KQo Inquiry

[BottlesOf]

After 2,500 hands in PT, this is my biggest loser. Does anyone want to share how they approach this hand? What types of games and in what positions do you play it? These kinds of questions are frequently asked, if you'd rather direct me to a thread or ignore it, that's fine too.

[Gramps]

I was sucking it up with this hand as well my first 5,000 pokertracker hands at Party $2/4 (despite a positive variance upswing overall). I was playing it UTG, and often raising in late position regardless of whether there were limpers in or not. Made some adjustments, and now it's been quite profitable over my last 15,000 hands (the difference could just be attributable to variance, but I imagine a good portion of it is due to the adjustments).

At Party 2/4 and 3/6 I now muck it UTG and UTG+1. I only open-raise from the last 3 spots with it. I limp from UTG+2 and later, even if I'm on the button and there's only one limper. If someone raises before me, it's a muck (even if the raiser is a maniac, it's to hard to isolate someone at Party 2/4 & 3/6).

Nice bonus of just calling is that you often get bet into on a Q-high or K-high flop (by a draw or Q/K worse kicker), and will get paid off to the River by someone with a worse kicker.

[Louie Landale]

2,500 hands isn't very many. You probably got KQo a paltry 30 times or so.

KQo is a great ..err.. good hand when nobody has a better one AA KK, QQ, AK or AQ. Its a TERRIBLE hand if its already beat. Now the realities of Holdem are [1] its probably beat if you are UTG [2] its probably beat there is a tight raisor [3] its probably beat if a tight player CALLS a raise cold.

Fold it when its probably beat. Fold it whenever, for whatever reason, you don't "feel" good about playing it.

- Louie