QQ UTG

[soah]

Live 2-5 game with $200 capped buy-in. I've been running horrible all day making second best hands and I'm stuck multiple buy-ins. Table has some competent players but nothing special. No LAGs or anything either.

So I get QQ UTG and have $300, so I limp because if I raise here I either steal the blinds or get to play a big pot out of position with one pair when my opponents know what I have, and that sucks. Others limp, button makes it $20. I have not played with him much but I believe he'd make it a lot more if he had a big hand. Blinds fold and I consider coming over the top but end up just calling. Five of us see the flop of J8x with two clubs. I lead out $75 and Jimmy calls relatively quickly. Next two players fold, and the button is showing his hand to SB and saying he can't call me with that because he thinks I've made a set. He folds.

So I've been playing with Jimmy for several hours already and he's a regular at this room although this is the first time we've played together. He's already busted me twice, once with flush over flush, and another time I raised to $60 on the flop and he called it cold with the nut flush draw plus a gutshot. He hit his gutshot on the turn but I pushed because all I knew was that he was chasing the damn flush. So of course he calls me and my top two pair don't improve.

So now you all know what I know about Jimmy. Turn is an offsuit ten. I push.

[maranello11]

could he have raised with 9 /images/graemlins/club.gif10 /images/graemlins/club.gif

[TonyG86]

Looks like a fine line to me, just wondering, did you have the Qc or not?

[betgo]

I don't like open limping with QQ. The only reason to limp is to go for the limpraise. Unless the table is real loose, QQ may not be strong enough to limpraise with.

I don't see why a raise is giving away your hand. You either have TT-AA, AK, or AQ. If that isn't enough uncertainty, try raising with some more speculative hands occasionally.

[soah]

I don't have much full ring experience which is why I posted this hand. Another very good player I've been playing with says he never raises from UTG and even went as far as to say that "only idiots raise from UTG." While I'm sure a lot of people will disagree with that, there are a lot of good reasons to just limp unless your style of play is highly aggressive overall. If any remotely competent player reraises my UTG raise then I basically have to fold all but AA, and if I get callers and flop rags I risk getting pushed off my hand by someone who knows I don't have a set and knows I won't back an overpair with my stack against them.

As for whether I had the Qc, I did not check to see. It didn't seem very relevent

[betgo]

I don't like to raise UTG a lot. With TT or AJ, you may be overcommitting. With AA or KK, you may want to play for a limpraise. QQ is a good hand to raise UTG with. If you limp, you are losing the value of a strong hand. I am mostly a NLHE MTT player also, but in an MTT or SNG I would always raise with QQ, except in certain situations where I would play for a limpraise. Raising UTG with QQ and folding to a single reraise seems weak/tight.

[KowCiller]

[ QUOTE ]
If any remotely competent player reraises my UTG raise then I basically have to fold all but AA

[/ QUOTE ]

Soah,

I sure hope you don't regularly follow either the above or below quote at the Harrah's 200 game. That would be tragedy.

[ QUOTE ]
he never raises from UTG and even went as far as to say that "only idiots raise from UTG."

[/ QUOTE ]

This is one of the reasons why this game is so great.

As for comments about your play... I would have raised preflop 3-5x BB preflop. Since you didn't, I think I would play the hand the exact same.

Hope it worked out for you.

KoW

[soah]

Well, I'm experimenting with it to see what will happen. Against really bad players that will call my raise with all sorts of trash and not put me to a decision postflop, I raise. But there weren't any people like that at the table. Disgusing my hand preflop should overcome the fact that I'm giving up a little value.

[gomberg]

ok, so you raise UTG w/ QQ and most other hands you limp - not very good shania here /images/graemlins/smile.gif

In certain games, I enjoy never raising in early position. As the game becomes short handed, this has to change obviously. In a tournament with large blind / ante structure, this also has to change.

[BluffTHIS!]

If you are going to raise utg with QQ, then you also have to be doing so with a wide variety of hands such AA-TT/AJs/KQs and occasionally something like 88/99 or 87s. It is too strong a hand to only drag the blinds in a tight game. If the game is loose however, then I like the limp/reraise option by which I mean to reraise to like 3x the amount of the raise, leaving you an exit strategy against a very tight player who might have AA/KK, although your read on the button did not indicate this was the case.

Obviously though you should not play the same hand the same way 100% of the time, and in this since you limped, I would rather checkraise the flop if you belive the initial raiser will bet, to an amount of around the pot. Playing as you did, I too would push on the turn since the board is so dangerous, especially if he is the type of tricky player who will keep calling with a small pocket pair in position and attempt to steal on the turn or river if you show weakness when a scare card comes. Pushing avoids such situations and removes his drawing equity unless his call would be small compared to the size of the pot.

If he in fact slowplayed a set or an overpair on the flop then you were most likely going to lose most of your stack anyway.

[betgo]

[ QUOTE ]
ok, so you raise UTG w/ QQ and most other hands you limp - not very good shania here


[/ QUOTE ]
QQ, JJ, AK, and AQ (and AA and KK depending on how the table is playing) are hands you definately want to raise with. If people are watching what you are doing, throw in some raises with other hands.

[soah]

I did not believe that the button would bet into four people unless he believed he had the best hand. Given that I didn't put him on a premium pair, I felt it was likely that me checking would result in the flop getting checked through. And that would be a disaster. I was betting to protect my hand and I would have played the nuts exactly the same way.