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Little cards are poison in hold'em...You know this to be true, but maybe you don't know how true. Take this directive to mean that in most cases you'd rather be raising th an just calling pre-flop. This puts a burden on you since, having raised pre-flop, you'll be expected to continue to drive the action post-flop.
If you fail to do this, your opponents will quickly figure out how to beat you. They'll simply call any raise and bet any check. The strength you represent with a pre-flop raise is thwarted by the weakness you subsequently show, and the whole point of being known as an aggressive player will be neutralized by your lack of follow-through. So you want to be able to follow through with a post¬flop bet more often than not. Here's where your big cards come in. If you rai se pre-flop with big cards, several good things can happen. You might, of course, hit the flop. Big cards plus more big cards equal big hand. Even if the flop cornes with medium cards or littles, you may still be able to bet, since you still have the chance of hitting an overcard to complete your hand (if it's not already good as-is). Consider Q-J, suited or unsuited. The run-of-the-monkey players will caU automaticly with this hand if there's a large field and an unraised pot. What they fail to under¬stand is that this is the sort of hand with which you can easily take control, assuming that you rai se pre-flop, for then its strength is not in straight or flush draws but in sheer high-card muscle, wedded to a raise. Suppose you do. Suppose you raise pre-flop with Q-J. If you get a bunch of caUs from a bunch of sheep, you know that you're up against anything from weak aces and kings aU the way down to ground chuck like 8-7 and baby pairs. Now here cornes the flop. With big cards you can (in certain circumstances) comfortably raise any high, middle, or low flop. If you start out with littles, the situation is exactly re-versed. Suppose you've taken this whole Killer Poker thing way tao far and find yourself raising pre-flop with something like 6-5 suited. If high cards corne, you can't bet the flop for fear of betting into big pairs. If a middle flop cornes, you can't feel too comfy betting because your best holding is likely to be a straight draw or weak flush draw. On the other hand, your foes could be in there with the straight or flush draw, plus a working pair, or overpairs, or big tickets looking to hit an overcard on the turn or the river. So naturaUy you des ire a low flop, coordinated to your little cards. However, even if you get the flop you want, you still have an uphill climb.
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