DeVelaine

I think I've done it once. But that was with jacks. And it saved me a ton as I would have been up against aces, who lost to 77 hitting a set on the flop.

Well... As I said, sometimes calling someone else's raise with these hands is a good idea. Otherwise, it's like you're throwing money away. Yes, aces are an 85% favorite over any random hand. But that's one random hand. By not raising, more people want to see the flop, and your advantage drops into a very mortal range quickly (about 55% when there's 4 other people).Only conclusion I can come to is that these people are either brain dead, or trying to trap NLHE-style in a game with the opposite style of play. All I can do is flag them with notes, I guess, and tread carefully around them until t

I've noticed a disturbing trend these days playing LHE: people not raising preflop with AA, KK, or QQ. Sometimes I'll catch someone who just doesn't raise preflop with anything, but that's insanely rare. Flat calling with them when someone else raises does make sense in some spots, but not when no one has raised the pot at all. I guess I just don't get this trend.I've only seen it lately, so it may just be something players at the lowest limits do, but my real question is why do it at all? Only reasonable answer is to attempt to trap, but if you don't raise with kings or queens, you invite ove

The only disadvantage I see to playing tighter with shorter blinds is that you can literally go two levels without a hand to play, and if you're online, that still doesn't get you any respect from your opponents when you finally have something worth playing. Live tournaments (one of my local casinos offers daily tournaments with 15 minute levels), the amount of respect you get from folding 6 hands in a row is gigantic compared to folding for an hour straight online. I guess that's just a difference in the quality of the player. Online players tend to believe they are invincible, and that the s

Something I've been putting a fair amount of thought into lately (and I'm still looking around the forum, so this might not even be in the right spot) is whether or not one should increase the amount of their open raise in a tournament for shorter blinds. Most resources I've found show that an open raise of 3 times the BB should be adequate (and I also know that Daniel favors 2.5 from watching his play and reading his articles), but those same resources are geared towards events with levels of at least 60 minutes. Online play is a faster game, and the levels are often 12-15 minutes or faster,