Well, this one sucked for me, as I was on AA against 22 and lost. I'll describe night 3 of B&M later--was generally actually pretty proud of my play, but this one sucked.

I'm sitting in BB with AA, having played tight all night. 2 limpers in MP, then LP, a kid who is one of the regulars (a little leaky, I think, but not so bad), raises to $15. I re-raise to $60. My remaining stack (after the raise money is in) is $290, and the pot prior to my bet is at just $27.

Question is: Can initial raiser sitting on 22 call? I had noticed that these guys were constantly raising little pairs and then just checking the flop, and considered this to be just a basic stupid strategy.

Well, let's just consider it with open cards with the basically correct assumption that only a set will help (there's actually a little bonus for 22 with other weird flops, but set is of course what we're looking at here). Odds on a set are 7.5:1, and the implied odds here are clear. I now definitely lose my stack if he hits. So, it costs $45 to call and you get $377 if you win (22 has me slightly covered). So, my re-raise is in actuality too passive: 377/45=8.38.

To give incorrect odds here, I need to re-raise to at least $75. Then, it costs $60 to call, and 377/60=6.28. And on $75, KK can actually think of calling if, as re-raiser, I can accurately be put on AA or KK.

With deeper stacks, the whole thing becomes a little less clear because AA then has to lay down to the all-in. So, anyhow, this "little raise" strategy on little pairs may not be quite as idiotic as I had thought. If I'm analysing it correctly, it puts the big pairs in a rather difficult spot.

Let's say that you "know" that the raiser has either some unknown pair or else something like AJ-AK. What uniform strategy can be developed for AA/KK? I almost think that the straightforward counter-strategy here is to just take what you've got and put half your stack in the middle on either one of them. In theory, then, AA should obviously re-raise, whereas everything else has to lay down (including another KK, so it has the benefit of forcing a split pot to lay down one out of 7 times--since there's 1 KK hand out there and there are 6 AA hands if you have KK).

What do you guys think of these little raises on little pairs? Frankly, I think it increases the value of your sets by just basic pot-building with deep stacks.



Now, with greater stack depth,

Well, this table is completely different than I thought. I actually did "get lucky" the first night.

Here's what happened: First hand, I raise 99 and fold to a board of KQT (obviously). Second hand, I get AK and raise again. Guy who I thought was just some older fish but who is actually semi-pro now calls with KQo. Flop is a K, and I take his stack.

What basically happened is that by the luck of the way my first two hands fell, he thought I was just some nut raising everything and might have K9o or such. The kids at the table are leaky (and way too undisciplined) but do have some strategies that have difficult aspects to them.

I was generally pretty happy last night until my AA to have been break-even for a while, then lose a little aft calling raises on little pairs that never hit. At least last night, it was obvious at my table that you had 4 pros, 3 decent amateurs, me, then the kid with the raised 22 (whom I knew, and he's obviously better than I thought). Then there was another NL table with one end of it full of loose older Texan types of the old school and enormous stacks with a few fish. Hence, everyone at our table was always trying to get switched over. I knew I'd get blinded down against these guys because I wasn't going to play anything on which I had even the vaguest of doubts. Was proud of myself, though, for an AXs semi-bluff which I knew would work nicely against these folks and kept me going, too--I mean, I wasn't playing tight-dumb, just took me over 3 hours to catch any hands that were worth working with. My first AA, I took down quickly, then the second one came and was my disaster hand.

So, basically, I've now paid $150 for a total of 3 nights of lessons...

I'll respond to Kalle in a separate post.

To Kalle: Against me, this guy, I think could lay down his set on a board of AK2, basically, because it was completely obvious that I had AA or KK. I had played with them before, and they knew I had the discipline not to mess around with anything dubious.

Moreover, in the hand in question, I think it would have been an enormous mistake not to go all the way with my AA. Another difference in this B&M game with all the regulars is that they remember this stuff. If I start laying down AA on a T52 board, they'd eat me for lunch.

On the other hand, I in principle agree with you but only with a modified re-raising strategy. I actually think I'm going to test this thing online at lower stakes until I conclude one way or another whether it's viable or not. I just can't go around testing strategies when I'm buying in for at least $400 and preferably $500. If I play a game, I'm going to play it with a deep stack.

So, anyhow, my own version is going to be to call only up to around 1/10 of stack-size (which would have meant folding here). It was (barely) doable here because I had become so tight-predictable.

What I think the trick is if you're trying something like this is to have a counter-strategy as re-raiser that makes the situation much more fluid--i.e., so that you can lay down sometimes and hence won't always lose your stack to the set. If you're ONLY re-raising AA/KK, then you're in trouble.

But, if you add QQ and AKs to your re-raising range (and I think those hands can handle it--obviously folding QQ and AKs to an all-in from the initial raiser), then it becomes more interesting, since a number of those hands give you some reasons to lay down (I just finished working it out exactly to prevent anyone having odds to try bluffing the set). Basically, in all of these situations, you need to have a certain number of times you'll lay it down and a certain number of times you'll go all the way (dependent on betting sizes, etc.). And, of course, re-raising QQ and AKs are, at least imo, only options against loose raisers. AKs also has the advantage that you do have some hands in there that make flush boards scary. Otherwise, it becomes a pure battle of big pair vs. little pair.

So, in principle, I do agree with you that there wasn't quite the stack depth to draw for the set--but only if the re-raiser is trickier than I was being.

Well, you know, maybe I am making things too complicated here (although I'm still not sure about the re-raise on QQ/AKs against players like these).

What if you are JUST re-raising with AA/KK? Well, as you point out, 22 doesn't know which of them you have. And whichever it is, if he hits his set, there are then 6 danger cards in the deck on the other 2 cards. And he also MUST lose his stack on a board of K62 where I have KK. Basically, it would be absurd for anyone to allow a free card in this situation. Moreover, I can also outdraw him on the turn or river--not a nice situation for the big pair, but it does also hurt the little pair.

So, I don't know, I'm rather thinking that it's just too iffy a play to get more than 10% of your stack in PF on 22. It was close, but really over-aggressive, and I think you're right in calling it -EV, when he has to make a call of $45 for potential winnings of $377. The stacks really weren't deep enough there.

What do you guys think of pulling the same re-raise in that situation on QQ or AKs? Against a loose raiser, it also has the advantage of making AA/KK come out of hiding early, so that you don't end up losing your stack on QQ thinking they're good as overpair. I think it would be really stupid for AA/KK to allow QQ to draw to a set PF, although a flat call might gain some equity if overcards don't fall (and they're less likely if you have AA or KK). I don't know, this "pair vs. pair" game has some interesting aspects.

You're absolutely right, K3nt. While I don't think the call is really +EV, it is borderline, definitely put me on tilt big time (at least I had sense enough to leave and do my fruitless tilty experimenting at easy online tables), and won one Hell of a pot.

But I've got some ideas...

will start a new thread on those, which I've been throwing around with rdale a little in PMs.