OTOH

And having whined, here's the other side of the coin.


PokerStars Game #17164641564: Tournament #86987073, $10+$1 Hold'em No Limit - Level III (25/50) - 2008/05/03 - 02:28:40 (ET)
Table '86987073 1' 9-max Seat #4 is the button
Seat 1: lilyannadwn (1545 in chips) is sitting out
Seat 2: dmace16 (2009 in chips)
Seat 4: xlntttt (1507 in chips)
Seat 5: DaTruth35 (1175 in chips)
Seat 6: FR Vessant (2055 in chips)
Seat 7: bama63 (1550 in chips)
Seat 8: akBADseed (2729 in chips)
Seat 9: Eyedread (930 in chips)
DaTruth35: posts small blind 25
FR Vessant: posts big blind 50
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to FR Vessant [2h 6d]
bama63: folds
akBADseed: folds
Eyedread: calls 50
lilyannadwn: folds
dmace16: folds
xlntttt: folds
DaTruth35: folds
FR Vessant: checks
*** FLOP *** [3d 2s 6h]

Top and bottom pair is a decent hand but it tends to be overtaken, and it can be tough later in the hand to know where you are. So no slowplaying, just bet out and take it down.

FR Vessant: bets 100
Eyedread: raises 250 to 350

Well, okay. Maybe he has a set of 3s. He's fairly loose so 54s is not impossible. But you can't fold twopair here. He mostly has an overpair or top pair at best. Sometimes he will have 55/44; sometimes nothing at all.

FR Vessant: raises 1655 to 2005 and is all-in

So I shove.

Eyedread: calls 530 and is all-in

And he calls off the rest of his stack with 83s.


*** TURN *** [3d 2s 6h] [Kc]
*** RIVER *** [3d 2s 6h Kc] [7d]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
FR Vessant: shows [2h 6d] (two pair, Sixes and Deuces)
Eyedread: shows [3s 8s] (a pair of Threes)

I half thought the 3 or 8 would come and make me cry, but this time my 5/1 favourite held up.

Limping cards just because they're suited is completely retarded. They rarely ever hit the flop hard enough to continue with, let alone get paid for the many many times you completely miss, and flushes are so obvious when you hit them that most players will not call big bets with them anyway. You end up needing a huge parlay to make anything out of 83s. And calling a shove with middle pair against someone who bet out in the first place is plain terrible. He is never ahead there, and he will very rarely catch up, even if I only have top pair. Which I don't. I'm pretty much never shoving top pair in that spot.