First of all why do you only buy in for half a stack? - By doing this you lose your implied odds when playing hands like small pairs and suited connectors. - If you do flop that set you can't get paid basically.
Second, AK is the best un-paired starting hand, you want to raise here to get money in the pot while you have positive expectation of winning money!
More often than not limping into a pot is a sign of weakness, punish those limpers!!!
In these low level games you want to raise big to get the pot heads up, these LAG and loose passive players will still call with AT/AJ/AQ.. J9s etc tec, and they are making a big mistake in doing so.
If you don't raise preflop you have no idea if you are up against a small under pair, two pair, a set or the flush draw when you see this kind of flop.
You basicaly justify not raising preflop by saying you don't want to play big pots with 1 pair hands (AK being a top pair top kicker hand) , but then you go on to play this pot with top pair/kicker for your whole buyin in an unraised pot with lots of draws out and a paired river card (which ok does help your hand a little).
Don't be a calling station, either you think your hand is ahead (shove the chips in) or you think your hand is behind (fold), or you are behind but getting correct pot-odds to draw (call), you need to be asking yourself can you find a better sitation to get your chips in the middle?
In this hand when my opponent calls me on the flop I figure he has a draw, QT and the flush draw would come right into my mind, but being a LAG he could be one of those guys which suddenly stops betting when they finally do hit a hand, so a set is possible...... If he is really good or a maniac he could just be calling me figuring I am on the draw and that he can bluff me on the turn (his turn bet kinda looks like that, but at this level it is probably something you shouldn't worry about for a moment. )
On the turn when he bets big I figure he has QT and is trying to protect his hand so II fold, if I have some read that suggests I am still ahead then I raise all in, I certainly don't call.
To be honest the way this hand is play is all back to front! - It looks like he has the AK and you are calling down on a flush draw!Statistics: Posted by Yenool — Sun Nov 19, 2006 9:34 am
]]>