I get this a lot, what to do?

I seem to see this hand or similar hands a lot, considdering I am seeing the player in the pot with me has been tight what do you suggest? Tournament style game,
I have Js Qd and I limp in strong position, the flop is 3h 9h 10c and the other person bets the pot.
So I'm pretty sure I'm beat at this point and normally fold but should I push back or call, I just feel the straight draw is weak with the flush draw possibility and I dont have a made hand anyway.

Something that was beat into me from a few members...Stop limping!

JQ in strong postion? Your limp made you a weak, losing position. A 3bb bet preflop would likely have scared away that person that now already has a hand and is making it expensive for you to chase. Depending on your opponent, his pot bet is more likely telling you he has a hand and does not want you chasing. Your odds of hitting it does not justify you calling a pot size bet. Fold, there will be another hand.

ON the other hand, how well do you know this player? If he is a chaser, this may be the type of hand that he bets big to take down the pot now and if he gets called he figures his straight or Ace has a chance of winning you anyway. Have to know the player, as well as the board. If you don't know his play, don;t risk the call.

Alway raise when u play a hand. U'll get informations on the others and u'll scare away most of the small hands. After the flop, with the readings on other players u can reraise and make him fold if he is a loose player or u fold if he is a tight player. That is the basic. U can also call to see the turn if the raise after the flop isn't big, to speculate his mistake if he really having something cose if u hit a K or an 8 u are probably the best hand.

1. Stop limping in position.
2. A pot bet on a flush draw board still is good odds to call your straight draw with two overs.

Seriously, think about how can you be beat at this point. Any pocket pair or 3, 9, or 10 is a possibility - why - because you limped preflop.

What makes this such a difficult situation even more so is if you are playing micro-limits. I've seen people pot bet stuff with air after a flop like this.

ya 1st off what position were you in and your limping so that probably means mid early pos . QJ off ? see that so often can pick out a player playing QJ lol like the other guy said fold that i dont even play AJ utg normally in mtts AJ =parking Lot QJ JK about the same .play tighter i mean draw looks good till he turns over set or something and takes half your stack from you fishing and espec if he happens to put you on draw and his has big hand you ll get milked most times at lest thats what i would do.i mean there could be huge range of hands the other play has midlow pkts and so on depending on your pos and him limping also Arags comen low limit mtts and what not Alow suited guy betting gut shot JK so you hit your Q on turn fishing for the str8 he has the nuts now you feeel you look good here cause you have top pair str8 draw mean while hes just counting all your chips on ya! and your going to get Rocked lol i mean so many players online actually think a gut is a great hand to bet lol so playing that hand could end bad in many ways been there done that sucked

I have to agree with this.If you've raised PF and villain calls and then pot raises then you have to put him on some sort of hand. By only limping you don't have this information. In this case you don't have the odds to call (based on odds only - information about the player is vital also) so you have to fold.

Only if we include implied odds (i.e., only if we expect Villain to stack off if we hit our straight - this straight isn't very hidden), otherwise we cannot call profitably, our pot odds do not justify a call.

Would you say a reraise would out of the Q then??
If i got a open ended str8 i may as well reraise over the top of him???


I may have to ask a bud on that, his first name match's my last name...

It depends alot on Villain - if we think he'll stack off w an overpair, calling is ok, if we think we have good fold equity (cuz Villain bluffs alot) we can raise (if he's a calling station and we have no fold equity, raising is probably spew).

As you will learn, a hand like JQos is a fold or raise. You can't open-limp, or really even limp, hands that can be utterly dominated. If you're deep in a cash game I call because of the implied odds. A tourney you probably have to fold, but again it does depend on how deep the stacks are compared to the bet b/c you may be getting implied odds.

Thanks...


To OP.
Limping well in position is just bad, you need to do so to find out where you stand...
I may limp in to the pot when more then 3 are in it, but i tend to raise it well in position...

Ok once again I've made the fatal mistake of wondering into a tournament discussion and can predict fairly accurately that I'm wrong in advance...

Still, how is this not a standard raise/shove?

You are flipping against just about everything (a lot of which can't stand much heat). - Flipping as aggressor is okay even in tournaments?
Calling only makes sense if you've got good implied odds AND your stack is big enough that you can accept taking a small hit a little more often than not because you're going to win significantly less than 50% of the time.

I'm not opposed to some well placed limps IP vs a weak or laggy opponent and QJ is a good candidate. I ran a filter in Poker Tracker and I seem to have a solid +EV with it from the button and CO but that edge trails off rapidly the worse your position gets. It's what you do with it post flop that matters. In this case, your read on your opponent is that he's tight. His pot sized bet indicates that he's probably protecting a made hand. Well, let him have it. Your not getting anywhere near the odds you need to call.

if you are going to get into a hand and its just called to you. a 3x bb is a good bet . with Qj and more than one limper just fold it. you can get into truble with this hand and j 10 and the like . but if you just have to bet it like you have AA. But in this hand you just dont have the info to call.

I disagree with this. If you're in good position and there are several limpers, go ahead and just call. QJ is far too weak to raise with vs more than 1 opponent but as I said earlier, it's how you play these hands post flop that counts. If you flop top pair and it checks to you, you probably have the best hand so why not throw one out there and find out? If you get raised or called then of course, slow it down.

QJ is a decent enough hand that when you do flop a pair, there's a good chance it'll be top pair. Also, in a limped pot it's very unlikely that you'll be facing any overpairs as most of them would have raised preflop. When you get down to connected hands like 56-TJ you can never be sure if someone didn't decide to play a higher pair for set value, but even then, if your playing in position, any probe bet will usually be met with a check raise and then you can reevaluate.

The point is, that limping behind in late position isn't always a horrible thing, and if you exercize proper pot control you should be able to squeeze some positive EV out of hands like JT, QJ or KJ suited or otherwise. Also, playing hands like this is good for your image even when you don't show. Having a Vp$ip in the 25%-30% makes it more likely that you'll get action those times you do flop 2 pair or better. The better you become at post flop play the more you can open up your preflop range.

Thanks for the replys, a lot of good advice. So what I am thinking is that JQ in strong position may be good enough to raise pre flop, this is a weak part of my game, I am not sure when to raise and it seems when I rasie in that kind of situation I end up getting re raised so i feel like I wasted my raise if I fold then I end up in a dominated hand. I am going to try and raise in these situations and see what happens more often. I guess if I dont hit post flop a raise will give me a good idea where I stand, If someone else raises or re raises I will probably fold to a tight player but maybe call to unknowns or loose players and try to better my hand. Sounds easy but I usually fall apart unless I have a real good hand. I have watched some good players and they are raising and re raising and they have nothing, guess thats why I dont play big money too!

queen jack althouhg off suit can be really good cards you should atleast min-raise that way you let your apponent know that you have cards that should be considered quality, as for limping in you should use it as a tool to disguize really good cards or to see a flop for minimale chips

Min-raising does nothing here. All it does is just bloats the pot and just invites players in. You're just spewing chips if anything and if you're going to min-raise, you're probably better off just limping in.

For me, playing QJ would depend on the stage of the tournament and if I need to play a marginal hand like this or not. If its still the early stages and I'm in mid-late position, I might fold this type of hand to avoid sticky situations early on. However, if its during the middle-late stages, I'll come in with a raise with these types of hands and am willing to play for stacks if I need to. These are key hands played in later stages that'll determine if you'll make the FT or just min-cash.

As others have said, try to not limp in as much with these types of hands. Or any hand for that matter. You should look to either raise or fold. Not saying limping is ever bad, just most of the time is the least best option.

i see where you are coming from . but one can lose youer stack this way and i still think if you limp in with this sort of hand and hit your hand top pr and he limped in with 44 and hit his set ..... well you see what im saying anyting can and will happen. but im not saying your wrong

if the bet was small enough i would call it. you have 8 outs in this hand( with a king or 8 ) with if you use the 4 rule you have a 32% chance of hitting your straight on the turn and 16% on the river

I am finding that betting with marginal hands in strong position, saying marginal = QJ off suit is working better for me if no pre raises have taken place. the only problem is bad luck, I have run into blinds hitting trips a couple times when I think I am way ahead.

okay dude i think i understand what your saying, and actually thinking back at some of my hands i think these cards did put me in situations cuz if someone calls a raise they prolly have a king or ace or boyh and just one of those cards flopping puts you in a bad situation huh it sounds like you play rather tight and only quality cards thnx for the advise i'll watch my play with it

This is where experience comes in. Just play it for the value you think it's worth. There are going to be times where you bet and get called or checkraised and then you'll have a decision to make. If it's the latter, most times you'll know you're behind and you can just fold. Other times you might have a redraw and odds to call. Sometimes you might have reason to believe that your opponent is just plain 'ol full of shit. The point is that you have got to have some assemblance of a post flop game.