Favorite Poker Hands
 

Do you guys have little pet hands you play sometimes even though they are next to pathetic or actually are pathetic? I don't really but I've always had a little soft spot for "Big lick" which is 96s (some say off-suit, too, but not me -- gotta have at least SOME chance to win). I play it once in a blue moon, and I seem to flop miracles EVERY damn time. It truly is weird. I know this type of stuff only hurts my game, but it is fun :)

Party Poker 0.50/1 (10 handed)
Hero has 6h, 9h and is MP2

EP2 limps, MP1 limps, Hero limps, MP3 raises, CO calls, Button folds, SB folds, BB calls, EP2 calls, MP1 calls, Hero calls

Flop(12 SB): 8d, Th, 7h

BB checks, EP2 checks, MP1 bets, Hero raises, MP3 calls, CO folds, BB calls, EP2 calls, MP1 3-bets, Hero caps, MP3 folds, BB calls, EP2 calls, MP1 calls

Turn(22 BB): 5h

BB checks, EP2 checks, MP1 bets, Hero raises, BB folds, EP2 folds, MP1 3-bets, Hero calls

River(28 BB): Ah

MP1 bets, Hero calls

MP1 showed [ 3s 8s ] [ a pair of eights]
Hero showed [ 6h 9h ] [ a flush, ace high]

Pot won by Hero $22.25


On a side note, ain't party great? 8s 3s :)

I love me some 45 offsuit

Q-2

Q9s

AA, of course...it makes me the most money!

Straight flushes always work for me...four of a kind when I'm especially needy

In all seriousness, as soon as I saw this thread title, I thought, "96" (suited, or off...doesn't really matter). For whatever reason, that hand does very well for me (at least it seems to).

You have no idea how comforting it is to hear that. I flop so many miracles with it it is just mystifying. I think I'm going crazy :)

If it's not +ev I am not interested in it

I will limp in with 5h3h like it's a disease.

If I can get away with a limp on 10-4 I will do it. I get more wins than I deserve with the hand. It goes back to some hazing I gave my younger brother as a child, as he was born weighing 10 pounds, 4 ounces (three weeks late, tough on mom). Anyways, it is a running joke we have that this is an unbeatable poker hand. He will take it a step further than me and raise/steal with this hand out of principle.

No, but many of my opponents do.

I can honestly say no, and I'm happy about that.

But, at the 3/6 tables at Party I think the consensus favorite hand is "any combination of two cards."

23s

Man, some of you guys need to be able to have a little fun with it. I guess I understand refusing to do anything without the odds, but I think I'm gonna be okay paying an extra blind every 1326 hands or less (I won't call a preflop raise with it). Hopefully. If I'm not playing well enough to recover from that, I guess it doesn't really matter anyway, you know? :)

Presto (55)

My least favorite hand? AK. Lost last 8 hands with it, 3 times busting out of the tourney (including the $500+30 last week)

I don't enjoy losing. And playing any hands that are -ev means I am not winning as much as possible. No matter how lucky it may seem and how unbelieveable the flops may seem to come playing hands like 96o regularly outside the blinds will lose money.

7/2 offsuit :D

I guess it all depends upon what you're in it for. I want to make money, flat-out. Therefore I do my absolute best to only play hands that are going to win me money.

I've gotten to the point recently where I can smile when losing to some god-awful hand, because I know that guys' money is going to be gone fast. It becomes pretty easy to predict which players will be leaving your table with $0.

For example yesterday, I raise under the gun with AK suited, and in second position, some guy guys will A6 offsuit. Ace on the flop, and he hits a 6 on the turn to make two pair and win that hand. I make a player note about him immediately, and not surpisingly he and his 100 bucks were gone within the hour.

I'm stunned daily at the (lack of) quality of play at the 3/6 limits on Party. I can't say it enough.

There's the rub. I don't consider once every 2000 hands regularly. If someone actually plays rags once every 2000 hands, you consider that regularly?

Well, I knew I would get those that say Never!! But see, I don't even play 96s every time I get it. Just once in awhile, especially with lots of limpers, I will take a flop. In fact, the conditions have to be very favorable for it. So much so, that it probably is even +EV to do so when I do it. No one plays perfectly, not even those that say they won't play "pet hands." I do not think this is an egregious breach of poker playing guidelines. Especially with tons of limpers.

Also, I do not play for the sole purpose of making money. Though believe me, I make plenty. I also make a few sacrifices of profit intentionally to keep my variance down. I know what I am doing at the table for the most part, so I do not think it is a terrible thing to play hands like these once in a while, especially in position.

Well you are likely to get 96 far more often than once every 2000 hands. I don't know what the exact odds are, but on average you will get a pocket pair every 220 hands and there are obviously more combinations of 96 than there are of 99. I do agree that if you limit it to one specific hand that it is a small error. It will generally only cost you a small bet since if you miss on the flop you will throw it away.

However there is no way to get around it will be a losing hand in the long run. If you want to play it for fun then go for it, but I don't see what is fun about taking the worst of it. Especially when you know that is what you are doing. It may not make a huge difference at the end of the year in your overall profit, but if you toss away a small bet here and a small bet there that's $200 more you could have had come years end.

All I said is that if it isn't +ev I am not interested. Calling with 96s on the button or CO with several limpers is +ev.

I don't think it is as bad as you think it is, frankly, at some lower limits.

Well that isn't all you said but OK. We dont disagree by that much if at all. Anyway this was supposed to be a light-hearted thread, not a poker strategy thread. Incidentally even some pros have pet hands like these (Daniel Negreanu is well known to have a soft spot for T7s).

That is all I said in response to your post. :)

The rest of it was in response to Huck's post. :)

Uh oh. Somebody dipped their strategy in my poker!

prime -

Then you are mixing up the posts you're responding to. My pet hand is 5h3h. Only that exact hand will I limp in with when I shouldn't. That is where I got the once every 2000 hands number from as obviously the numbers say I will get that hand once every 1,326 deals but I won't call a preflop raise with it.

By the way, I once saw Doyle Brunson call with T2o out of position and he won the hand in the Main Event on ESPN. I guess this is a pet hand of some sort for him. ;)

Playing 96o every time is bad no matter what limit you are playing. Certainly it is not as bad against poorer competition and it is not as bad when you are in position, but it is always a -ev play.

Being suited (which is what you said you play) helps a ton and being in position helps. I am not bashing anyone for playing odd hands. If someone wants to play 10-4 because they think it is lucky then good for them. My points were in response to Huck basically wanting to know why we don't have a little more fun with it. I like to try to play poker as perfectly as possible. I won't comment on anyone else, but I know I don;t play perfectly all the time so when I know a situation is -ev I avoid it.

I was responding to your second post where you said we need to have more fun with it. :)

So getting back to being light hearted as was MJ4H's intention. I used to have a very soft spot for A9. Offsuit or suited it didn't matter. I would cold call a raise with it out of position. And I also was amazed at how often the flop would com A99 or something along those lines. So I certainly know where you guys are coming from.

Dola,

Just to be clear I am not calling anyone a bad poker player for having a pet or lucky hand that they play. Just playing one specific hand especially a suited one isn't likely to ever be a huge error. I am rather just explaining why I don't have them.

I guess the argument could be made that I shouldn't have posted in the first place then. ;)

I think you meant quadruple dola.

Pet hand hater.

Hmm yeah apparently I did. I'm an idiot. :)

We know :D

I don't really have any pets, although I probably ride AQo much harder than I should.

And I agree with Fozzie about AK...it is nothing but trouble for me. I think the key with it is a) knowing when to let it go and b) not calling all-ins with it.

I have the Phil Hellmuth disease and have HUGE success with 99. Overcards never hit and overpairs usually get busted for some reason........

Amen to that. Just lost a 3 table on PartyPoker pushing all-in after a reraise with AKo. KK will do that to you.......

We have the greatest Hold 'Em players in the world at FOFC. I bet if we all entered the WSOP the final table would be all FOFCers. :)

would that be like "the crew" because i dont want to turn gay

It doesn't really count as a 'pathetic' hand, but I'm hugely partial to J10, suited or offsuit.

Not completely pathetic, but my pet hand would be the 'dog' cards - K9.

QT never doesn't turn into a straight for me

I think you meant triple dola.

Dola counting hater.

Sonofabitch. You're right.

According to this thread at 2+2, J10s does suprisingly well against Ax and pairs in a heads-up showdown.

Just to be a hater, he actually raised with it. Doyle would [i]never[i] make such a poor play as to limp with that hand :)

Thanks for the link, Subby -- very interesting thread, which I had missed up to now.

<-- reinforces the Hate of AK.

i hate QJ. and KT and AT. i cant stant those hands