Common No Limit Situation

[futuredoc85]

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I really like this question David - one of your better poker questions that ive read - as this is a very difficult scenario...

Anyways... I think a call here will give away your hand. The BB will know that with just a call that you have AK/AQ. Therefore you can expect a big raise almost regardless of what card hits on the turn. A raise to roughly 2000$ would tell you where you stand most likely , however, this is 1/6+ of your stack and your goal is not to figure out where you stand, it is to win the pot or avoid losing alot of money. If you raise and are called by more than just the BB, or reraised by the BB, then you are in serious trouble and just lost yourself that bet.

Anyways. Against a good player you are most likely beat, or even destroyed. You could be against a hand like 9 10 hearts (straight flush draw) but this is almost certainly not the case. With a straight flush draw the BB would assume you hit the ace and let you bet again. Then he might raise or call.

The main reason you play AQ strongly preflop is because it is suited. You have no backdoor flush draw anymore. Your hand has gone from pretty good to crap. Assuming that we dont know much about our opponents ability to bluff or semi bluff (this isnt Sammy Farha betting into you is it?) you can assume that your opponent has at least 2 pair. You cannot be certain however that a Queen on the turn will ensure your victory. The Queen of hearts is not going to make you feel stronger and so you can only hope for 2 cards in the deck.

So my decision - although it would annoy me - would be to throw the hand away. You lost 200 but I think any other play would make you lose alot more. Youve got about 11,800 left so wait for a better scenario.

Putting my thoughts about this hand into words would require about 50 pages worth of stuff. Isnt it amazing how fast our brains work - good poker players analyze 1000s of possibilities before they are required to act (online this is like 30 seconds tops). if you dont agree with me it may be because I left out a couple thoughts...

peace

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another scenario i didnt mention. make a very convincing ALL IN raise and you might get the pot. bluff 3 aces. hed probably fold

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i think you're being serious and that makes me sad

[futuredoc85]

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do the people posting in this thread play NL holdem? despite what thatpfunk says (and he's correct) this is a fold, IMO. but some of these posts are very weird.

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seriously wtf @ the poker analysis in this thread

[jlkrusty]

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do the people posting in this thread play NL holdem?... some of these posts are very weird.

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Lol. Do you mean comments like:

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I'm not happy about my preflop raise at all. I'd rather limp with these almost-rags.

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Many other dubious comments are made throughout this post. FWIW, I agree with TWP that this is a fold (as I stated earlier).

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I made that comment to point out how poor AsQs is in early position. There are many different ways to play any hand given the situation.

What exactly did you disagree with? Those aren't rags? You would never put in a larger raise in EP with these cards? You make no defense, only comments.

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I'll give you one response, but I don't want to hijack this thread about preflop play. The original question was about post flop play. If after my response you still think it is a good idea to limp EP with AQs, then start a new thread in one of the no limit forums, and see what people say when you state that limping EP with AQs is better than raising.

For my response: All hands play worse OOP (UTG in this case) than they would IP. You are right that AQs does not play so well OOP. What's worse, however, is to both play AQs EP and to play it in a large multi-way pot. Limping with AQs UTG is horrid because it encourages large multi-way pots. Once many players enter the pot, your hand starts looking like A2s.

Making a decent preflop raise of 4XBB will usually narrow the field considerably. Often you'll take the pot down right there or be facing only one or maybe two opponents.

In this case, your preflop bet did not narrow the field, and you now face a 6-way pot. That's not what you expected, but sometimes it happens. Once it does, you can still get a lot of +EV from flops that hit you like a hammer--a flush, a flush draw, two pair, trips, etc. You certainly do not want a flop of A [img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img]8 [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]7 [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]. That is a very dubious flop for you, and you need to tread very lightly. Once BB leads into you (the preflop raiser) for 1/2 PSB (with four other players to act), it is an easy fold. Staying in this hand on this flop is -EV. You're often behind, and even when you're not, you have the worst relative position, poor absolute position, the risk of falling behind to a myriad of draws, and low ability to know when you are ahead. All these factors point to -EV.

Because your opponents can have such a wide range of hands, every step of the way is going to be difficult. For example, suppose you call (the poorest decision IMO), one player behind calls, another raises to $1,500, the BB calls, and now it's back to you. Feel better now? Or, maybe you call, two others call, and you see a turn. I'm not sure how that is better when about half the turn cards will just make things worse for you. This is not a hand to make profit in--better to fold now.

[legionkiller3]

Smells like a big made hand or a semi-bluff draw. I think very few players will lead with a mediocre made hand here liek AJ.

Raise? I think it is too easy to get outplayed in this spot to consider an Raise. Much of the time we are behind with little hope of improvement, leaving us with especially tough River decisions if turn gets checked. Also, any scare card costs us equity whether it fills an opponents hand or not as he will sometimes represent with a bluff to which we will soemtiems fold.

Flat Call? Any attempt to see a cheap showdown will give oponents on a draw good price allowing them to play corectly while still giving us no information about the relative stregth of our hand. More tough decisions, especially if someoen overcalls.

Fold? Yes. There are too many ways to outguess ourselves in thsi spot, and guessing inevitably leads to bad decisions taht cost us $$$.

[wpr101]

For me, call > raise > fold.

[PokrLikeItsProse]

If the BB is David Sklansky, what do you think his hand range is?

Would that range change if, instead, BB is Barry Greenstein?

What if it is Daniel Negreanu (and assume he is taking these stakes seriously and trying to play his best)?

[Big_Ham]

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You certainly do not want a flop of A [img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img]8 [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]7 [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]. That is a very dubious flop for you, and you need to tread very lightly. Once BB leads into you (the preflop raiser) for 1/2 PSB (with four other players to act), it is an easy fold. Staying in this hand on this flop is -EV. You're often behind, and even when you're not, you have the worst relative position, poor absolute position, the risk of falling behind to a myriad of draws, and low ability to know when you are ahead. All these factors point to -EV.

Because your opponents can have such a wide range of hands, every step of the way is going to be difficult. For example, suppose you call (the poorest decision IMO), one player behind calls, another raises to $1,500, the BB calls, and now it's back to you. Feel better now? Or, maybe you call, two others call, and you see a turn. I'm not sure how that is better when about half the turn cards will just make things worse for you. This is not a hand to make profit in--better to fold now.

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I completely agree with your assessment. While I may not have communicated my thoughts properly, I feel the same way. That being said, the reason I say limp is that you can limp raise ONE raiser (everyone else out of the way) with a hand like this, but the second you're in a multi-way pot with it, you're pretty much screwed unless the flop hits you HARD. I mean, 80%+ of the time you're going to want to fold post flop in EP in a 3-6 way pot, but the hand is a decent hand sans position. So lose the minimum if you feel you want to play the hand.

That's all I meant ... and obviously like everything in poker, this is highly player/table/situation dependent.

Nice comments tho ... thanks for explaining.

[FineVol]

All of you who would fold, do you see raising as a awfull play or just not as good as folding.

[fnord_too]

What a curious lead by BB here. Why is he leading into the pfr on an A high board when the pfr is next to act (with lots of people behind him)? It does not seem like he has a monster hand (or monster draw), if he did is it not much better to go for a c/r hopefully getting a lot of dead money into the pot? If it was a really agro table, maybe, but then again this is an action flop so I don't know that you get any extra action betting out at an aggro table. Maybe 77 or 88 bets out here because this flop getting checked through is a pretty unpleasant prospect.

This really feels like a vulnerable made hand (like 78) or maybe even a tenuous draw (like a less than nut flush draw, maybe TJhh, QKhh) that is looking to freeze the action or find out where it is at to me, but 77/88 is not out of the question.

Why I don't like folding: I think I have plenty of equity against BB and things should get a lot clearer on the turn.

Why I don't like calling: There are three friggin people left to act behind me who could squeeze or be priced in with weak draws (since they will have position) and make my life miserable on future streets.

Why I like raising: Raising clears things up right now, and quite possibly wins me the pot right now. It makes a squeeze much less likely from someone behind me (that would take real balls here, i.e. after I reraise), it makes a float much less likely, too. Someone with say the naked Ah is also probably going to give up here, which is one of the hands I really fear behind me since they could easily float or raise. BB is much less likely to be dishonest, so if he reraises I can fold pretty easily, and if it is folded back to him, I think there is a good chance of seeing the river for free or cheaply. About the only thing I really have to sweat is the turn going check check and bb betting the river, but then again, the pot will not be huge and sometimes you have to make difficult decisions.

So, I think raising is probably right, to about $1500. That puts a lot of pressure on weak draws behind me and on the BB, too, without committing too much. BB is left in an awkward spot since RRAI is a biggish overbet, and any reraise is committing a lot of his effective stack.

[PantsOnFire]

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All of you who would fold, do you see raising as a awfull play or just not as good as folding.

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I don't think it is an awful play.

But I do have a problem with the fact that everybody is going to have a good read on UTG. From the other five players perspective, what can UTG have? The only likely draw UTG has is AhKh or perhaps KhQh. Players who hit a set can only be afraid of AA or a draw (which means the other players not UTG). A player with Ah figures UTG will not (likely) raise with KhQh. AK is likely for UTG but anybody with an excellent draw might stick around knowing AK will not improve very often on the turn.

I think the real reason for a raise here is to win the pot outright. You certainly don't want players sticking around with that kind of wet board. Perhaps you could see a brick on the turn and shove, but you still face the possiblity of a set or two pair being out there. And with the brick on the turn (and there are not really that many bricks here), these hands will only be afraid of AA.

So I think the best hand you can represent here is a set of aces. Any draw might see some good implied odds and figure a set of aces will not fold to a turn push if a draw hits.

Another consideration is someone coming over the top. The nut flush draw might just put you a big ace or KK and simply shove. Not much you can do there except say goodbye to your raise money.

The last thing about a raise is who do you want to call? What hands do you figure to extract more money out of on the turn? I can't see many second best hands following UTG to the river since his range is so narrow. The only hand I see sticking around is AK and that beats UTG.

So a raise does have some chance of winning the pot outright but two rather bad things could happen. There could be that over the top re-raise or if there are callers, your turn play will be very difficult.