Open ended straight flush draws, played passively!?

This post is going to be a different way to play your monster drawing hands, such as the open ended straight flush. Normally most people see a huge draw like this and want to push the action right away. Not saying there is anything wrong with this, but I want to talk about one situation where you can disguise your hand and ultimately be more profitable.

First off this situation is going to play out much easier if you have position in the hand! This can be used in multiple spots, so for this example we will say you called a raise pre-flop by a pretty tight player in position. You take a flop with the 6 7 of diamonds. Flop comes out 4d 5d x. Now you have someone betting into you.You know his opening range and c-bet range is premium hands. He makes a standard c-bet, now this is where I think you will extract max value from this hand and not risk losing a huge pot, (although you are favored on this board against the likely over pair). You need to flat here! Why? For multiple reasons. 1 he is almost 100 percent of the time calling your 3-bet or all in, or he will 4 bet all in with an over pair. 2 it will give you a clear indication if he has AK, and gives up on the turn most likely. 3 and this is the best spot, you turn the nut straight and he leads into you again. By flatting once more, you are more than likely making him think "this guy must be on a flush draw!". If a blank falls on the river, he will ignore the straight on board, most of the time. This means there is a very good chance he leads again, or he will check to you. Now you can get as tricky as you want if he finally checked to you. You can make the over sized bet to make it look like you missed your flush and there's a good chance he will call with the over pair.

Remember this scenario is having everything work for you and you not missing your draw. The two good things if you do miss your draw by playing this hand this way. You are not broke, or out of the tournament, and you can still evaluate and decide if you can bluff him on the river if you miss.

Premium hands early in tournaments, early pos.

Today I want to discuss premium hands under the gun or +1+2 spots, in the early on parts of tournaments. The action starts with you and you look down at a hand as powerful as KK. What to do? In the early parts of a tournament, I think you should open your mind to playing this hand very stealth like. Limp this hand! There is usually plenty of action in the early stages of tournaments. If you limp here, and get a couple more limpers, than someone decides to make a standard 3x raise..You now have a pot built for you! Now this is where you need to make the right play and evaluate what kind of table you are at. If its at a very lose table, make the 3 bet big enough where you will get one or 2 callers pre-flop. If it's a very tight table you can make a smaller 3 bet and hope for the same outcome. Hands like KK AA QQ, you are not going to want multiple callers early on in tournaments. Why? Well, simply they are not easy hands to get away from! You hold AA on a board of, 27J rainbow. Looks like a safe board to bet, but if you miss played this pre-flop and let that guy in with the 77 or 22, your not going to like the outcome!

Hand Replay from 9/15/11

OK this will be one of many "Bad Beat Post's". [Q] [10] [2] [J] [9]

So today I'm playing poker at my local casino. You start with 5k in chips and blinds begin at 25-50. We are almost at break, with blinds being now 100-200. I have about 12k in chips, and I look down at pocket 10's. I'm in middle position with a raise by a tight player under the gun and a call in front of me. I elect to just call and see a flop in position, it folds around and the BB also calls. 4 way flop now, board comes out [Q] [2] [10]. BB leads out, 2 calls, and I raise up to 1,400. I get re raised by the BB, 1 fold, 1 all in. Back to me I raise and than the BB puts me all in. I had gotten my money in against just top pair for both. BB had KQ against my set of tens. I had just been 5 bet all in by nothing more than top pair. She has to catch perfect perfect in this spot to win this hand. Well, a jack fell on the turn, and a 9 fell on the river! Wouldn't you know it, lady luck was in her corner today as she catches her strait! This just goes to show, no matter how good you play nothing will beat dumb luck!