Call or fold?

[Zarathustra]

1st hand of $5 stt, so everyone on 1000 chips. utg limps 15 3 folds Zarathustra (ten eight of clubs) limps 15 hoping for a cheap flop. all fold to button who limps. sb folds bb calls flop is 8TK giving me bottom two pair, king and ten of hearts, 8 is a spade. utg bets 30, Zarathustra raises to 120. button pushes all-in utg folds. Zarathustra.....calls/folds?? What does the button have here? I have no reads on him so I assume top pair good kicker. answer below called my two pair and button turns over king,ten for top two pair and makes a full house with another ten.

[stereoman]

Re: Call or fold? ....that is a wretched position to be in. There are people who would have made the same call as you (myself included), some though who play tight or sense they might be beaten on the turn and river and will have folded. Put a similar situation and you flop bottom set and he goes all-in, you call and he shows top set. Can't be helped (you might catch that fourth card to get quads or he might but that's rather infrequent). ....some will point out that suited connectors can be the life and death of you. Some will suggest you shouldn't be playing with those kind of cards. Everyone will have something to say about it. It's one of those darned situations where it happens to be that there's a cold deck and the odds are something like that are 71/29 where 71% of the time, you'll win but 29% of the time they'll beat you either on the flop, turn or river (I don't know the exact mathematics, I'm just one of those ' go with a feeling' bettors). Count yourself unlucky this time but hey, at least it wasn't a NL cash game. :loon

[cains]

Re: Call or fold? As beeing a tight player.. I would problably fold this one.. Its 1 hand. And many more chances for you to kick some ass.. But when that is said, i can understand why you call him, couse you have great hand. And only K8 og KT or pocket 8,T,K can beat you. So it is tempting.. But again its first hand, and you stil have 865 chips left if you fold.. / cains

[Jezza]

Re: Call or fold? Hi Zar, I agree with stereoman here, bottom two pair is a treachous hand in NL at any time. It's often a hand you will find yourself paying better hands off quite nicely (for them) with when you dont tend to get paid that much by weaker hands when its good. Against an overpair on the flop you are a favourite but not by a crushing margin and even top pair has a lot of outs against you. You have to try and identify when your hand is good if you are unsure. If you are faced with any amount of decent action on the flop (like you were) there is a high chance you are beat (unless someone raised preflop and you are head to head v an overpair). In multiway pots look at the co-ordination of the board. If the top two cards are "connected" then be very wary. For example if you hold Q3 in the big blind and the flop is KQ3 someone could very easily hold KQ, KJ3 or K103 would be scary for the same reasons. J104 if you held 104 in the big blind would have to make you look out for J10 etc etc. A much better flop to get bottom two pair on is when there is a card to get you "action" and it is not co-ordinated for a bigger two pair. Thus J65 if you held 65s would be great, AJ KJ etc will all give you action and the only hands you are seriously worried about would be 66 and 55 (if there had been no raise preflop) - these are less likely than usual due to you holding a 6 and a 5 so you can go ahead and bet for value, knowing what to look for for scare cards on the turn. In your situation here I would have had to think the guy either had a set of 8s or K10. I would not think he had a set of kings without raising preflop (and even if he did flat call with it preflop I doubt he would just move all in on the flop - he would prob slowplay it a bit) and similar thinking behind him not having TTT. AK is about the only other hand he would do this all in move with I think (having no reads on his play before this hand) and seeing as he didnt raise preflop this is unlikey - leaving us with two possible hands for him that both have you beat. Folding two pair on the flop is tough to do but in this situation it certainly would have been justified (and as it turns out correct). Looking at it from a quicker perspective, you can just let the amount of action you are faced with dictate if you call or fold in similar situations. As for the points about suited connectors I love playing them myself personally - they can take down big pots which is what you want to do in NL hold em. The problem with them is that they leave you with some marginal hands and tough decisions on occasion. For example weakish flushes and bottom two pairs that are good in some situations and not in others - the danger of making the second best hand (something you REALLY dont want to do in NL hold em) are the reasons some people disregard them. I say that although this is possible, one of the skills in NL hold em a good player has is being able to judge when a marginal hand is good and when it is beat and once you have the ability to do this suited connectors go right up in value. If I can get in to see a flop cheap with them (or with good implied odds) I always take it. Glad to hear everything else is going ok Zar....and yeah just like stereoman says playing a 5$ STT is a perfect place to learn this about bottom two pair - much better than being busted for 300 at a NL cash game! Jez