Advice on basic NL pre-flop play

Im new to NL, coming from limit. Do anyone want to offer some basic advice on some common pre-flop situations:

10 handed, all have the same 25$ stack, BB 0,25, no special reads

1. You limp from MP with a small or medium pair. A player raises 4xBB from late pos/the blinds. How many other players need to call the raise for you to have the correct pot odds to call?

2. You limp in late pos with a suited connector after several other limpers. One of the blinds raise 4-6XBB. Two limpers call, two fold. You?

3. You raise 4XBB with AQ from early or mid pos. One of the blinds reraise with a pot sized bet.

4. You raise 4XBB with AK/QQ/JJ from early or mid pos and get reraised with a pot sized bet.

5. You have a small/medium pair in late position. An early player raises 4xBB and its folded to you.

6. Its folded to you on the button where you have a small ace or two paint cards.

Played mucho 25nl over the lasty year or so, these are my thoughts.


1. If it's only another 3BB, i will call this even heads up. Set farming is VERY profitable at 25nl. Obviously, if your oppenent is uber shortstacked and cant pay you off if you hit, then maybe a fold is in order.

2. I might call two or three big bets with other callers, but not six. You will need two pair or better or a big draw to continue.

3. I am very sensitive to reraises with AQ and would fold this without a read.

4. Assuming the opp is tight, then call with the pairs and hope to flop a set and play for stacks? AK is tough, if you hit the flop you could still be behind. Here is an interesting thread on that very topic.

http://www.flopturnriver.com/phpBB2/...ic.php?t=22460

5. Insta Call, see 1. Flop a set and destack the guy

6. Raise 4x and represent the flop if you get called.

__________________
Jimmy Mac

Ty very much Jimmy.
Some other sits:
7. You raise 4xbb with kk and get reraised the pot. Do you reraise/allin, or call and hope to see an ace free flop?
6. You limp with Axs and get reraised, several players calls the raise.

7. You raise 4xbb with kk and get reraised the pot. Do you reraise/allin, or call and hope to see an ace free flop?

1 in 24 he has AA. Push.

Originally Posted by ThorKGB

7. You raise 4xbb with kk and get reraised the pot. Do you reraise/allin, or call and hope to see an ace free flop?

Yeah, i agree with AHiltz, reraise/push depending on the stacks. You do give QQ, JJ a chance to escape, but you risk a nasty flop if you call. 25nl players will get themselves all in pre flop with all sorts of crazy hands.

6. You limp with Axs and get reraised, several players calls the raise

Fold unless you are getting huge pot odds. Axs sucks. It never hits, and the fishies tend to be scared of flush boards so it's tough to get payed. I much prefer suited connectors/gappers to Axs. Hidden straights get paid off much better than the flush IMO.

________________
Jimmy Mac
[/quote]

Originally Posted by AHiltz

7. You raise 4xbb with kk and get reraised the pot. Do you reraise/allin, or call and hope to see an ace free flop?

1 in 24 he has AA. Push.

I understand this logic and used to subscribe to it. I no longer do.

The chance he has AA is much higher than 1 in 24 and how high depends on the player, stakes, game texture, etc.

What to do here is totally driven by how to win the max from QQ/JJ/AKish hands.

Hi, can u tell us who gives better advice Thor? FTR? or Pokerfox?

Triptan; I dont know as Im new to NL cashgames. Whats Your opinion?

Originally Posted by Fnord

Originally Posted by AHiltz

7. You raise 4xbb with kk and get reraised the pot. Do you reraise/allin, or call and hope to see an ace free flop?

1 in 24 he has AA. Push.

I understand this logic and used to subscribe to it. I no longer do.

The chance he has AA is much higher than 1 in 24 and how high depends on the player, stakes, game texture, etc.

What to do here is totally driven by how to win the max from QQ/JJ/AKish hands.

The only thing that is certain is that all threads on FTR eventually end up turning into a KK v AA thread.

I'm with lukie. Hell, just push KK, it usually works out for the best. It certainly wins money.

I'm playing all of those situations to a flop except #3. I don't like AQ after a reraise one bit. I can't quote odds, but I don't think you're even going to make money when you flop an ace. It's tricky, hard to bet like you have the best hand, you're out of position...I hate AQ here. And I refuse to get destacked with AQ unless I make a boat or the nut straight and then get sucked out, so I play it pretty timidly. I fold. (Unless it's Absolute .5/.10 NL, I might push then ;p )

Also with the suited connectors...I'm not calling 6BB, but a raise to 4xBB is very callable.

#4 is also kind of tricky, I think read-dependant. I'm usually calling and looking to hit a flop nicely, or a safe flop with the pairs and seeing how the player responds to a check-raise or (less seldom) me betting into him.

#6 is definitely a steal situation, just be careful if you get called and hit your ace.

Most players agree all the money comes in post-flop anyway. None of these situations are going to lose you much.

Originally Posted by Fnord

Originally Posted by AHiltz

7. You raise 4xbb with kk and get reraised the pot. Do you reraise/allin, or call and hope to see an ace free flop?

1 in 24 he has AA. Push.

I understand this logic and used to subscribe to it. I no longer do.

The chance he has AA is much higher than 1 in 24 and how high depends on the player, stakes, game texture, etc.

What to do here is totally driven by how to win the max from QQ/JJ/AKish hands.

I am totally missing the "1 in 24" odds comment. are you just taking the 220:1 odds of getting AA and dividing by 9?
If so, that's ridiculous.

We need to take the range of hands that will reraise, and determine what %of these includes AA (there are 6 combinations of all pocket pairs, 4 of any suited cards and 12 of unsuited cards)
If our opponent only reraises QQ-AA and AK, the odds of him having AA are
QQ-6
KK-1 (we have 2 kings)
AK- 8 (we have 2 kings)
AA-6
6/(6+1+8+6) = 6/21 or 2.5 to 1.
As Fnord mentioned we really need to consider how to win the most/lose the least from our specific opponent.
Will he call with hands that we have domintated when we push, or should we see a flop?

This is my preflop game:

Originally Posted by ThorKGB

10 handed, all have the same 25$ stack, BB 0,25, no special reads

1. You limp from MP with a small or medium pair. A player raises 4xBB from late pos/the blinds. How many other players need to call the raise for you to have the correct pot odds to call?

I call if both myself and the raiser have 15x the raise stacks. This 15x number may decrease ias far as 12x depending on the number of other raise callers with similar stacks.

2. You limp in late pos with a suited connector after several other limpers. One of the blinds raise 4-6XBB. Two limpers call, two fold. You?


I fold suited connectors everywere. I just dont see a need to play them at low stakes because I'm making so much off my TPTK type hands. I may introduce them to my game at a later stage if I feel the need.

3. You raise 4XBB with AQ from early or mid pos. One of the blinds reraise with a pot sized bet.

I call/fold depending on the odds I'm getting preflop and how I feel about playing this guy post flop. I have about 30% that I hit the flop so I like to be getting 2:1 preflop odds. If I do call and hit I'm playing the hand hard and fast to try and deduce where I stand. If I call and miss I'm probably in check/fold mode again depending on read.

4. You raise 4XBB with AK/QQ/JJ from early or mid pos and get reraised with a pot sized bet.

Call to set with QQ/JJ. Call to hit if I'm getting 2:1 with AK .

5. You have a small/medium pair in late position. An early player raises 4xBB and its folded to you.

See question 1.

6. Its folded to you on the button where you have a small ace or two paint cards.

I dont bother stealing blinds, too many people at these levels like to call raises. If I have a playable hand I'll play it the same as I would otherwise.

One other thing, I like to make my preflop raises at least 5xbb or as big as I can but still get 1 or 2 callers. Create an action atmosphere. You may get folds at first but eventually people will call you. Credit to rondavu for this idea.

Originally Posted by ThorKGB

Some other sits:
7. You raise 4xbb with kk and get reraised the pot. Do you reraise/allin, or call and hope to see an ace free flop?

With a decent reraise from the opp (like 3-4 times my raise) I call. I do this because AK will reraise me once but wont call my push and I want him in the hand . With a pot sized reraise I'm probably gonna reraise him back.

6. You limp with Axs and get reraised, several players calls the raise.


I fold Axs all the time in all the places.

$100 NL

Villain limps $1 UTG+1
Raiser raises $5
Hero reraises $19 [Kh Kd]
Villain reraises $125


No information on villain. Do the "never fold KK PF" people actually think that a call is +EV?

Originally Posted by Lexicon Devil

$100 NL

Villain limps $1 UTG+1
Raiser raises $5
Hero reraises $19 [Kh Kd]
Villain reraises $125


No information on villain. Do the "never fold KK PF" people actually think that a call is +EV?

i think folding that is -ev

Originally Posted by Miffed22001

Originally Posted by Lexicon Devil

$100 NL

Villain limps $1 UTG+1
Raiser raises $5
Hero reraises $19 [Kh Kd]
Villain reraises $125


No information on villain. Do the "never fold KK PF" people actually think that a call is +EV?

i think folding that is -ev

Come play with me!



I find this very --EV... I used to always call/push in that situation, But I have learned better. Over half the time it's AA. The few AK/QQ's you see doing this will not make you near enough to pay off the AA's.

This is at $100NL+ though, at $50 or less, it's still profitable call.