Hand Discussion #3: My Thoughts

Ed,

Once again you’ve given us the best advice on how to best play a difficult hand. I can honestly say that if it were not for you I would not be the player I am today.

Keep up the excellent work.

Ed,
I am still grinning like an idiot from the dog poo analogy, and that is exactly what I did. But once again, thanks to you, I now know how to get it off my shoe. (=

I am fairly new to poker and play mainly limit at Micro Levels so I am probably spouting some nonsense here but is folding two pair agaisnt a hand which might be just top pair not a mistake?

He could of course have trip Queens but he could also have Queen and a good kicker (A Q) and we are ahead. Although he could improve, are hand could also improve.

A lot people come out betting strong, especially with top pair and a good kicker. I can see the logic of his agressive play because it has knocked everyone out of the hand, even someone who could have him beat if he only has top pair.

I suppose it is like you say, you have to know the opponents re-raising range and his aggression levels. I think I am just trying to work out if he could be check-raising with Q with an Ace kicker.

apologies if I am raising any dumb obvious points

is folding two pair agaisnt a hand which might be just top pair not a mistake?

Ed’s already given a lot of really good detail about why it could be a mistake, or might not be. But the issue of why you might consider folding bottom two is very much a limit-vs.-NL thing.

In some situations, against certain opponents, you’d be very unlikely to make any money from anything less than two pair. Conversely, you’d be likely to lose a lot of money to any other two pair or better. Therefore you’re willing to sacrifice a certain amount of equity in the pot to avoid laying implied odds, because those implied odds represent the much larger amount of money in your stack.

Most schooled beginners know that deep-stack NL is about IO, and like to play hands that can receive IO such as pairs. But we don’t think enough about laying IO, i.e. reverse IO. In this case bottom two is a hand that might lose a lot or win a little, so it’s essentially a reverse implied odds hand.

That doesn’t mean you should never get money in with bottom two — but you should carefully consider the nature of your opponents and the board, and think about what you expect to call you. Automatically shoving stacks in with two pair could be a huge mistake, whereas never folding two pair except on the scariest of boards would probably not be a huge mistake in limit.