Playing hands in SB

How do you play in SB?

When it's folded to you in SB - what sort of hands do you limp/fold/raise?

When you have a hand like AKo in SB and there are 3 limpers in the pot - how do you play it?
When I raise in SB in this situation - a lot of the time I get some callers and then when I miss the flop my hand is dead. I raise 4xBB +1xBB for each limper in the SB. so with 3 limpers that's a total bet of 7.5xBB and 6.5xBB for each of my opponents to call.

I had AK in the SB a couple of days ago - made a raise. Got 1 caller from late position. Flop comes 8 hi and I've missed it completely. I bet $5 into a $7 pot. Can't remember how the rest of the hand went exactly - but my opponent stays in the pot and I lose the hand. I think he made a min raise and I fold.
But even if he flat calls and bets the turn I'm gone. Should I be making cbets like this in bad position? It's unlikely he hit the flop (unless he has an overpair, but he didn't raise pf so not so likely). But he'll realize that it's unlikely that I hit the flop and if he's a decent player there's a very good chance he will float me. And if he does I'll give him the pot. Even if just checks the turn, he still has another chance to take the pot off me on the river. After I've checked twice a lot of players will take the pot away from me with K hi or worse.

Thanks

In a multiway limped pot I'll still throw away a lot hands that have no implied odds. I'd complete with 32s or 75 but not Q8 or A4.

SB vs BB in a full ring game just doesn't happen very often

As far as raising in SB, I'll raise JJ+ and AK and nothing else. And I don't always raise JJ and AK, just to add deception to my game and to keep the pot small when playing OOP.

As far as c-betting is concerned, I almost never c-bet with a missed AK in a multi-way (4+ players) pot in any position. It's too likely someone will call you with a pocket pair or any pair.

SB is not a place you want to be playing hands, and bbqsquirrel had some good suggestions for how to play multiway pots from the SB. But, as you progress in stakes SB vs BB becomes a more common battle, even in FR. So when this happens, i begin to analyze what i know about my opponent. If i am new to the table or have no previous notes on an opponent, i defer to caution and fold most hands, including A-x up to A-10. And i hardly ever limp the SB vs only BB. The only hands i would just complete with would be SC's or big pairs, (folding SC's and reraising my big pairs, probably 4x the initial raise). Of course i will also raise those hands on occasion, moreso if the BB is a tighter player.

So, when playing only the BB from the SB, i rely a lot on my reads and what the BB thinks of me (is he likely frustrated at several of my recent PF raises, or fearful due to my folding the SB several times recently).

P.S. this is one example of why table selection is valuable. If you spend 20-30 minutes scoping out a few tables and finding a few soft spots at tables, then make reservations

A-K...

not a fun hand to get in the SB when multiple players limp into the pot. But, i would probably raise as well and usually follow it up with a strong flop bet. The problem with your playing of AK from the SB is you flatten under the pressure of being called OOP. When he calls he is telling us he isn't sure he believes he has you beat , except for when he has flopped a set or has a very strong drawing hand. On the turn, if you make a 2/3 PS bet, a thinking player ought to toss any drawing hands if they didn't come in, and fold most TP hands to 3 strong bets. You may be overinflating the pot PF by raising ~7x BB PF. 5x BB should be enough i think. READS ARE IMPORTANT. If you can't say for sure that villian is a thinking player, you can't play your cards for much more than their value OOP.

I raise 3xbb + limpers (rarely over 5xbb tho) with AK/AQ from sb in multiway pot. If I get heads up and miss I rarely c-bet laggy opps, and only when there are no draws on the board.

In SB, I complete with small pairs, suited connectors, high off/suit connectors and gappers, sometimes, 2 suited bw, AXs and mid pairs sometimes complete, sometimes raise.

I raise high pairs, AK, AQs, any 2 offsuited high cards that I want to play, and occasionally total and utter trash that I would otherwise fold.

I don't usually raise 4x+1 per limper, that seems to much for the games I play. Usually 4-6x depending.

I am beginning to think that this is too much, and I am getting killed playing OOP (it seemed to be working on very weak tables, where you could c-bet anything and get folds... so either I was lucky for a while, or the games got tougher... I don't play enough to tell)

any more thoughts?

also, i don't mean to be rude, but how good is the advice given above?
is vi-zeroskill's advice gd? i don't know if the advice is coming from a good or bad player. he seems to know what he's talking about and it seems he plays at high stakes.

isn't it a bit tight folding A9 in the BB? there's quite a low chance your opponent has you a better hand than you. or is the reason for folding reverse implied odds and the bad position?

also, sb vs bb happens a lot more often at 5/6 handed. and also, when you're playing a few hundred hands a day you do encounter SB vs BB quite a lot.

also, how does this advice change when playing tourneys? (i used to play a lot of sngs and used to steal a lot from SB towards the end when the blinds got big). now that i've played more cash games i've started to understand position a lot more and when i do occasionally play tourneys i fold a lot more hands in the sb.
you can probably steal more in tourneys from sb because the stacks are much shorter and position isn't worth as much (and a lot of the time a steal will mean committing a big portion of your stack and you can't call with 78s from BB hoping to use your position to take the pot later on because stacks are so short)

The range of A-10+ is to give you an idea of how many hands to make raises with PF against BB HU... i would say around 15%. Another reason i fold a hand as strong as A-9 (relatively speaking, since it looks to be a headsup pot if it plays out at all and K-x beats any random hand) is because an intelligent opponent will often call you and raise any flop bet you make, knowing you miss the flop much more often than you hit it. Though an intelligent opponent won't overuse this tactic, the implied threat will decrease your stealing frequency. If i appear to play a tighter range of hands from the SB in a HU pot, not only will i be appearing to be stealing less but c-bets i make with air will get more respect. If your opponent isn't aware or aggressive enough to realize or act on the evidence that some (most, in all likelihood) of your c-bets in these HU pots are probably with marginal cards then by all means loosen up your raising range and pound him with c-bets.

For multiway limp pots i will limp almost all hands since i don't even feel inclined or obliged to c-bet or call one on the flop in a multiway pot just b/c i hit top pair. If you think K-4 is good on Ks-Jh-7h flop for a big bet with 5 limpers left to show you what they think of the flop, you probably shouldn't be limping K-4 in the SB.

Finally, my advice is that of a player who plays a tighter selection of hands preflop and play them more aggressively. Different playing styles aren't better or worse - they just require different approaches to a situation.

I am not HS

How bad do the other players who've already entered the pot suck? Do you figure to be able to exploit them post-flop even out of position?
How loose is the BB? Does he even realize that he has position on you? Does he use position well?
Do you want to bluff OOP into an unraised pot for cheap image?

HU is all meta game. When folded to you in SB, you have a random hand vs. a random hand. I raise almost anything vs. a BB until he lets me know he has a backbone. Hand I don't fold, I limp. I auto bet 90% of flops heads up, but I almost never call (a raise or bet) without TP+, and won't fire a second bullet unless the board is extremly favorable.

All that goes out the window once the guy establishes that he won't put up with it.

In a hand that's been folded around to me? It entirely depends who is sitting to the left of me. If I am sitting next to a rock, I'll raise. If I get called I am likely behind, but if I hit then I'm gold. If I'm sitting next to a loose cannon, I'll call and see what (s)he does and then re-evaluate unless I have a big hand [JJ+, AKs].