Leading-in with Weak Hole Cards
Wednesday, July 28, 2010 8:48 PM
Most poker players wouldn't dare of going into a flop with 4,9 off-suit (OS), let alone raising a pot pre-flop with 4,9 OS. However, players that are receiving bad cards all night and wanting to get in on the action and needing to build their chip stacks back up, may want to consider leading-in with weak cards every so often.For example, in a 9 handed $2/$5 NL game where you are dealt:
Try leading-in and raising the pot pre-flop to $20. As scary as this may seem, look at the following hand example:
You are dealt:
You raise pre-flop to $20. Players fold and the big blind calls you with pocket pair:
($42 in the pot) and the flop comes:
You just flopped air and now you put in a continuation bet of $20, representing your hand for the Ace or King. Let's review so far. The player with 7s 7d has seen you raise the pot pre-flop $20 and now sees a continuation bet of $20 on the flop. It will be very easy for the player to assume that you must be holding either an Ace or King in your hand and that you must have paired with either the Ace or King from the flop, as you raised pre-flop and then placed a $20 continuation bet. Very easy to mask your hand in this situation to the best hand Ace or King. The player will most likely fold his/her small pair of 7's, thinking that they are beat.
It is a not always recommended, but leading-in with a pre-flop raise even while holding weak hole cards, will often yield you great returns, especially when Aces or Kings flop the board and your opponent is holding a mid-range hand. Play this sparingly within your hand ranges and it could easily add some chips to your stack.
It will be a lot easier for you to bluff that you are holding Aces or Kings, if you raised pre-flop. In that same scenario, limping in with 4,9 OS, it would be much harder to bluff that you hold a pair of Aces or Kings in your hand if you didn't raise pre-flop, as most players do when holding premium cards of A's or K's.
So remember the strength and value that you can add to your hand, by raising pre-flop with weak cards.