Seriously though. While putting in the results for that last big draw i checked out poker tracker. I've been stacked 4 times this last week pushing with a big draw. 3 of those times the other guy had aces, once he had a set. I've also managed to hit a big draw, conveniently the one time i played it slow.

I'll give you an example.

villain and I both have full stacks. He's a solid TAG winning player at 3/6. I've never seen him get out of line, and he has a good win rate. We've played maybe 600 hnads together. This is full ring of course.

I open limp in MP with [9c]. I raise here 95% of the time, but as with any hand i'm going to raise with, sometimes I opt to mix it up with a limp. When the tables full of regullars I always try to throw out a little thing here or there to confuse them. . villain is OTB and raises to 24. folds to me and i call.

$50ish pot. flop comes [4c][2h]. I check call a $36 bet.

$125ish pot. turns the . yummy. I check, he bets $100. I do the little 'pause for a few seconds making it look like i'm trying to make it look like i have a tough decision' before pushing for $500 more. he tanks. uses his entire time bank before finally calling me with red aces.

I miss and he drags. Given, I could have avoided it all together if i had open raised in the first place - he likely would have reraised, and that would probably have been the end of the hand. But I think that may be besides the point here (though i'm sure i'll get some heat on this one for my preflop play anyways).

let me put in another way.

is calling the raise here we [9c] OOP against a good opponent going to be a +EV situation in the long run?

on it's own? no. It's probably not going to be profitable to play suited conectors/one gappers. While i'm sure it's -EV, it's not like i'm going to be stacked on a 9 high or J high flop.

but what hands do most people limp with? pairs. And what are most people doing when they limp with pairs? set hunting.

I don't want my opponents to think that any time i limp call I have a pair - and i don't want them to think that any time i play back at them i've hit. i really do think there is a metagame advantage to playing this sort of hand at a table full of regulars.

I guarentee you the next time i get into a big pot against this guy we're both going to be thinking about this hand. I think i'll have the psychological advantage though, because i'll have spent time thinking about what i'm going to do next time we play together - the best way to bluff or semi-bluff him, and the best ways to get value from him. And all because of the way this hand played out.

Given, having lost a stack, it's going to take me some time to make limp calling with J9s profitable again, but results aside, i do think there some solid metagame value to the play.

i've decided even good opponents dont remember and or think about previous hands nearly enough. (well unless you're a crazed lunatic and are seeing 80% of flops.)