NL25 - QTo hits top 2 in limped pot and faces stiff resistance

[Wolfram]

No read on villain. I had just won a limped pot where I bet my draw hard and then hit on the river, but not vs him so he might not have noticed.

Full Tilt Poker
No Limit Holdem Ring game
Blinds: $0.10/$0.25
6 players
Converter (http://www.neildewhurst.com/hand-converter)

Pre-flop: (6 players) Hero is SB with Q/images/graemlins/club.gif T/images/graemlins/heart.gif
UTG calls, UTG+1 (poster) checks, CO (poster) checks, Button folds, Hero calls, BB (poster) checks.

Flop: Q/images/graemlins/diamond.gif T/images/graemlins/diamond.gif 6/images/graemlins/spade.gif ($1.25, 5 players)
<font color="#cc0000">Hero bets $1.25</font>, BB calls, 3 folds.

Turn: 8/images/graemlins/spade.gif ($3.75, 2 players)
<font color="#cc0000">Hero bets $3</font>, <font color="#cc0000">BB raises to $12.75</font>, Hero calls.

River: 8/images/graemlins/diamond.gif ($29.25, 2 players)
Hero checks, <font color="#cc0000">BB is all-in $32.8</font>, Hero folds.
Uncalled bets: $32.8 returned to BB.

Results:
Final pot: $29.25

[KurtSF]

Post flop I actually think you played it fine. You lose a lot of money, but its a really tough spot and I don't think there's much you can do. The 8/images/graemlins/diamond.gif is a horrible card. (1) He came alive when the 8 hit the turn so there a chance he's got trips or a boat now. (2) It counterfitted your hand against AA and KK. And (3) it brought the flush in and the villain doesn't seem to mind much. Definitely fold on the end.

Only thing I can say is preflop may be the problem here. Do you auto-call here? You might want to think about folding such a garbage hand out of position in a multi-way pot. Yuck! Also, if you are going to play it you might want to think about putting in a big raise. There were a lot of posters in the hand who likely have worse garbage than you. You might take the hand right there, and if not you might get it HU with the betting lead.

$0.02

[Wolfram]

[ QUOTE ]
Only thing I can say is preflop may be the problem here.

[/ QUOTE ]
I disagree. First off, I'm the SB, so I'm not calling, I'm only completing and I'm getting 9:1 to do so. And QTo does just fine multiway. True, it sucks to be OOP, but as long as I think I have a post flop edge it's fine.

Raising is definitely an option, but I think QTo has a bit to much value to be semi-bluffing preflop with it.

[KurtSF]

Glad to see you defend your preflop pay. You clearly had a plan and knew what you were doing, in which case all I have left to say is: Good fold. Nice hand.

I'm very interested in others' take on postflop still. It really is a tough spot.

[raistlinx]

I'm sorry, explain again how QTos does fine in a multi-way pot when you are in the worst position possible?

And raising??? What hands are going to call you? PP's who won't pay you off unless you are beat or hands that have you dominated. Plus since you have to play them OOP you will lose a ton of chips finding out you are beat or win a small pot when they fold.

[Unknown Soldier]

9:1 pf, folding is far too nitty! I'm sure OP is good enough not to go broke if the flop is Q high. straight possibilities, good pair good kicker possibilities etc.

[Hank Scorpio]

Standard. I might even fold the turn with that huge raise he puts into you, but I don't see much wrong with calling down.

[raistlinx]

9:1 is nice but the truth is you better be good enough to play it right everytime post flop.

[winterGT]

looks good on all streets

[Unknown Soldier]

[ QUOTE ]
you better be good enough to play it right everytime post flop.

[/ QUOTE ]

far too vague and probably not true (some mistakes are much worse then others etc)

[raistlinx]

And some players think they are much better than they are. The 9:1 is tempting and all but you have to actualy play tighter from the SB unlike in limit.

I say leave tricky hands like these to the pro's. Stick to your bread and butter hands in the micro's.

[thac]

How much do you have left in your stack? Preflop and flop are fine, I push/fold the turn after his reraise, calling here is baaaaaaad.

[Vyse]

lol @ folding QT in the SB with 9:1.

Re: hand, I'm pushing the turn. Take position out of the equation.

[Wolfram]

thac said:
[ QUOTE ]
How much do you have left in your stack? Preflop and flop are fine, I push/fold the turn after his reraise, calling here is baaaaaaad.

[/ QUOTE ]
Darn, I forgot to include the stacks:

Hero: $38.20
Villain: $47.05

As you can see, we were quite deep, so pushing the turn didn't seem like a good option to me. Folding was probably right, I think I misread his raise as being less than it was.

raistlinx said:
[ QUOTE ]
I'm sorry, explain again how QTos does fine in a multi-way pot when you are in the worst position possible?

[/ QUOTE ]
QTo does well in a multiway pot, period. I didn't put a qualifier on it. Any hand is worse from first position than last, so of course QTo is worse UTG than on the button, but it's still fine.

[ QUOTE ]
And raising??? What hands are going to call you?

[/ QUOTE ]
You obviously don't understand the squeeze play. The idea is that you can take a hand that isn't very good, and raise it as a kind of "semi-bluff" preflop when a lot of people show weakness by just limping.

It's very hard for the first person to call because he has to worry about each player left to act, hence the "squeeze". This starts a kind of chain-reaction where each player folds after the other. It is very likely that the late position limpers were even weaker than the early ones.

The "semi-bluff" part comes in when you get called. That's really not what you were looking for, but when it happens you can still flop a variety of hands strong enought to continue. Or try to take it down with a pure bluff c-bet.

My point was that QTo has enough value to just try to flop something good and then play it well post-flop.