Typicalish 5/10 stars game. Full enough handed
You post in the cutoff. Folded to you. Blinds and button are unknown.
How many hands are you raising here?

Are we open raising?

There are too many possibilities otherwise.

Open raising... Well, we just get the introductions out of the way, and I'm gonna say hello to the table by attacking the blinds. For that extra half bet I quickly get to see if/how they react to a blind steal, granted they could have aces or crap, but I'm goign to get a quick feel for whats to my left. 57s and up....

Originally Posted by Marm

57s and up....

whats the differance between 57s and 23s here?

I usually wait for a decent hand on the button or CO before I go for a steal...Something I won't be embaressed to showdown. Once I see how they react to that, then I'll start opening it up.

One of the biggest changes I've made to my limit game is something I've picked up from tournament play and that's blind defense. While not that big of a deal, it's far easier to see a cheap flop from the BB with a marginal hand when somebody in the CO or Button open raises. Having taken that into account, not that many limit players defend their blinds like they do in a tournament (or attempt blind steals like they do in a tournament).

I think the interesting thing about that is that you can put your BB on a decent hand if he calls your raise (where as in a tournament, he could have called with crap just to try to defend his blinds) until you get a read on him. The biggest problem I've noticed with this is that if the person is decent, and the call with a decent hand, then they can and will call you down (if not raise you) if the flop is a bunch of blanks.

Like I said, I prefer decent hands when I first sit down until I see that the blinds are weak players and I can drive them off of anything but serious hands. If I notice they are decent players, then I usually start looking for another table

to takes mrms point a step further, not only will you get a feel for the table you are also getting 2.5 to 1 on your steal attempt (counting your posted blind).

I would be willing to raise anything here. If I steal the blinds beautiful, if I get called I go from there. If I have to show down 67 offsuit as a winner, I will then change to a super-tight stealing style. Whatever happens you can use it to your advantage.

Let the table react to you

Originally Posted by gder03

whats the differance between 57s and 23s here?

not much... but I gotta draw the line somewhere

and what if you get re-raised? do you call with 57s?

Depends on my mood. Half the time I cap, half the time I fold, the other half I call. The more live my cards, the more I lean towards playing them.

At this point with a hand like 57s+, with the money in, we're getting >5-1 HU (and there are only a handful of hands that are less than 16% equity HU), and so we pretty much want to see a flop. Raising, maybe they just didn't want the new guy pushing everybody around. Their raising requirements are nearly equally as low, so maybe we can get him to fold.

Personally, If they show resistance, I like to take a flop and play from there. I'm not looking to get cute post flop. With no other info, I gotta believe what they say.