I'm struggling with playing hands like J-J, 10-10, or A-J out of position. Sometimes I choose to just skip the hand.
Any opinion on this, guys? Limping or taking the lead?
We often want to be playing JJ TT in all spots even in the blinds-- AJ we want to be more selective about when in the blinds facing EP opens but we will 100% open then decide on next actions. Vs tight players we will most often be folding AJoff to 3 bets oop.
The key to these hands is knowing our Villain's ranges. If our V only 3 bet tight ranges and by tight I mean TT+ AQ+ then we can either set mine or fold the pairs preflop if our table is normally passive---exploit play means we do not need to take sub 50%
equity spots if we will frequently be in 70% eq spots later.
If we are getting the
odds to set mine and our V will play for stacks if we hit then set mine is the best option. However if we are going to be forced to fold on the flop as our V are going to bet pot on the flop most often we need 20-1 to set mine.
Our V post flop play also dictates how we play vs tighter ranges if they will let us realize equity by becoming passive post flop then we do not need 20-1 to set mine 10-1 is fine
With JJ and TT we will need to
bluff post flop at some frequency to win -so we need to study post flop
bluffing in 3-bet pots