Why am I playing $25/$50 NL?

[black_knight6]

Fortunately Ice's BR is absurdly large...but I agree 100% with shob's analysis...including that you shouldn't have taken this shot. ONE fish is not enough for you to jump into a MUCH bigger game while you're not playing well.

[DaHitDogg]

I agree with that you shouldn't "take shots" when your livelihood depends on your bankroll and/or you are just learning the game. That said, this is not the case for Ice. Playing above your comfort level is not all bad. It forces you to focus more and probably makes you a bit nervous, which is not always a bad thing. The downside is most people don't have the discipline to downshift to smaller games if it doesn't work out.

[NorthView]

Is blackmetal related to greenplastic?

[muszu]

[poker2006]

[bkholdem]

[iceman5]

[bkholdem]

[Aisthesis]

[AlexMR]

[bkholdem]

[shamdonk]

[Aisthesis]

I think the PF call is marginal (I certainly also don't object to folding). The thing is, there are a lot of players who will routinely raise AX-type hands, and I think there's a lot of "risk" here of just giving away one's limp--which certainly isn't anything horrible, but still...

These players are just going to have air quite a bit of the time, and it's a good idea to pick up some small to medium pots off them from time to time because you're also laying down some superior hands to these frivolous bets. A semi-bluff is often a good spot.

Since it's 2 pages and I can't look at the exact action again, speaking from my recollection of the hand, I also don't think flat calling the raise is any kind of mistake either(depending a lot on the particular type of fish). That's kind of a decision where I would have had to be there to decide whether I would prefer pushing or flat calling once I did see the flop.

Somewhat relevant also is whether there's any read on this 3 BB raise. I mean, $150 looks huge to me, but if I translate it down to my 2/5 it's like a raise to $15, which in my game usually just means they have a hand that I consider playable--with some liking to do that on QJ type hands, others preferring suited connectors, others 55-88, etc. That particular raise is somewhat unusual in our game for the AXo raise but that's also in there somewhere. And I also don't exclude truly big hands with this raise either, but it just didn't sound to me like the kind of player who is likely to have one of those.

Anyhow, playing AXs to a 3 BB raise under certain conditions (definitely not against a tight raiser) is not imo a cardinal sin. But you definitely do have to be very careful with it.

Just as an aside, there's an interesting tourney hand in Ace on the River between Barry Greenstein and Gus Hansen, where Barry calls a raise with AXs. His reasoning: Specifically against Gus, he has good chances of overflushing him, since Gus likes to raise a lot of suited connectors. I think the hand becomes actually pretty interesting to a raise with deep stacks and against gamy players who will raise a lot of suited cards. Anyhow, a very different situation than the one we have here, but I thought I'd throw that one in as well, as it's a very interesting one between two of the best.