When I started out (just a few weeks ago), I wasn't raising at all, just being a little more picky about calling raises. I was also playing lower levels and just doing a "pot it on the nuts" strategy, which seems to me to work quite well against bad players. I'm now trying to play the $100 game on Stars a bit, where the players (by my standards) seem at least noticeably better--some seem actually good and most at least aren't complete idiots who'll call you down with absurd holdings. So, I've also been working on the value of non-nut hands and still don't have a completely good feel on that one.
Ok, then there was this workshop 2 weeks ago with Berry Johnston and Scotty Nguyen. Well, one of Scotty's first Omaha examples was introduced by: "What do you do with AA72 UTG?" Correct answer, which immediately made sense to me: You limp and if someone raises, you pot it. Sounds logical to me.
Then there was a pretty big Omaha tournament, where I didn't play but took the opportunity to watch Scotty Nguyen (who obviously didn't take it very seriously since it wasn't for $1 million) and Berry Johnston (who did seem to take it seriously but just played solid by the appearance of things) play.
Well, there was an interesting hand in which neither of the celebrities was involved, where I noticed a guy limp-CALL with AA for about one third of his stack. As the course of events showed, this was a huge mistake, because then the raiser in LP, who had the initiative, was able to take it down with a pot-sized bet. So, my conclusion from that was that, if you have the opportunity to re-raise AA and narrow the field WAY down, then you simply must do so. In this case, I feel like the AA I saw probably laid down a split pot (as he almost had to do at that point) by failing to push PF.
I'm sure there are other hands, particularly against good players (89JT seems like the first candidate) that you have to raise, but, for the moment, I'm just thinking AA.
Ok, so just now I had AA in SB at a .50/1 table, and the guy 2 seats to my right (LP) pots it with 2 limpers before that. Here I re-potted to I think $17, limpers fold, raiser calls (he say he had KKQQ double-suited, which makes sense).
Well, the flop also came great for me, although I think I played it poorly: A63 with two spades. I checked it hoping that the other guy would take a stab, which he didn't. But actually, those spades were bad for me and giving the free card was a serious mistake, I think. Turn was another 6. I bet half pot, and he folded. So, all went well.
But my question is then this: Let's say you raise (I'm just going to take AA for the moment, as I don't feel comfortable yet raising other hands and my raise has the intention of shutting everything down completely--hence, I don't NECESSARILY raise AA either) your AA, and get it HU. How do you now deal with your CB?
Automatically half pot or something like that? Automatically pot it? Half pot seems a lot more flexible to me anyway. If you get action, you presumably have to start thinking about what this player might otherwise have--I'd assume that big pairs (QQ up and high straights 789T, 89TJ) are really about the only things that one SHOULD be calling a huge PF raise with anyway. But you may also have the flush draw on one of your aces, may hit top set. They may also hit 2 pair on a board like JTrag, in which case you can't really call a pot-sized raise.
Also, let's say you get 2 callers rather than HU. How does that change things? Is it still possible to make a CB without hitting top set or flush draw? 3-way I'd just have to assume that AA alone is almost worthless on most boards... ??Statistics: Posted by Aisthesis — Fri Feb 17, 2006 12:03 pm
]]>