Pocket queens

mojolang · #1 07-10-2003, 02:51 PM

2-4 game

Anyway 2 [img]/forums/images/icons/club.gif[/img] brings it in and a jack to my immediate right completes. My doorcard is 6 [img]/forums/images/icons/diamond.gif[/img] I have Q [img]/forums/images/icons/heart.gif[/img] Q [img]/forums/images/icons/spade.gif[/img] down. I raise. One caller with a T [img]/forums/images/icons/diamond.gif[/img] folded back to the Jack who reraises me. Now this was a loose passive player who I'd only seen complete it with aces once. I needed to find out if he had me so I raised one more time. T cold calls (this was a player who was capable of anything so I wasn't too worried. Jack reraises me. I fold. I talked to some friends and they said I should have taken off a couple of a cards and seen what happened. Granted his completion signaled a jack obviously but assuming that's all he had, how could he have not known he was beaten? Would he really put me on sixes!?!?! I mean how stupid would he have to be to think his jacks were the best hand? I put him on kings, Aces, Rolled up jacks, or at worst JJA,JJK. All cards were live, but later in the hand someone else caught a jack(the caller). The hand never got shown so I don't know. SHould I have called him down or what?

Dynasty · #2 07-10-2003, 03:16 PM

mojo,

After reading this post and your QQ fold in the small stakes hold 'em hand, you've got a real problem. You are extremely weak-tight. It only takes a little action to get you to fold a hand which is either best or drawing live. These fold are being made in rather large pots too.

Unless your opponent has three Jacks, there is no reason for you to fold on 3rd street. If you can put him on AA or KK in the hole, then you can play the hand perfectly. The only way he can make two pair before the river is to make an open pair on his board. You will always know what he has.

MRBAA · #3 07-10-2003, 04:06 PM

When he reraises, just call don't raise. Sure, he may have you beat. Or he may just like his jacks. Having your queens hidden adds a lot of value. If you spike one, you might make a lot. Folding with $23 in the pot for $2 more can't be right -- you're getting 11-1! Or considering you'll call a bet on fourth, too it's maybe more like 7-1. Either way, you need to call. If you don't improve and he bets fifth, you'll have to decide whether to invest $12 more to see the hand through.

mojolang · #4 07-10-2003, 04:32 PM

you read a couple of posts and are already labeling me weak tight with a serious leak in my game. The last thing I want to develop is call'em down syndrome. I've seen friends of mine get married to their pocket pairs and end up dropping a huge number of bets before the hand is over. How could this guy not know that he was beat?!?! His hand is crystal clear!

Joe

mojolang · #5 07-10-2003, 04:41 PM

yeah, you are right about these two hands but my kicker was a six so I wan't feeling confident about that, and as for the pot size, I just stuck to my read on the player when I layed these down rather than pot size. I can see where you are coming from definately though

Joe

Dynasty · #6 07-10-2003, 07:24 PM

I'm not telling you to call him down. If he makes an open pair on his board, you've got a fold. But, in both these hands, you went multiple bets with your good hand and then folded for just one bet. That's a problem.

MRBAA · #7 07-11-2003, 12:31 PM

Also, it's very player dependent. I play 2-4 stud on Paradise and just the other night I had pocket AA with a little upcard and a jack three bet me on third and fourth with just jacks. Others will be hyper aggressive like this with a high card flush draw. I frequently get raised by a straight or flush on river in these games when I've paired my door early, been aggressive the whole way and now bet river. Obvious to me I'd only bet into a draw with a made house here, but apparently not to them.

patrick dicaprio · #8 07-11-2003, 02:22 PM

one thing i will say is that you are not alone in the too tight category, if you are too tight. there are a lot of posts here where i think players are way too tight. maybe i am too loose, who knows.

in the particular hand above i think you recognize that you should have called, so i wont beat a dead horse here. as an aside once at mohegan sun i playerd against a player who capped it on third street every time she had a threeflush! almost everytime she did it i was the only one who played against her, so apparently everyone else assumed aces or trips. needless to say it was a good day for me, plus she was a drinker and would go to the bar and then come back and play. so you never know what hands players are capping with, and who knows maybe he just thought he could play you off your hand, and maybe he was right, who knows. at lower limits it would take an awful lot to put me off pocket queens on third street.

Pat

Andy B · #9 07-12-2003, 06:13 PM

One thing that I have noticed is that when people write about raising for information, the information gained is rarely worth the price they paid. I think the general thought process goes something like this:

(1) I have to raise to find out where I'm at.

(2) I'm beaten, but now the pot is too big to fold.

This is exactly what happened on this hand, except that you folded. Even if he he has rolled-up Jacks, your implied odds are almost good enough to try to spike another Queen on fourth or fifth. It is much more likely that he has Aces or Kings in the hole, in which case you're drawing live. You're getting, what, 12:1 on your call? You just can't fold here.

A lot of low-limit players just play their own cards and don't give a whole lot of thought to what their opponents hold. This guy may just have been thinking that he had a pair of Jacks, and that's a good hand, so he was betting the hell out of it. I've certainly seen people four-bet Jacks in hold'em, and if this guy's a hold'em player, he just might overvalue hands like that.

You should have just called his initial re-raise and tread carefully from there. You're probably behind, but you can't fold.

If you raise and then fold on the same round, I think that it sends a message that you can be run off of a good hand. If you allow yourself to get run over, you're going to get run over.

I think that it is quite rare for it to be correct to three-bet and then fold to a four-bet. I'd say that it is most likely to be correct on a late round in hold'em. I'll go out on a limb and say that it is never correct on third street in stud.