Mundane AQo hand

[Siawyn]

Everyone loves the action hands, ones with KK vs AA, flush draw + OESD on the flop, flopping a set, etc etc. But what about the mundane hands.. the ones you get involved in due to circumstance.

Here's a typical one I run into a lot, although this might be an order of magnitude better than what I might normally hit:

Typical Pokerstars .10/.25 table. 4 or 5 limpers to every pot, sometimes even more. It's 9-handed.

5 people limp in this one, the small blind completes, and I check with my A /images/graemlins/diamond.gif Q /images/graemlins/club.gif in the big blind. I'm not really crazy about raising this hand out of the blinds here, even though I very likely have the best hand. I'm not likely to get headsup.

Flop comes A /images/graemlins/spade.gif 3 /images/graemlins/club.gif 7 /images/graemlins/diamond.gif

I check, it gets checked all the way around.

Turn is a Q /images/graemlins/heart.gif

$1.75 currently in the pot, I bet out .50 and it's folded around to the guy on the button who raises to $2. I call.

River is a 9 /images/graemlins/spade.gif

I check, he bets $2, I call.

Thoughts? Too passive? Should I be betting out on the river, or raising for value, or even reraising on the turn? Flop play... 6 handed, standard line to check there and see what happens? Considering almost any ace gets limped at this level nowadays...

[kurto]

Is your avatar/photo a grey cat? If so, I may have been at your table.

"Typical Pokerstars .10/.25 table. 4 or 5 limpers to every pot, sometimes even more. It's 9-handed." So typical. Though I pick the tables this way. When I raise $1.25 and get 5 callers, you know you're going to do well at that table.

"I'm not really crazy about raising this hand out of the blinds here, even though I very likely have the best hand." I understand completely. I take the table personality into account in that situation. If people fold to strength, then you should raise. But usually you can tell if people are folding at a certain table or not and adjust accordingly.

"I check, it gets checked all the way around." I would bet it. You likely have the best hand because most people would have raised with AK. and you don't want to allow someone with a hand like 7-8 to draw free to 2 pair.

"who raises to $2. I call" Sometimes I would reraise. The only thing you're fearing is a slowplayed set. The turn is usually when they press it. Though I'd think someone with a set would have still bet the flop on the button. I bet your ahead.

"Should I be betting out on the river, or raising for value, or even reraising on the turn?" I would take stack size into consideration and how good I think the player is... that being said, on PS I'd say your hand is bets more often then not. I would advocate either betting or CR the river bet.

[MyMindIsGoing]

I think you played every street wrong.

[Siawyn]

Care to elaborate?

[Siawyn]

Yep, that's me.

It's funny.. on the flop is usually when I curse myself for not raising. But then, I'm going to miss most flops with a hand like this. So I checked with the intention of check-raising.. I was quite surprised when not a single person bet at it. If I had check-raised and then got reraised, I could easily dump the hand.. as opposed to betting out and getting raised, in which depending on the size of the raise, it's a trickier situation.

The turn changed everything in that I was only concerned about a set. This is exactly the kind of flop that I would slow play a set too, but I'm giving them too much credit for that. When I got raised on the turn, my thought was that the Q hit him. Maybe a KQ-type hand.... either that, or he hit a set on the flop, or he had hit 2 pair on the flop (again a pretty safe flop to slow play it), and now was getting money in. I was pretty sure he'd bet on the river so I just called.

On the river nothing really changed. I'd hate to raise and then get set all-in, because frankly I'm not used to the .10/.25 game. I've seen a lot of yahoos go to the felt with 2 pair on the turn or the river, not even the top 2. Given that it was an unraised pot, I just decided to call, figuring that if he had a set, I was minimizing my losses, and if he had a one pair hand he probably was folding to a raise.

Turned out I lost a bit of value because he tabled Q7s. I wasn't too happy with my play overall, but given what a range of hands could be there, I wondered what a better line would be to maximize my profits in most cases. I'm just not that thrilled about A-x types of hands from the big blind, I value position extremely high and prefer to keep pots small from here. But I think I'm losing value, especially in cases like this.

[MyMindIsGoing]

Preflop: Raise to limit the field
Flop: Bet much, atleast 75% of the pot
Turn: Bet atleast 2/3 of the pot and reraise when he raises
River: Bet half the pot as a valuebet. If he raises big fold, he must then have either 33 or 77.

Just my point of view.