Marginal hands, how do you play them?

[DonLigretto]

Hi

I usually play regular SNGs and not turbos and I always have problems playing KQ, QJ, AJ, AT, KJ, KT and QT. Usually I fold all of them to any raise except KQ in LP if I still have 20-30 BB and the raise is just 2-3BB. Otherwise I try to limp with all of these hands except if I'm in LP, It gets folded to me. Is this too loose or how do you play these hands?
In the last game I limped with KQ from MP with about 25 BB left, one guy before me and one after me limped as well, both had about 30 BB. Flop was K79 rainbow. the guy before me made a min bet, I raised 3x. He min reraised. There I should def. have folded I know, I pushed however and he showed K7 offsuit...

Besided the obvious mistake of pushing that hand, do I play these marginal hands generally wrong? At the moment I just have a really downswing on fulltilt (not on pokerstars though...) and that's why I'm just starting to lose confidence in my game...

[DeuceSeven]

In the first 3 levels at stars I limp with JJ-22, and raise with AQ+, QQ+. That's it, you won't see me limping ever with a marginal hand like kq. I stay out of marginal situations early in a sng, especially low stakes where no one folds.

[Kevin8423]

In early levels limping KQs from any position is fine, and the rest you can fold in EP and MP and some of them you can raise in LP.

[Jbrochu]

Your post is too general to really answer well. However, I would say as general advice don't play marginal hands preflop until you understand when and how to control the size of the pot postflop.

Using your KQ example hand, without reads I would have flat called his flop bet for the following reasons:

1) You're usually either way ahead or way behind
2) No hand that beats you is folding
3) Very few hands that are behind can call your re-raise
4) The board is fairly uncoordinated so not many cards can hurt you
5) You have position so you can see what he does on the turn and take it from there (It's unclear what position villain #2 is in but assuming he folds.)

The other approach some people like to take in this situation is to re-raise to "see where you are at." I don't like that approach myself but if that's your style then you need to fold to the mini re-raise.

[T3485]

[ QUOTE ]
In the last game I limped with KQ from MP with about 25 BB left, one guy before me and one after me limped as well, both had about 30 BB. Flop was K79 rainbow. the guy before me made a min bet, I raised 3x. He min reraised. There I should def. have folded I know, I pushed however and he showed K7 offsuit...

Besided the obvious mistake of pushing that hand, do I play these marginal hands generally wrong?

[/ QUOTE ]

This makes a pretty good case for not limping pre-flop. Granted, you'll have wack-a-nuts getting in with K7o for 3xBB+ on occassion anyway, but you will be punishing them more often, and for more chips, by raising pre-flop when they do get in with their trash hands. Despite this, they are going to hit with trash and bust you out once in a while as well, but the net gain over time will be in your favor.

To be clear, by "limp" do you mean you just called the BB?

[StregaChess]

[ QUOTE ]
problems playing KQ, QJ, AJ, AT, KJ, KT and QT.

[/ QUOTE ]

Don't play them and you won't have a problem.