Playable hands in the blinds

I recently played the following hand in 10NL and it led to me to thinking about how to play strong (non-monster) hands in the blinds when it has been raised.

The hand itself was played pretty conservatively and in my eyes very poorly, but I felt like it could have easily spun out of control with what was a pretty weak hand.

PokerStars Game #36889252789: Hold'em No Limit ($0.05/$0.10 USD) - 2009/12/19 2:15:15 ET
Table 'Semiramis II' 9-max Seat #1 is the button
Seat 1: ? ($10.55 in chips)
Seat 2: ? ($7.60 in chips)
Seat 3: Hero ($9.70 in chips)
Seat 4: ? ($18.55 in chips)
Seat 5: ? ($5.15 in chips)
Seat 6: Villain ($10.45 in chips)
Seat 7: ? ($1.95 in chips)
Seat 8: ? ($11 in chips)
Seat 9: ? ($8.30 in chips)

?: posts small blind $0.05
Hero: posts big blind $0.10
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Hero [Qd Ah]
?: folds
?: folds
Villain: raises $0.20 to $0.30
?: folds
?: folds
?: folds
?: folds
?: folds
Hero: calls $0.20
*** FLOP *** [4h As 8s]
Hero: checks
Villain: checks
*** TURN *** [4h As 8s] [Td]
Hero: checks
Villain: bets $0.30
Hero: raises $0.50 to $0.80
Villain: calls $0.50
*** RIVER *** [4h As 8s Td] <font color='red'>J<font face="arial">♦</font></font>
Hero: ?

Depends on your opponent. Does he play loose or tight? Which hand did he show before?
If he is tight you could be beaten. If he play loose you will probably hold the best hand.
I would check and call his bet....

Youshould have bet your top pair on the flop. You just gave KQ runner runner straight, JT running two-pair, AT a few turn to make top two, AJ runner runner to make top two, as well as 9Q and 78 running cards.

Also I don't like the call preflop. You're going heads up with the 2nd best ace. Why not raise the pot so it's worth betting when your ace or queen hits?

I'm unclear, is the ??? referring to playing premium hands from the BB or SB in general or specific to this hand?

If specific to this hand, were you attempting a check raise after the flop & were foiled by the villian when it was checked back? I agree with Weregoat that it would have been more optimal to have bet after the flop...with the way the hand was played out, unsure what range the villian may have been holding...could have been a busted flush draw?

I'm not wild about A.Q, I believe I read somewhere in the forum that its referred to as the Doom hand? I also agree with Weregoat that it would have been a better move to have re-raised preflop since it was heads up; if villian stayed in with a re-raise it would have narrowed down the possible range held by that player?

After the river if it's
H-check & V-check
or H-check & V-bet & H-call
or H-bet & V-call
you'll have additional info on the villian to use as future reference due to a showdown. If it's H-bet & V-fold then you'll know it was a busted flush draw.

How did the hand end up playing out?

I agree w alot of this.

A few things to think about when deciding whether to play out of the blinds:

1. Are you ahead or behind opponents range of hands? Let's say you have a loose aggressive player who opens the button to 3xbb. AQo is way ahead of the range of hands he'll do this with. Let's say you have a very tight passive player who opens utg to 3xbb. AQo is behind his range of hands.

2. What kind of opponent is this? Gambler? Agg? Passive? Good? Bad?

3. If you're ahead of his range, you want to play the hand. If you're behind his range, you only want to steal his opening bet (or his pf open + his flop bet) if you're playing at all, you don't really want to play the hand.

4. If you're ahead of his range, and he calls or raises 3bets, by all means 3bet. If you're ahead of his range and he folds to all 3bets, you may or may not want to 3bet (i.e., you can make money off of him postflop). But here's a key thing to think about - in the blinds, you're out of position, and playing out of position sucks. I'm much more likely to 3bet than not oop, unless villain is a lagtard who I can count on betting postflop.

5. If you're behind his range, obviously folding is perfectly acceptable. If you feel he'll fold to a 3bet frequently enough to justify 3betting (regardless of your hole cards), go for it.

6. If you 3bet and he calls, you need to have a general idea of what you're going to do on the flop BEFORE the flop is dealt. It shouldn't be "I'll bet if there's an AQ on the board and check/fold everything else" - if that's the plan, you shouldn't 3bet pf without strong confidence Villain will fold to the 3bet. So I'm not comfortable w the statement that we want to build the pot pf so we can bet when an A or Q hits - that is throwing money away. We want to build the pot pf IF we think we can make money on the hand because we're ahead of Villain's range whether or not an A or Q hits the board.

7. Calling from the blinds is usually (not always) a mistake. 3betting or folding is usually better.

Check/raising this flop is perfectly reasonable - bummer that Villain didn't cbet (remember that playing oop sucks, this is one reason why). I'm definitely leading the turn though.

I was only about 10mins into the session and hadn't really seen this guy play a hand, no showdowns at least.

I worried about the re-raise preflop merely because of the position that he raised from - really I couldn't see how I was ahead. I didn't particulary want to fold the hand which left me with a loose call which I wasn't keen on. In a tourney I think I would have re-raised here but I don't play a lot of full ring cash tables so is interesting to here.

On the flop I was looking for a checkraise to define his hand. After his check I put him on an underpair and figured he would bet the turn if I showed weakness. Checked the river because of the scare card and would have called most bets.

He was playing with a weak ace and I took down the pot but it just raised some big questions in my mind. I wouldn't have hesitated to call preflop with suited connectors, but AQo had me baffled.

@Bazerk: I was more asking about how to play those weak but pretty hands in general, the question was raised because of the way this hand played out.

@Weregoat: I will generally check to the aggressor no matter what the flop and then reraise. I use this regularly and often as a bluff if its a scary board.

AQo is an extremely good, strong hand if played correctly. In my db, it's the 8th most profitable (total profit) hand I've been dealt this year (around 6k times out of 638k hands total), and 11th in terms of win frequency when I'm dealt them (59%). fwiw, I've won 63% of the time I've been dealt AQs (around 2k hands out of 638k hands total).

Famously, Doyle Brunson never plays AQ because it's dominated by AK/KK+, and it has a terrible rep. But that's cuz players overplay the hand.

Well, if it's bad enough for Doyle than it's bad enough for me...lol .

You have a valid point slycbnew, I'm still working on playing it correctly...sigh. I'm glad to read that you're having much success with it...& I'll get there eventually.

See post #12 of this thread:

The AQ set up on Full Tilt

(I generally remember when I've read, seen or heard something...trying to recall 'where' is my prob...my noggin isn't as spry as it used to be ).

ZCorky, this is a good in general ???. Glad to read that you took it down .

Hey bazerk, I'm sure you'll get the hang of it, just takes some experience. I forgot about that thread, I posted in it (#9). Two quick things to think about.

First, your cards don't matter if you don't get to showdown, if you can force the other guy to fold 72o will show a profit. We get too hung up on what our hands are instead of how to play poker - don't play cards, play poker. Trying to get the other guy to fold when he's strong or is a calling station is suicide, so it's better to fold 72o in both cases. The trick is to pick up the situations where he will fold even if you have the worse hand if you bet appropriately. Too many people think that it's their hole cards that should dictate their actions, when really it's the combination of your showdown value, the range you've put Villain on, and the range Villain has put on you that dictate whether you take down the pot or not. In no limit HE, most hands don't go to showdown - most people forget that.

Second, if you think in terms of ranges as above and read actions across multiple streets, you'll get a feel for when you need to slow down with or toss AQ even on a favorable board.

Definately worth a read - this full ring with 100bb business has me struggling to play big hands like AA..... Maybe back to 6max for a while while I screw my head back on.