My thinking may be a little askew on this one because I’ve never truly understood how to play one pair hands and how big a pot you should be looking to build but I(maybe wrongly) tend to err on the side of caution.
The key words for me here are ‘medium strength hand’. If I believe my hand to be medium strength I like to play for a medium sized pot and your position may allow you to do that. On top of this I don’t like losing players who are holding weaker kickers with just 3 outs. If he is holding,eg, AJ I want another bet from him; if he’s got me beat I definately don’t want the hand to get out of control. You said that the pot had got a little out of hand but that happened through your raise and his call. My question is why raise? When he calls you aren’t too sure where you stand so why not call the flop and see what happens on the turn? Against someone who would call that raise with A9, etc, then obviously you are going to pop him but against the unknown I prefer a call. When someone bets into me, after I raise, when an obvious card comes on the flop that could have hit me, I tend to tread a little more carefully, especially if it’s a half pot sized bet that just looks as if it’s begging to be raised.
Like I said I may be too cautious and/or trappy in these situations but that’s the way I tend to play. If I had have raised the flop and he called I would have definately checked behind on the Turn if I had a reasonable amount of money left.

I tend to buy in for 100BB. While I am pretty good on the short stack in tournaments, I’m not so good in cash games. The relative stacks are more skewed (or at least you can really have only 1 or 2 large stacks) in cash games and you aren’t working from an unreplentishable set of chips. You can be much more threatening in tournaments. I haven’t made good adjustments there and tend to bleed off chips needlessly.

Here is another hypothetical that I tend to struggle with around building a pot with a medium strength hand. Give yourself AQo on the button. It folds to you. You raise 3x or 4x, whatever is your standard. SB calls. BB folds. Flop comes Axx. SB leads for 5BB. You raise 15BB to 20BB. He calls. Now there are around 50BB in the pot and you have a pretty good, but not all that great hand and position. Turn is blank. SB checks to you.

In this situation, I would give the SB credit for raising AA or KK preflop, but could have smooth called with anyhting else. Lets make the board AT74. Not that connected, rainbow on the flop. After he calls my raise, I’m putting the SB on something like {AK, AQ, AJ, AT, A7, T7, TT, 77, QQ} as definitely in the range, {A9, A8} as often in the range, {A6, A5, 98, KT, QT, JT} as occasionally in the range (like if I’ve been caught bluffing recently), but a lot less likely.

So the question is, at what stack sizes am I betting and at what stack sizes am I checking behind to control the pot which is getting a little out of hand? 75BB just move in, easy. If he call, sometimes you win, a little more often you lose. 100-120BB, I think I should always check behind, as I wuold be priced into a bigger pot than I want to play if he shoves. Now, with 200BB if I bet there is almost nothing that I beat if he moves in. Am I betting here again? I don’t know.

Thoughts?

I think the game is too big for you, because hands like this one will go down often, and you need to be completely comfortable getting stacked (sometimes three or four times in a night) for it to be the right limit for you.

Main thing you did wrong this hand was your tiny flop raise. The pot’s big ($120 compared to your $220 stack), and you got there. All your money needs to go in! I’d have made it $120 to go probably, planning to bet the rest on the turn.

Otherwise, this is a standard hand played in a juicy game. You can definitely go through quite a few $200 buy-ins if you run bad, and if that’s going to drive you crazy, then either buy in shorter or find a smaller game. Honestly, buying in shorter may solve your problem. Just buy in for $100 and get some winning under your belt, then start buying in for more as you gain confidence.

After taking 5th for $450 in a local casino tounament, I decided to “reinvest” in the 1-3 NLH game at the same venue. The game had some peculularities, namely, it tended to play much bigger after the flop. This hand cost me a big hunk of my earnings and illustrates what I mean. (PS. NOT a bad beat story – an inquery on how to play in such games and, of course, if I played correctly under the circumstances.

My stack ~$235, others same +- $100, no one really deep.
Late middle w/ ATos, I raise 2 limpers to $15.
Called in 4 places. (This, BTW, was somewhat typical).

So, at this point, it seems to me the hand is playing as if the BB were $15 with a bunch of limpers and I am definately short-stacked for that game, right?

Pot = $75; Flop is T72 with 2H.
SB bets $15, called by 2 players to me. I raise to $50 with TPTK, ~half the pot, and am called by only RHO who has me covered.

This is a table that love to draw and I have 80% confidence my opponent is on a heart draw.
Turn is off-suit rag, checked to me and I push in for ~$160.
Called K2 of H. K hits the river.

I checked out of the game at this point. It seems to me that this game requires a deeper stack than what 1-3 would imply. Should I be playing with a larger stack or a shorter stack?Would this game be characterized as Loose-Passive? What’s the best strategy here? I’m not sure my bankroll ($3000) can withstand the variance in this game.

Sorry, it wasn’t an actual hand but a hypothetical one (I dream these up all day!)but similar ones have troubled me in the past.
Another question: when I play I tend to buy in for 20BB’s and attempt to work my way up. This way I get to play short stacked, medium and if all goes well large stacked. I quite like doing this as you get to play differing stack strategies and if I do find myself large stacked I find it a little easier to play as I’m playing with my winnings. Is this a reasonable way to play or am I missing something here? Any thoughts?

I think that is a very reasonable line. A nice variation of that is the weak lead. Make a bit of an undersized c-bet on the flop and check the turn. Really good against agressive players. I had a very agressive player on my left last night that I was looking for that situation exactly. Sadly, never got the right hand to trap him. I let him bluff me out of a couple of small pots for nothing I guess. Arrg.

In this case, it may be a very good choice. Again, I think QQ is right on the borderline for that. With AA especially or KK, I think you make that move a lot. With JJ, I think you don’t make that move much at all. My preference is to re-raise the flop in this situation. If you want to trap, rock on! An added benefit of that is that it really keeps people on your left off your back.

So how did the actual hand resolve itself?

If you are going to commit yourself to the hand then how about calling the $15 raise and then check/raising the Turn (if it’s favourable). This may force an aggressive player to get all in with you holding A-10, JJ, etc. who may have folded to your flop re-raise? Too risky? I may sound naive here but I feel that if you play strong on the flop a lot who follow you may have you beat, where as if you wait until the Turn a number of weaker hands may come along. What do you think?

I’m with Todd on this one. There’s nothing you could have done different other than raise all in pre~flop, although I would probably have done what you did. With AK I would stick it in and be happy with fold, fold, fold…With a pair of Kings I think if someone will call you all the better so I’d be swayed towards the 5BB raise you made. Every bet counts at that stage and I think it’s worth taking the risk unless you have seen a lot of all~ins called ~ in which case go all~in ~ or if not going all~in arouses suspicion in possible callers. As it happened you got called by a poor player, with dross ~ which is what you want ~ who got lucky. But as you know he’s probably playing any old rubbish and coupled with the pot size/what you have left, there’s no way you are folding. It’s a horrid little game that rewards chancers!

…snip…
I believe the range is wide. ATs through T9s for tens alone.
…snip…

I think this is true for the first raise. The {TT+, 55, 33, 53s} range is if he shoves over you’re re-raise. At that point, I really can’t give him credit for a weak top pair (or I’m putting that in my bluff allowance).

Given that range, I think QQ is the break even hand for a $25 re-raise. I don’t know that it matters whether you call or fold. How much do you like to play a short stack vs. reloading if you’re beat is the question there. Once you pop him $30, and I really do think you have to pop him, you sort of have to call the overshove with QQ and 100BB stacks.

…snip…
think you are going to get challenged with a lot of hands here, maybe even AK or other big A, depending on the player
…snip…

Yes, for sure. Which is why I think you really have to re-raise. You can’t let a 2nd pair hand or a no pair hand take that pot away from you when it is rightfully yours.

…snip…
I just think giving up here is weak and if you don’t give up then I think you have to be ready to play for your stack
…snip…

I think the most interesting thing about this hand is that QQ and 100BB are in a really sensitive range for a re-raise/overshove. Any frisky re-raise commits you. Will this villain play 35s to an open raise? Will this villain overshove with AT? If you had KK it’s a pretty easy re-raise/call. JJ or AT and it’s probably a re-raise/fold or call/lead fold to pressure.

Todd