Problem hands

Just started playin and have been in a couple of tourneys in the last 2 days so learning more and more as I go on.. I’m trying to play as they tell you to in supersystem2.. have a few questions so hopefully a few of you will know what to do:

If you have a pocket pair jacks or lower will you always call the blinds in any position? How big a raise should you call depending on your chips, the blind, size of the pair and positon?

Doyle Brunson recommends that sometimes with trash or trouble hands you should sometimes play your position on the button by betting 4 times the big blind before the flop, then about 15 after if called. How often should you do this?

He outlines trouble hands as AQ AJ A10 KQ KJ K10 QJ Q10 J10 98, and says to only call a raise when in late position. Are there any exceptions to this? And should you always call the big blind with these, even in early position?

When calculating the odds on a draw, I’m still unsure as whether to go by the hit by turn or hit by river odds. Is there any general concensus on this?

When holding 2 cards to a straight flush, what is the approximate probability of hitting a two pair or better after all the cards are dealt?

I’m also still unsure as how to adapt my game when the numbers decrease at the table. Last time the numbers at the table would drop from 11 to as low as 6 before we joined with another table and at the final table it could obviously go down to the final two.
Has anyone got any good links or advice for this rather than “just play more games and you’ll get used to it”?

also tbh i'm only a newbie and have a real important game on fri that i cant miss, i have a simple enough way of playing that isnt great but doesnt make too many poor decisions, however the above questions are wrecking my head!

if anyone knows how they would play any of the given scenarios a reply like so would be super:


If you have a pocket pair jacks or lower will you always call the blinds in any position? How big a raise should you call depending on your chips, the blind, size of the pair and positon?

in early position i would call (A)xthe blinds with (name) pairs.
In middle i would play the above hands at (B)x the blinds and also play (name) pairs at (C) times the blinds.
In late I would play all the above at (D) times the blinds and additionally play (name) pairs at (E) times the blinds.

Doyle Brunson recommends that sometimes with trash or trouble hands you should sometimes play your position on the button by betting 4 times the big blind before the flop, then about 15 after if called. How often should you do this?

Considering you have neither a tight or loose image, one in 6 with absolute rags.

He outlines trouble hands as AQ AJ A10 KQ KJ K10 QJ Q10 J10 98, and says to only call a raise when in late position. Are there any exceptions to this? And should you always call the big blind with these, even in early position?

in early position i would call (A)xthe blinds with (name) hands.
In middle i would play the above hands at (B)x the blinds and also play (name) hands at (C) times the blinds.
In late I would play all the above at (D) times the blinds and additionally play (name) hands at (E) times the blinds.


When calculating the odds on a draw, I’m still unsure as whether to go by the hit by turn or hit by river odds. Is there any general concensus on this?

you should take 1/3 the hit by turn odds and 2/3 the by river odds as weightings when you work this out as this would be about the average taking what odds each individual player would use.

When holding 2 cards to a straight flush, what is the approximate probability of hitting a two pair or better after all the cards are dealt?

about 8%

I’m also still unsure as how to adapt my game when the numbers decrease at the table. Last time the numbers at the table would drop from 11 to as low as 6 before we joined with another table and at the final table it could obviously go down to the final two.
Has anyone got any good links or advice for this rather than "just play more games and you’ll get used to it"?

with 8-11 players. play the hands doyle brunson tells you to play (i can post these if needed).
with 5-8 players play what he tells you to do in early position in middle, in middle position in late and add (name) hands to what you play with in early.
with 3-4 players play what he tells you to do in early and middle position in late, add (name) hands to what you play with in middle and (name) hands to what you play with in early.



i know most of my "sample" answers dont make too much sense but if anyone could take the time out to post a reply like the above (even for just one question) it would be hugely appreciated.
thanks

First off welcome to FTR and hope you find everything you need here and learn to grow as a player, make some money, and have fun doing so.

Okay well one thing you posted in the Full Ring Forum, which is for cash/ring games. You will want to go check out the MTT forum for Multi-Table Tournaments. Or the SNG forum for Single Table Tournaments (STTs).

Now I have never read SuperSystems 2, so I'm not sure how he outlines to play, but I will give a little advice to some of the questions you answered, and maybe the advice won't be too incorrect and you can benefit from it.

*note* One thing you have to remember is that there is NO proper way to play a hand or given situation at all times. Everything in poker is situation dependent. The type of player you are facing, their tendencies, your position, their position, depth of the tourney, tourney payout, their range of cards, your hand, etc all depend what the correct play is (which is still a little iffy at times). So any of these questions I answer don't always apply to every situation.

[Q] "If you have a pocket pair jacks or lower will you always call......"
[A] In the early portion of a toruney with small-mid pocketpairs (88-JJ imo), you want to be calling preflop bets looking for sets, which means you need to have good implied odds to make the call. You would want to go by the 15x rule. That is first you must look at the effective stack (the lowest of either your stack or the person bettings stack). Then divide that by the amount you must call to make the raise. If it is less than 15, you should fold. If the number is more than 15, it is okay to call. Reason being is your hand will only hit a set (3 of a kind) every so often, so you want to make sure you get paid enough when you do hit.

{example} - Opponent raises to 200 and you have 33. His stack after the raise is 1000 and your stack is 1700. This is generally a fold. The effective stack is 1000 (the smallest of the two stacks). You have to call 200, so your only getting 5:1 implied odds to call (1000/200 = 5). You want to be getting ~15:1 or more to call looking for a set.

[Q] Recommends that sometimes with trash or trouble hands you should.....
[A] In the early portion of a tournament, you really aren't in too much of a hurry to play anything but solid valued hans. Reason being is because your stack size in relation to the blind levels are good. If the blinds are 10/20 and you have 1500 or so, you don't need to be raising A3 etc type hands. Wait for decent hands to open the pot for. And remember, according to the "Gap Concept", you need a stronger hand to call a bet, than you do to make a bet. So if you wouldn't open with ATs in this spot, you don't want to be calling with ATs there.

Your standard raise should probably be something like 3xbb + 1bb per limper. That is if you are on the BU and there is 2 limpers and you have KK with the blinds at 25/50 you should open for something like 250 or so (3xbb + 2bb for the 2 limpers = 5bb).

The trouble hands you listed are so because they are likely to be a dominated hand when facing a raise. A dominated hand is a hand that holds one card in common with an opponents hand, but their other card is higher than yours (ex. AQ is dominated by AK, because even if you hit an Ace your are being beat due to kicker). Also remember you should be folding/raising more than you should be calling. Yes it is correct at times to call a raise in position, if you believe you can outplay them postflop or if you hand plays good multiway and by raising you blow the chances of a multiway pot.

[Q] When calculating the odds on a draw, I'm still unsure as whether....
[A] Okay, so I'm assuming you know the rule of 2 and the rule of 4, correct? The rule of 2 is to be used if you are only getting to see ONE card, while the rule of 4 is to be used if you stand to see BOTH cards.

Say you are on the flop with the Nut Flush Draw. The pot is 300 and the opponent bets 100 making the pot 400 and you must call 100. Your pot odds are 4:1. You would need to use the rule of 2 to calculate this because if you were to miss your draw on the turn you would be facing another bet. Rule of 2 says you will hit about 18% of the time. Which that is ~4:1 odds so you can call (definate call given implied odds).

Now if the pot is 500 on the flop and you once again have the Nut Flush Draw. Your opponent goes all in for 500 making the pot 1000 and it's 500 for you to call, you can use the rule of 4 because by calling the villians all-in you will not face any other betting on the turn even if you missed the draw and you get to see the river for certain. So with a 1000 pot and 500 to call you are getting 2:1 odds. Using the rule of 4 you have about a ~36% chance of hitting with is ~2:1, which means a call here is about breakeven.

[Q] I'm still unsure as how to adapt my game when the numbers.....
[A] Remember that as the numbers decrease the value of marginal hands increase. That is where a KTs hand isn't very good at a table of 9-10, it is a fairly good hand at a table with 4 players left. So as the number of players begins to decrease you should loosen up a little. But remember you want to be doing this in position and when your stack size indicates you too. Also you want to be stealing more as the number of players left to act decreases as well, as does their starting hand strength.

That's all I've got for now. Either no regular here will read my rant here because it's too long, or if they do they will probably rip it to shreds, but maybe it will help.

Good luck at your tourney.

To go along with you checking out the MTT forum, there is a "MTT Digest" at the top as a sticky. It would serve you incredibly well to go in there and read some of the advice they offer before heading to your tourney.

Also concerning poker odds, etc, we have charts at:

http://www.flopturnriver.com/poker-odds-charts.html

Look on the right side and check out all of those charts. There are some showing the % of hitting your draws, showing you how to calculate outs for your draws, odds of hitting a specific hand on the flop, and how some hands stack up against others. It will also serve you well to learn those.

Good luck.