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Articles
Marginal Hands
Feb. 5, 2004
By: Michael Cohen
Any fool can play and win with pocket aces in limit hold'em. While rockets can often be tricky at no limit, they certainly are not too difficult to play at limit. Aces hold up more often than not. Even if it appears that they have been cracked, pot odds most often necessitate a call on the river in limit.
The true test of skill in poker is not how someone plays his or her nut hands or garbage hands but how that person plays marginal hands. These types of hands are tricky because there is much more uncertainty involved. You generally do not know where you are in the pot and there are often many potential cards that will allow your opponents to outdraw you even if you are ahead.
What type of hands am I talking about? In limit with eight or more players, examples include hands such as KJ, pocket eights (when there is one overcard on the flop and one or two opponents in the pot), or JT (when a jack or a ten flops and someone bets into it).
When approaching marginal hands, you have two decisions to make. First, do you bother playing them? In longhand lower limit games many people tend to just fold them. The reasoning behind this is that there is no point in bothering with these hands when you can just jam the pot and get paid off when you hit a strong hand. However, when you are playing a shorthanded game, you must play marginal hands. Playing very passively in these games is an almost guaranteed way to slowly lose your stack.
In general, play marginal hands that contain big cards (hands like KJ) in short games and play marginal hands prone to drawing (such as low pocket pairs/T9 suited) when you can limp in and there are at least four other players in the pot. Avoid marginal hands with low drawing potential in games with eight or more players, especially when these games are very aggressive. Against maniacs, it is generally best to just wait them out and hit them hard when you have strong hands.
If you decide to play a marginal hand, how should you play at the flop? There is obviously no cookie-cutter approach, but here are some tips. Postflop play with marginal hands is largely situational, and it should largely depend on your opponent. Against tight players, it is often a good idea to raise to "test" them. These players are generally wary of going to a showdown with a sub par hand or a bluff. However, this strategy will generally fail against maniacs. They will continue to draw or even bluff at you. If you can beat many potential hands and your hand has some outs, it is often best to just call down maniacs.
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