marginal hands and raised pots
 

hey guys,

When looking at my Pokertracker stats I figured most of the time I loose is in raised pots. I see myself calling raises with marginal hands like KQ and AJ aso in as well as out of position. Even if I hit my TPGK or sth. I will most likely be dominated and end up loosing heaps BB. Ive been playin .5/.10cent on pokerstars and lost about 7stacks in my last 3sessions. All caused by similar situations.
How do you guys act in raised preflop pots with hands like AQ,KQ,AJ,suited or non suited and even pockets like 99,TT,JJ and such hands?


any sort of guideline or advise would be much appreciated.

thanks
matt

Re: marginal hands and raised pots
 

i play poker

Re: marginal hands and raised pots
 

great advise mate, thanks for your response- you are certainly +ev

Re: marginal hands and raised pots
 

Well Jallabar, this might sound simple, but I think the solution is already in your question: don't play raised pots with marginal hands.

You can raise first in with those hands and fold to a 3-bet or just fold iso calling a raiser. You can call some hands in position though. This is for the AJ/AQ/KQ hands.

For the other 99/TT/JJ hands, you can try 3-betting pre flop to take control. You can also 3-bet the other hands btw, it will give you more information pre flop and makes you take better and cheaper decisions post flop.

Re: marginal hands and raised pots
 

Also you might want to make a distinction here. If you look at your stats again and filter for the hands where you raised preflop and enter the flop as the aggressor, you should be making money or at least be a lot better then in the pots you called the raise preflop.

The reason is simple, your opponent told you with his raise/3bet that he has a strong hand. Especially at $10NL, there isn't so much 3betting light. You, on the other hand, told your opponent that your hand is good, but not good enough to take control of the action. So you're in a spot where you have to improve to beat your opponent and it doesn't matter if he hit the flop or not - his raise/3bet told you something like "go ahead, call and beat AK" - or something similar. Now, even if he doesn't have AK, your AJ still needs to improve, since he is very unlikely to 3bet you with AT. This is a terrible situation in position (because since he is out of position, your hand is even more likely dominated) and it's a complete disaster out of position.

There you have a reason why you want to be the preflop aggressor and when you look over your post again and pretend your opponent posted it, you already know one possible solution to your problem:

Don't enter raised pots with marginal hands.

Depending on stacks you can call here with low-medium pocket pairs, but with the rest of your hands it's probably better to reraise preflop or fold.