Playing junk hands seems to be the way to win big ....

[RickAversion]

Destroyed someone yesterday with a 9 3.
I flopped 2 pair. I checked the flop.
On the turn, he was raising and I called.
On the river, he raised, I re-raised, so he went all in with QQ and I took his stack!
BOOOOOOYA !

 

[RickAversion]

I am playing 5 person tables, so often only 2 people stay in the hand. So, just hitting pair with one of your cards is enough to win.

 

[MasterOfDisaster]

Playing junk hands well is the way to win big! Didnt read the whole thread , but was an answer on the title.

After I read the OP I think the title and OP totally aren't related to each other

 

[Aleksei]

I am playing 5 person tables, so often only 2 people stay in the hand. So, just hitting pair with one of your cards is enough to win.

lolz, in b4 "coolers"

 

[ChipEaterMan]

i agree sometimes it pays to play rags, you can hit small straights and they never see it coming.

 

[UnNa7uRal]

It depends from the position in the tournament and the time in it. Early on I consider playing as much as hand I can because it's not once we see flops like 445 or something like that we can easily make trips or even FH.

 

[DunningKruger]

I remember this topic. You knew it was gonna be multiple pages just by the title.

 

[coelho2013]

I played a few hands so, I think that it is not profitable, but sometimes you have to risk.

 

[GrandMaestro7]

From my experience, i have found that if 3 or more people have called a significant raise before me and i have some junk (Unsuited off-connectors eg 4h 8d) I like to limp in and take part in the pot.

The reason being, if it was a significant raise with a number of callers - you would be expecting them to have decent hands, right?

Assume the all have face cards in the hole, but no PP's. You then have less high-cards to pair, and it makes hitting broadway less likely.

These hands are very situation based, but can be decent pots because everyone will overbet the high cards when the low flop shows. (by everyone I mean most/some people)

 

[CrossedLine]

Beating a dead horse as it is, there are situations where it will pay off but it won't pay off often enough. Plus, when you start actually making those hands, you might get addicted to playing awful hands!

 

[dgiharris]

Beginners and noobs can't help but to view poker as a type of bingo; you call a raise, hit your hand, then stack your opponent. Easy game...

However, advanced players understand the higher order poker concepts such as: equity, ranging, image, perceived image, SPR, eff stacks, semi-bluffs, Level 1-4 thinking, balancing, merging, etc etc. and more importantly can apply the above to ADJUST to their villains...

To the advanced player, poker is more than just "playing crap and hitting bingo". Poker is an advanced game in which EVERY type of hand from AA to 74s has its place and optimal situation.

There is a lot of misunderstanding in this thread, unfortunately, it can't be corrected unless the higher order concepts are understood. Basically, poker is more than just "playing crap and flopping/turning gin". As has been said in this thread. Play 20 tournaments in which you continually call raises with "crap" and see how well you do...

 

[Propane Goat]

Last night I was short-stacked, very deep into an MTT freeroll with around 5 BB left and looking for a place to shove.

I fold 76o on the button when a shorter stack shoves and there's a call, flop is 598. Two more all-ins into a side pot post flop, both had ATo and chopped everything.

Next hand, I fold J2o to a raise UTG. BB shoves and UTG calls. Flop is KJ2, turn is 6, river is J. Folded a full house. BB wins with set of Kings.

Next hand, I fold 85o. 3 limpers see a flop of 882. Turn is 5. River is A, someone shoves and there's a call. Folded a second full house in a row, caller takes pot with two pair A and 8.

Next hand, I have 22 and shove, run into AA and knocked out.

See, it's sequences like these that make people think that playing crap hands is the way to go, however odds are so overwhelmingly against anything like this ever happening again. Would I start playing junk and calling shoves with junk based on this? Absolutely not. "Well, if I had played those three hands my stack would have gone from 10k to 70k," yeah well, hindsight's always 20/20.

 

[RickAversion]

Propane, you must have been laughing like crazy!

Your 22 shove was weak, and you were on tilt b/c of all the killer hands you just folded in a row.

Your story is exactly why the pros go in with dogshit sometimes.
If it's cheap, blinds are small, I will always go in with junk.
If I hit something 1 in 10 times, I will make all that back and 10x more on top of that when I knock out a few all-ins.
It just takes 1 hand like your above full houses to knock out 1/2 the table.
If you got the chips, I like the limp in.

 

[sillymunchie]

you will hit 2 pair about 2% of the time on the flop, so 98% of the time your going to miss and only hit 1 of your cards, then your hand isnt strong enough to get overly involved with, people that call those raises with such trash there is a reason we call them fish,

 

[sillymunchie]

Last night I was short-stacked, very deep into an MTT freeroll with around 5 BB left and looking for a place to shove.

I fold 76o on the button when a shorter stack shoves and there's a call, flop is 598. Two more all-ins into a side pot post flop, both had ATo and chopped everything.

Next hand, I fold J2o to a raise UTG. BB shoves and UTG calls. Flop is KJ2, turn is 6, river is J. Folded a full house. BB wins with set of Kings.

Next hand, I fold 85o. 3 limpers see a flop of 882. Turn is 5. River is A, someone shoves and there's a call. Folded a second full house in a row, caller takes pot with two pair A and 8.

Next hand, I have 22 and shove, run into AA and knocked out.

See, it's sequences like these that make people think that playing crap hands is the way to go, however odds are so overwhelmingly against anything like this ever happening again. Would I start playing junk and calling shoves with junk based on this? Absolutely not. "Well, if I had played those three hands my stack would have gone from 10k to 70k," yeah well, hindsight's always 20/20.

so he had a full house beating your J 2 full house?

My advice to you is not to let yourself get down to 5BB, the truth is, you should be Shoving any 2 cards at this stage in the hope to double up, get anywhere near 10BB

 

[Randall McMurphy]

My advice to you is not to let yourself get down to 5BB, the truth is, you should be Shoving any 2 cards at this stage in the hope to double up, get anywhere near 10BB

It happens. Villain shoves 15BB, you call with 20BB, villain wins. You now have 5BB.

 

[Propane Goat]

so he had a full house beating your J 2 full house?

My advice to you is not to let yourself get down to 5BB, the truth is, you should be Shoving any 2 cards at this stage in the hope to double up, get anywhere near 10BB

The three hands I had before shoving the deuces were all folded pre-flop. I had AA in the SB just before this cracked by a trash hand sucking out on the river when I had around 30 BB, that's why I was down to 5 BB.

The 76o would have been an automatic shove if there wasn't another all-in and a call in front of me, although it is true that when somebody is down to even less chips than I had they're most likely shoving with anything. I thought this hand was such a long shot in a 3-way pot so I folded it. This was on Betonline, it's too bad I don't have a replay like people do on pokerstars because I would love to post it here. They don't keep hand histories for freerolls.

Went out around 75th out of 1600+ with 40th place cashing.

It does go in the other direction though, the other night I was playing in another MTT freeroll and made a stupid call when I knew I was beat. I decided to blindly shove the next three hands in a row regardless of what they were, had callers and won all three, and that put my stack at double what it was before I made the bad call.

 

[John A]

This thread can be summarized as: beginner results oriented thinking.

Also, you guys talking about hitting 2 pair 2% of the time, you also forget that you're going to make a lot of worse 2 pairs when you're playing junk hands and get stacked a lot even in that 2%.

 

[pcgnome]

Guys like Hachem and Moneymaker probably know each other well...I Would think that they are not paying much attention to the cards as much as how the other guy plays.

 

[Skull_Sniper]

I think this is the way people win large MTT's. No, I am not saying this is the right way to play, and most of the time, it won't work. I am saying that when it DOES work, it works big if there is a decoy card (or cards) that lure others to bet heavy against your sleeper hand.

2003 Moneymaker won the final hand with 45.
2005 Hachem won with 73.

What happens in these hands is a decoy card like an A or K comes up, and the other guy bites, and bets heavy. But, the junk hand has made a straight or something totally unexpected. Most of the times, you will lose this hand, but when it works, you clean up.

Playing tight will do you good, but it seems to really knock it out of the park, and gut someone, you have to catch him off guard. When you bet heavy with top pair, it's kind of obvious. But, when someone else goes heavy on top pair, and you have a weird straight, that's when you get their shove and knock them out.

That's the way to play. I play tight/aggressive, so when I get a nice stack going, and I'm dealt 9 10 suited or a similar hand, I'll limp in and try to hit big. Of course, playing like that the whole tourney will kill your chip stack and you'll just be a calling station. But, to win a big tourney you're probably going to have to win a few big pots in an unorthodox way. That's the truth and that's fine with me. It's only when you call a large raise on a draw for your tourney life and hit, that you become a lucky fish. LOL

 

[RickAversion]

Just to clarity, I am not saying to call large raises just to hit longshots. I am saying when blinds are cheap, it can be worth limping in to get the longshot flush or straight.

And sometimes you can power everyone else out with a more traditional high pair. eg: Pocket 7 & 9. And flop is 3 5 9. That can work for you also.

 

[vinnie]

This thread can be summarized as: beginner results oriented thinking.

Also, you guys talking about hitting 2 pair 2% of the time, you also forget that you're going to make a lot of worse 2 pairs when you're playing junk hands and get stacked a lot even in that 2%.

This is so true, but I feel most of these players don't understand that even hitting their hand doesn't mean they'll win. The other day, I had a player play 6-5s to my pre-flop raise with KK. On a X-6-5 flop, he decided to slow-play by calling my c-bet. Turn was a King, and that is when he decided he wanted to get all the money in. The point of the story is not that I won (lol) but that he was SO angry and steaming that I "sucked out on him" and that "this site is so rigged."

He wasn't even paying attention to the fact that he was trying to suck out on me, in the first place. It's also not like bottom two pair, on the flop, is the nuts in anyone's book.

So yeah, it's very hard to play these hands profitably. You're going to miss a lot of the time. And, when you do hit, it doesn't mean you'll get paid off. When you do manage to get the money in, you might not even have the best hand. So... you need to hit your long-shot, get all the money in the center, and have the best hand... if you want to make these profitable hands to play [fit or fold]. That's a lot of things that have to go exactly right for you.

 

[terminaex]

Always make the call

If there are too many calls or someone has been 3-betting light way too much, you should always make the call to either hit or outplay them on the flop.

Just remember to bail when LAGs start playing back at you because their junk can be better than your junk and they don't stop firing.

 

[kmbpoker]

so many players are playing junk that you just need to be aware of it and make good choices after flop. it may seem like the junk players are winning big pots but really what usually happened was they just took advantage of another players mistake, which you can do also with big cards.,we just notice it more with the junk.any 2 will do just play em right.

 

[PlayedYou73]

There's a huge difference between playing junk hands in the early stages of a large MTT, and playing them at the final table, when the blinds are so high that players effective stack sizes are 8-20 BB's.

This is the mistake that a lot of new players make from watching TV poker, and then trying to apply those same ideas to the first few rounds of an online MTT. It simply does not work.