likely put him on AK. You check the turn to try to induce a semibluff on the turn with the gutshot with overcards by your opponent. This way, you could checkraise him and get an extra big bet in the pot. The river is a great card for you. It doesn't complete the flush draw and gives your opponent his ace. The only hands that beat you are AA or KJ. It is unlikely he 3 bet with KJ and he would have played AA more aggressively after the flop so you had what you considered the nuts. If you had TT, you could easily have played it the same way because you expect your opponent to be more aggressive post flop with QQ.

Second Hand

I think 66. You can call a raise preflop from BB with it because of the people still in the pot and you get half price. You go for the checkraise on the flop to trap everyone because the preflop raiser will likely continue with the aggression postflop with anything, expection the flop to miss everyone. On the river, you still bet expecting it very unlikely that someone stayed in the whole way with a 7 for the straight. You could have 88 or 33 but someone had the 8 so that is less likely but I definitely think you had a set. I doubt you would have played this hand the way you did with a straight draw unless you have 45 spades, 57 spades or 97 spades for straight and flush draws but that is unlikely with the preflop raise.

Hope I got at least one of these right.

My guesses are similar to briachek's. First hand probably QQ, outside chance AA. Second hand you're getting 7:1 plus the implied odds of having the raiser directly behind you, so you can call with 33, 66 or 88 to try to hit a set. And I can't believe you got called down by [Qh].

The first hnad you are both on the money and your analyses of it was pretty much my thinking of the hand at the time. Nice job.

The second hand I called the raise with 5c7c. I will call a raise many times with hands such as this in the BB against even one raising opponent where I will throw away a hand like KJ or A10. Pokergrl was a pretty decent player but she had been on the wrong end of more than one hand with me so I knew I had some power over her even out of position. The other two were just clueless as you can see by their cards on the river so I figured everything added up to a nice pot if I hit my hand.

I checked the open end straight draw because I knew Pokergrl was going to bet regardless of her hand and when it got back to me I was getting 11 to 1 on a call and in the worse case scenario I had 6 clean outs to the nuts on the next card (a little less than 7 to 1) and very likely all 8 of the outs were good. I raised here to build the pot on the flop in case I hit my hand and also to perhaps stop a bet on the turn if I didn't because I knew Pokergrl would be leery of getting checkraised again unless she held a powerhouse. Her lack of a reraise on the flop to get it heads up signaled to me she was probably in there with Ak or AQ or perhaps a medium pair. In the best case scenario I hit my hand and she raises and I hopefully can trap one or both of the other two for three bets on the turn because they would not let go of a hand with any piece of the board.

Well the best card possible hit me on the turn giving me the nuts and unfortunately Pokergrl folded but the other two paid off the turn and river drawing dead. Raising with the open end straight draw with a two card flush on the flop is not a hand I play in this manner the majority of the time but in this situation with the players involved I felt it was the best play to maximize my results if I hit the hand or missed it on the turn.

Any thoughts? I would have played a set the same way so your guesses in that direction were good as well.

I'm not convinced about the EV of this check raise against 3 opponents. You're putting in 1 extra small bet and picking up 3, so it has to net you an extra big bet on later streets to be worthwhile. If you think she'll just call you, I don't see her raising later to help you trap for big bets. I can see the large pot helping a caller stick around, but I don't think it gets an extra bet on average.

Against 4 opponents though, I like it a lot better. You only have to win an extra big bet half the time.