I was involved in a interesting little hand last night in a .10/.25 blinds ($25 max buy-in) NL game on Hollywood Poker. A little background: It was a full 10-handed game. I had the table covered by at least $5. I had been playing a solid game, never getting out of line.

I was in late position w/ Q Q . The pot had limped around to me, so I raised 4xbb to $1 and got 4 callers. The flop comes down A 8 5

I was pretty sure I was done with the hand, but it was really tempting. I had a big 2nd pair (which I knew was garbage, but it was still tempting) and the 2nd nut flush draw.

An earlyish position player bet .25 into a $5 pot, which screamed to me that something was wrong. A middle position player raised to $5, another midle position player folded and the action was on me. It was an easy fold, but there was this little voice in the back of my head tempting me.

The original bettor called the $5 raise. My read on things was this, original bettor had a flush draw, not sure how high, and the raiser had a big Ace and was trying to scare off all draws.

The turn was the 10 , and frankly I forget the action, but I know there was betting. The river was a blank, and again not sure how the betting went.

When they flipped over their cards, just as I suspected the original bettor had the K for the nut flush, and the raiser had an A. The point of this story isn't that I made a good read or laydown (b/c I thought they were both pretty obvious), but rather to see if anyone else hears those tempting little voices telling them to call, when they know they shouldn't?

raise more PF

I gotta get these voices in my head to STFU! [sw]

I think it's pretty natural dude... The way that I try to get it to stop is just by thinking about the types of hands that would be leading into the raiser (me)... sometimes it works, sometimes not.

Just my humble opinion, but I don't find raising more than 4 or 5Xbb to be a good play overall. Maybe on this particular play it would've gotten someone else to drop, but I highly doubt it. After all, this was low-dollar NL hold 'em. These aren't the most sophisticated players in the wold. They're gonna call raises w/ JK off (which incidentally was what the winner was holding). By raising too large an amount w/ big pairs you tip the strength of your hand, and that's something I never want to do.

Say I raise 8xbb every time I have JJ or QQ, but only 3 or 4xbb when I'm making a button-raise to steal the blinds, or when I've got a suited connector in a multi-limped pot. I'd be totally tipping the strength of my holdings, and that just ****s up my whole game plan.

Over the long haul, and that's what poker is about, not a single session or hand, I think raising too large an amount w/ hands like JJ or QQ is counter-productive.

I understand what you're saying but when you hold AA, KK, AK, and even QQ and JJ it's find to raise more than 4xBB with limpers to you in LP. I standardize my play in late position and raise with anything if I can ouplay the opponents postflop. I'll start raising it to 6xbb with 2 limpers in the pot, 7xbb with 3, but if it's folded around to you then I only raise 4xbb.

My voices tell me to fold (no sw)

Yes, you tip the strength of your hand by raising more preflop when limpers are in the pot before. But I'd rather be able to isolate one or two players and have them know that I have a strong hand rather than having a bunch of players all drawing to who knows what.

I will typically raise it up 1 BB above my normal raise for every limper in the pot before me.