| Speculation
Playing a speculative hand in Hold Em is like pretending to be someone that you aren't. You are, in essence, in disguise for the duration of the hand. You're a weak hand pretending to be strong. A gambler pretending to be a solid player.
There are three kinds of hands that aren't part of the normal Hold Em starting suite that you can speculate with: A suited Ace, suited connectors, and suited 1 gappers. Why suited, when flushes happen so rarely? Well the point of speculative hands is to hit on the flop or get the hell out, and about 10 percent of the time your suited cards are going to hit four to the flush on the flop. In fact, about a quarter of your hands are suited, but you'll need a little more than that for the hand to be playable. You need the straight, nut flush, or top pair possibilities in addition to having two suited cards.
As a rule of thumb, you can play suited connectors as low as 5-6 or better. One gappers as low as 5-7 or better. That way you get the better end of the straight more often, your pairs are worth more, and you avoid some of the more common traps and temptations. You don't always have to play them, but they're playable on the speculative scale. Some people will play the 2-3 suited and what have you. But I suggest you leave that to the more experienced or fool hearty players.
Hands like this allow you to catch a good flop of course. But they also allow you to perform a semi-bluff. For example, if you're four to the flush with an inside straight, you're probably slightly behind in the hand. But for all intents and purposes, you're in a position to make a move on the pot. Unless he comes over the top in a big way, destroying your odds to continue in the hand, you have the chance to catch something big. In fact, you probably have pot odds to stick around in most three way pots! You might also get lucky with three of a kind or two pair.
So, what do you do if the flop doesn't hit you at all? Fold! Don't even bother bluffing at the pot unless you're heads up, the board is very dangerous, and you think they have a smaller pocket pair. The mantra for speculative hands is: Get in cheap, fold if you miss. When you break this rule, you get busted.
I tend to play speculative hands more online, and many of my friends do as well. I'm honestly not sure why. What I might suggest is that you don't get caught nearly as often by a good read online. When they can't see your face or your eyes, your semi-bluff is much more likely to work. There's no need to sell your 6-7 of diamonds as pocket aces. They're going to think what they want to think, and there isn't much that you can do about it. But it might simply be that I get less bored playing live, and less tempted to play every speculative hand that comes along. It's hard to say! What I will say is that the biggest pots that I've ever won weren't from pocket aces. They were from three and four way pots where I flopped a pair with the flush draw, or an open ended straight flush. Then again, you have to fold a lot of hands like that before you rake a huge pot. Be patient, and you'll be rewarded.  | 
11-07-2007, 06:15 PM
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