by Aisthesis » Sat May 14, 2005 9:23 pm
Oh, I bet the flop at full pot here every time when I hit the set. I'm not planning on giving any free cards and full agree with you. Actually just finished missing a bet on the turn where I hit the nut flush I had semi-bluffed, then the paired board slowed me down too much on the river. I think you do have to play these things fast when you have them.
I rather liked it just playing that strategy all the way at a Stars $25 table just now.
Also, if you isolate the field a lot, you can indeed bet out a lot of flops unimproved and pick up a little extra (obviously, you're done unimproved if it doesn't work).
But you're not playing all that many hands, and a large number of those you do, you're raising. So, I feel like just now I came off as pretty tight but very aggressive. I think most people are expecting more like raised AQ, AJ, and such, which I don't like to raise.
When you do improve, I think you have to fire away with a full pot bet. I mean, if you have 44 and your opponent has called your raise with KJo, what's he now supposed to do when you bet pot on a board of J64? Well, anyone with any sense wouldn't have called the raise in the first place with that hand. And, if he did, he can't very well fold. Question is just when he will lay it down, if ever.
I think the strategy is best, though, if you're playing a lot of hands against players who are reasonably perceptive. Obviously, the AXs and suited connector semi-bluffs aren't really desirable against complete calling stations. But just semi-good to quite good players (people capable of laying down) are going to be in a bit of a mess here because you've gotten very unreadable. And they don't know whether they're putting 1/3 of their stack out there against your made set or against the nut flush draw.
I did have one just now that I slowplayed: I raised 66 UTG, then the board was 688 with two hearts. I just checked that one and picked up a decent pot, but I don't see getting outdrawn on that one.
I suspect that with this whole thing, it would be hard to do much better than break-even against opponents who are playing a similar strategy. Imo, if you're going to play for nut straight and nut flush draws, you need to bet them actively when you get the draw. And the raise makes the bet sufficiently large that it's very difficult not to just lay down to the draw--particularly given the very real possibility that you're also sitting on a set or big pair. There's really no way they can tell as long as you play all of these options the same way.
Just to perfectly clear, though: If you get the kind of flop you want, I think you have to start firing hard right there. If they fold, that's cool, too. And if they don't, you're sitting on a near-nuts hand of some sort most of the time, presumably with a free card on the turn for your draws.
The basic idea, I think, is this: You don't want to play for your whole stack with TP good kicker, so you try on those to just keep it cheap and simple. But you do want to be playing for your whole stack on sets, nut straights, and nut flushes. So, you put opponents in a position where that's what they're playing for when you bet.