Isolating against an all in

silverslugger33

silverslugger33

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So I know that after the flop, you generally don't want to bet into a side pot unless you have a huge hand, but what about preflop? If I'm dealt QQ, JJ, KK, then I don't particularly want to be up against 3 good drawing hands, so against a mid-sized all in, is it a good play to raise all in (about 4 times the original all in) with, say, QQ?
 
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baudib1

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Yes, definitely. You don't want to put yourself at risk. Even if you have AA, you should usually isolate. The times you don't do it are when you are willing to call the original all-in, but there are more people to act and might consider laying it down if a bigger stack comes over the top.

You would always do this in case of a squeeze. Let's say you have a 40 BB stack and raise with KK UTG for 3xBB. You get callers from MP and on the CO. Then the shortstack BB goes all-in for 16 BB. You should ALWAYS reraise all-in here. Even though you're a huge favorite over any hand besides AA, you'd don't want to play a multiway pot OOP. You need to represent enormous strength and tell everyone else to go away.
 
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sd great 1

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Try and isolate yourself against one other player when ever possible. Adding people to pot reduces your percentages to win. The execption would be if the person who went all-in was extremly short stacked and playing heads up with them would not help your stack greatly. Then try to get one other caller.
 
mjdavinci

mjdavinci

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Depends on the game and the players. I went allin with a pair of J's against three other players of which none had a pair. They all were playing A,X . One had a higher kicker then my pair. People put to much faith in Aces. I have won just as many hands without an Ace as well as with.
 
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socobama

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thank you, i wondered if what i did yesterday was normal, i often see matusow do that when i watch the wsop on tv. except it seems as if the pros always have incredibly good hands ...
 
califantasy

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it seems as if the pros always have incredibly good hands ...

In order to show a whole tournament in an hour or three, they cut out A LOT of hands :) They tend to mostly show hands that result in big pots, which are usually two players or more with real hands.
 
silverslugger33

silverslugger33

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thank you, i wondered if what i did yesterday was normal, i often see matusow do that when i watch the wsop on tv. except it seems as if the pros always have incredibly good hands ...

They only show big hands. For example, the final table went on until 6 in the morning or so, but they squeezed in the entire thing in 2 hrs. If you want to see the pros really play, watch poker after dark. They show every hand.
 
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