Posted Fri Jan 20, 2006 7:10 pm GMT by nightguard
I mentioned this hand to a anaquaintence in a pub. He said it was a good starting hand as it has flush and straight possibilities. I know this is wrong but I do not have the know how to explain why. I told him the book I had would explain why but he laughed at it. The book was how to win at low limit poker. It was mentioned in another thread and written by three of the top poker players. This person I spoke to said the way to play was agressive pre flop and 'go with the flow' post floP. I assumed this meant if you have the best hand just call and let others bet and the pot will be bigger. The one flawe in this I can see is that if you held AA and the flop was 89Q and you checked the flop the tUrn T You called a bet and the river was 7 you would lose to somebody that hed JK. Dont know if its a good example but If you bet on the flop, according to the book if the other players fold they cannot win.
How do I explain this i#n lay7man terms?
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Posted Fri Jan 20, 2006 7:20 pm GMT by ORGrinder
imho - i wouldn't play this hand myself (except on a chang of gears) but if i was playing it would be wanting to hit the str8 with it instead of the flush... there's just WAY too many other flush posibilities that could have me beat.
again... jmho.
Posted Fri Jan 20, 2006 7:49 pm GMT by KingOHearts
The book is "Small Stakes Hold' Em" by Miller Sklansky and Malmuth (not to be confused with Hellmuth  ) and it is an excellent book. My only complaint is that it is written with limit Hold'Em in mind and not NL.
35s has marginal ability to make a straight or flush...even if you make a flush you have to worry about lots of larger flushes.
Starting hands have two characteristics that make them good...strength (high cards with the ability to make big pairs, sets, and boats) and drawing ability (suited or connectors) that can make straights or flushes. Monster hands like AA KK AKs and AQs have both characteristics. A very low suited gap connector like 35s has virtually no value at all. Its an instant "into the muck" hand every time for me.
Posted Fri Jan 20, 2006 11:03 pm GMT by xDiamond_CutteRx
The priority for rating the strength of Hold'em hands is as follows:
1. High card strength (53s has none)
2. Suitedness (scores low for 53s because the flushes it makes are weak)
3. Connectedness (not great because together the two only make 3 straights, and they have a gap)
All these things mean 53s is a fairly crappy hand.
Posted Sat Jan 21, 2006 12:42 am GMT by tame_deuces
Well, deception and implied odds are also very important in NL. If they could stretch to they point of making 53s a quality hand is questionable, but no limit is definitively a game were the odd funky hand can pay off handsomely.
Posted Sat Jan 21, 2006 9:05 am GMT by Muck
Harrington covered some deception and implied odds issues with small pocket pairs and I think this is similar.
Problems:
You limp, but someone raises and you have to fold.
The flop misses you (this is most of the time) someone bets, you have to fold.
You hit something but the nature of you hand makes it weak and you’re left with a tough decision.
You hit a good hand, two pair, straight or flush but lose to something higher.
You make a good but don’t get any action because no one has rags to make a hand they will play back at you with.
So to make it worth while you need loose/crazy players with massive stacks.
Posted Sat Jan 21, 2006 7:22 pm GMT by Ciso_B
53suited is my favorite hand in no limit hold em, thats not to say i call allins with it or anything but I ll play it very often , especially multiway.
Posted Sun Jan 22, 2006 3:18 pm GMT by Loonbat
53s - it has to be cheap and it has to be in LP. If those two criteria hold, with some odds in the pot, it's a good way to mix it up.
Posted Mon Jan 23, 2006 11:16 am GMT by tame_deuces
Funky hands ARE good, but not in a straightforward manner I think.
So why play them?
Your opponent's view:
The most important part of NL is pretty much reads and hand ranges. Reads can come in alot of ways, from gathered statistics in other people's poker databases or simply put the hands they see you play at the table. If your opponent has seen you folding hands for the last 4 orbits or his PokerAce tells him that you have a 18%VPiP then he knows that when you raise from under the gun, he should fold all but the best hands he can be dealt. That is not good for you, because you won't get paid off. But there is more to it than that. Probably best illustrated by an example.
Let us say 2 players does call, one with some paint and one with a pair of tens. The flop comes a couple of heart rags and a queen. The fact that your hand range is wider makes their decision somewhat harder. What do you have? Two pair? A draw? AA? Maybe you hit a set? So how should they play? Should they raise to make your pay for your draw when you may in fact have them beat with an overpair?? Maybe the turn card puts a possible straight on the board...do you have it, or do you still have an overpair? Is he drawing dead? Maybe all you have is a pair of nines that picked up nothing or maybe an open-ender? You may be able to buy some key pots easier, people will be more vary against you.
Dangers:
Ofcourse..widen your range too much and any good opponent will be on to you...he will lower the range of hands he needs to re-raise you or more inclined to make a borderline call against you...but most people don't WANT to think that way. They want things to be easy...when someone raises they should have a good hand, right? Like they would have had in that position. So most of the time you can get away with being a little on the edge...a fine treshold where people won't put you too the wall...because hey...maybe you do have a good hand this time. But as said...overdo it and all the gains turns to losses against players that are good.
Rewards:
Not much. I'd be surprised to see if people went into their pokertracker and saw that 45s was a really big winner for them over 40,000 hands. Most likely you will lose alot of small pots, win a few big ones and most likely lose a few big ones too. But that is not what you are after anyway.
That little 'mysterious' quality about your hand can be incredibly helpful, it will make life for your opponent at the table much harder. When he goes up against your QQ he may be doing mistakes he wouldn't have done against an easier opponent.
When:
Pretty much whenever you can get away with it. You don't really need late position or early position or a huge multiway pot...what you need is to make sure your entry to the pot is not spewage. You don't enter the pot with 67s if you think you might get re-raised big time later preflop. Also be on the lookout for bad play, tilt and/or reckless play...these are the ones you want into the pot with you. You want in when the hand is somewhat cheap and you want into a pot that might get hugely bloated. In shorthanded games play will often be more reckless of nature and these small hands can win tremendous pots.
When not to:
If you don't need to then don't do it. If your opponents are more than happy to pay off your AA,KK,QQ,AKs or the sets you hit on the flop then you don't need deception...they are doing such big mistakes allready that playing your nice solid hands and some nutpeddling is more than enough. Though note that if they are happy to limp and fish and get married to top pair then by all means reel them in.
How:
These are the easiest hands to play in NL, they literally play themselves postflop.
Posted Tue Jan 24, 2006 11:38 am GMT by lwestatbus
I agree with Deuces and also with Loonbat and xDiamond--some good advice there. Oh, and also King of Hearts.
My take: First, I do not like the gap in the cards. middle suited connectors have a lot of potential. They can make six straights, the flush, and or course the once-in-a-decade wonder flop. The gap reduced the number of straights to four. As Miller, et al., point out, while they don't come through a lot they tend to win big when they do because of their deception value. So I'll play them in a multiway pot and also take a flyer in late position with an unraised pot even if not many people stayed in. I will very rarely play them in early position if the table tends not to have a lot of raisers at it. I've also limped in with them even if I expect to be raised behind me at a table with a wacko raiser who is frequently called by several players.
I probably can't back up all of the above with solid theory but there needs to be a little bit of wonder in the world--otherwise we'd just need to write poker bots.
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