Pocket Queens in PLO

[BluffTHIS!]

One hand that I see a lot of people lose money on in omaha is pocket queens. The first reason for this is calling with what I believe are junky queens in early position and calling one or two raises behind them. Hands like this are QQ with 2 other cards that cannot with the queen make a straight, irregardless of whether the 2 cards are suited and connected otherwise (QQ56ds). By calling raises from early positios with this type of hand, you are basically trying to outflop aces or kings most often, especially since even if once or more players don't hold that hand, an ace or king will come on the flop around 42% of the time, and on the board by the river 59% of the time. This means that pocket queens without making a set have less high card strength than in holdem where fewer people are likely to see a flop.

The second reason, is that even if they just limp in an unraised pot in late position with such a hand and flop a set, they have no backup in the way of straight draws themselves if the queen forms part of a straight draw, and thus may have to fold on the turn or river if such a draw gets there.

The third reason for so many people losing money with queens is flopping no other hand or draw other than a flush draw and calling to make a hand that very likely won't be good if not headsup, and won't get paid off even if headsup.

Thus players holding queens should ask themselves what type of flops they are going to like given their side cards. Obviously you'd like to flop a set, but failing that a quality draw that includes both a straight and flush draw. This is much more likely holding the following types of hands either single or double suited: QQJT/AQQT/QQT9 etc.

If there has been no raise I would raise myself with such a quality hand with queens from any position and call at least one raise. With a hand such as QQ65ds though I might limp in the cutoff or button, but even flopping a set am not looking to play a big pot with them, especially if the stacks are deep and a big drawing flop hits, unless of course a nearly perfect flop such as Q43 comes.

Money not lost by playing a 'bad' pair of queens out of position is the same as money won, and will result in not suffering as many bad beats when you flop a set with no quality straight or flush draws (non-nut 8 or 9 out draws) as backup to protect it from other players on a draw.