I seem to be having a lot of trouble with big wired pairs lately in NL cash games. The general advice/conventional wisdom is to get all the money into the middle preflop with AA or KK. That's fine, but what the hell are you supposed to do after the flop, when the board looks relatively dry but you get raised big by the opposition? Fold? I am rarely capable of that. A number of times in the past few days I’ve lost significant fractions (if not all) of my table buy-in at $10NL cash games when I got it all in after the flop when I thought for sure I was ahead. Take yesterday’s evening game, for instance:
I’m in the SB in a $10NL game and get dealt AA. I’ve got an average sized stack of $10.90. It folds around to me and I min-raise to $.20 (yes, this seems small, but I didn't want to fold out the BB with a bigger raise). The big stack ($34.70) BB calls and the flop comes K-Q-6 rainbow. I’m hoping the BB has a King or Queen, so I raise to half pot ($.20 again). The BB min-raises me, I return the favor, and pretty soon we have all the money in the middle. Like they say, be careful of what you hope for, as he turns over both the king AND the queen, and the board doesn’t pair so I lose.
A couple days ago, a similar thing happened. I’m in the cutoff seat with two black rockets. There’s a limp in front of me, I pop it up to $.30, and it folds around to the limper, who calls my raise. Flop looks pretty good, I think, with the 3-6-J and two spades. Villain checks to me, I raise to 2/3’s pot, and he smooth calls. Turn is an offsuit 3, he checks, I bet 2/3 pot again, he pushes all-in, and I (foolishly) call. Villain turns over 32 offsuit (Yes, trey-deuce offsuit. Geezus.) for trip threes. Arghgh.
Another time I lost with AA to 96s, when the opp called my raise preflop, hit his two pair on the flop, and then let me lead all the way to the river, where he popped me all-in. Similarly, I lost a huge stack when my KK lost to a set of nines on the flop on that same day.
My buddy Bret says I’m whining too much in these posts lately, so instead of complaining about all these (FUCKING GODDAWFULL GUT-WRENCHING) big wired pair losses, I’m instead going to try and take a lesson away from the experiences. The problem is this: I have no idea what that lesson should be.
Maybe one should just try to get the money in preflop, and if you can’t, then try to control the pot size post flop? The problem with that, however, is you’re often then giving the opp the right price to see more streets and—possibly—suck-out on you. The rule is if you think you have the best hand, make the opp pay to see more cards. If he calls, and then pushes all-in on a later street, does it mean I'm automatically beat? How do I factor in the opp's VPIP/looseness in my decision logic? Maybe I should look at his post-flop aggression number and discount aggressive behaviour? Or maybe I should just start folding those rockets post flop? Top pair is pretty strong, but maybe it’s not strong enough to weather a major raise once the first three cards of the board have been dealt. The forums occasionally discuss this scenario, but with little real advice (except of course for the "pros" who say fold you rockets to big raises after the flop. Dunno…. but lately I’ve almost dreaded seeing rockets and cowboys show up in my hand. (And no, Bret, that ain’t whining…. it’s whimpering. There’s a difference... :-)
All-in for now….
-Bug
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