Message Board : AQ OOP thoughts

I have been thinking about this stuff a lot lately and this is reflected in the questions I have been asking. I think I have some good thoughts put together but I want to run them by you all to make sure I am not losing it.

I have been thinking about top pair hands OOP in the SPR light. Specifically, I have been thinking about how it players when I am near my target SPR, when I am in the SPR danger zone with a middle SPR, and when I have a high SPR.

This hand tends to play itself when I hit my target SPR. I want to get AI so I plan to do just that.

When I am in the middle area I am excercizing pot control a bit more. I don’t want to get AI but I want to see a showdown so I play a bit more passively.

When I am in the high SPR’s I am not committed but commitment is a longer ways a way. Since I am not committed I think of pot control, but pot control advises keeping the pot small when you aren’t committed. With SPR’s this high keeping the pot small is a lot easier.

For example:

I limp in with 150BB effective stacks and get one limper behind me and the button checks. The flop comes Q32 two-toned and the BB checks to me.

Since the SPR’s are in the 50 range if I take a bet-bet-bet like the pot will still not be big. I will have kept the pot relatively small. For example if I bet 2/3, 1/2, 1/3 then the pot will be ~19BB on my river bet with 140BB behind. This is still a small pot, right? Or, would you consider this a medium pot?

If you take the same example with 100BB stacks then the SPR is about ~30. However, if you take the same line the final pot will be 1/4 the size of the remaining stacks. I think at the point the pot is large so pot control may need to be applied somewhere along the way.

Am I thinking about this the right way?

PS… I got some crazy blue line that I can’t get rid of… :) 

I think you on the right track. 

I’d want to get some $ in the pot on the flop, and take it down on the turn with a semidangerous card.  Ideal of course.  But the only think you are afraid of is Kx right?  You should know if you’re up against a set long before the river.

Ack, I go rambling again :-) 

Threads

When taking the bet/bet/bet line with 150BB doesn’t a raise from your (good/unpredictable) opponent on the Flop or Turn still create a medium sized pot?

Baggie Boy said:

Threads

When taking the bet/bet/bet line with 150BB doesn’t a raise from your (good/unpredictable) opponent on the Flop or Turn still create a medium sized pot?

Absolutely.  A raise still puts us in a hard spot, but not nearly as much so.