Here's one more for you. I only have three topics today and want to thank everyone for the great responses. I think I finally found the adults!

1/3 nl table.

I am on the button. I saw very few folds to a $10 raise with more than 3 limpers. We had 5 limpers (I think. It was a couple of days ago.) I think the pot was $19. I was on the button with 8-7 off and had been semi-aggressive playing 20%-25% of the pots. I almost folded and decided to raise.

I raised $15 into the $19 pot with sb and bb to go. SB calls. BB calls. everyone else folds. SB has been a pretty smart player so far. He has about $250, BB is loose and has about $300, and I have about $150.

Flop is 9s-10s-Js.

SB bets
BB calls
Hero does what?

FOLDS PRE

Sorry dude, I made a major mistake.. I flopped a strt. 9s-10s-Js. I just made the correction.

First why are you raising preflop? Your hand plays well multiway and you're in position. Why attempt a steal here when it's likely to fail?

On the flop you have no choice but to raise. You go broke to better hands.

More importantly, if this game is 1/3 - shouldn't you buy in for more than 150?

Good points. I did buy in for more. I don't want to go there... lol. I did buy in the next day for only $100. That may be one of my main problems with buy ins. Maybe I should put the max down which is $300 or half the largest stack.

Definately something for me to think about.

I mean, why did you do it? You shouldn't just say, "yeah, bad move"; you should explain your reasoning. You'll only get better at poker (truly) by investigating your reasoning process and logic. Obviously you raised for a reason - what triggered that response?

As for buying in full - you should always do it, at least when you believe you have an edge. Generally by full we mean at least 100 big blinds (so yeah, $300). Now you may not believe that you have an edge, which is OK, but you'll still want to buy-in full so that you can gain experience in deeper cash game play. How you play hands always depends on your stack size, and with deeper stacks you allow your opponents to make bigger, more costly mistakes. For instance take the following hand.

1/2 and you have only $80. You raise with 99 in MP to $10. Your opponent calls in the BB with $10. He's a bad player who overvalues marginal hands and never considers his opponent's holdings. The flop comes A95r. He checks, you bet $20, and he moves all-in. You call and he shows AJ. Now given the stack size his play was still suspect, but not that costly. Give yourself $200 now, and he makes the same play and loses way more money to your set. Sure, he may not move in, but he throws in a check-raise and you're able -in position - to get stacks in here or on later streets. Without deeper stacks, you cannot truly exploit his weaknesses.

If the table is playing that way, KQ (the flopped nuts) would have raised PF.
So we know we're good on the flop. You're not going like any turn card, so I think I just get it in on the flop. And if the table is as loose as you say, the flush draws are calling and TPTK or two pair hands are calling.

Fold preflop or buy in for more so marginal hands like this play better.

If there are many limpers and you're raising preflop, you should be raising a lot more. 4X the blinds plus 1X for each limper. So if 4 limpers then you'd raise 8X the bb.

Don't raise with 87o, just call and see a cheap multiway flop.

Mark