Noted.

I think what bothers me about making an intelligent comment about this hand is not understanding the texture of the hand in relation to immediate history. For example, late this season in HSP, when DN went to push out the other player (thinking he had Ks) by over betting his hand, only to have Barry Greenstein ask him afterwards if he'd have made that play knowing the other player lost a lot of money the previous session.

I'm generally in awe of DNs reads, btw...

From a point-in-time perspective I agree that the hand was played well, assuming the players involved weren't dingbats.

This whole post seems to me like a "I'm so good look what I folded" post. I think it did spark some intriguing conversation, however. That was probably the point.

Preflop: I see Daniel's logic entirely in playing the hand. To those out there that suggest you should fold this preflop are too results oriented. Yes, you're seeing an incidence in which he had a bad flop for the Q8, but that SB position in a 4 way-limped pot (especially when that SB is a professional that is very talented at figuring out where he is relative to his opponents in a hand) can be very powerful, at least powerful enough to pick this hand up 1 out of 7 times. Not because of the strength of the hand itself, but rather the experience of the person playing it.

How often is there going to be a time where he flops trip queens and is beat given the action prior to him completing the SB? (I know what you're thinking, how often will he even flop trip queens? That's not the point. The point is that I'm sure he could pick up this pot often enough without it)

Flop: I understand the Check/Call here especially given the fact that it's the button leading out. Leading out is the only other option, but on a board with the texture of QQ4 from the SB, you're pretty much telling everyone what you have. Check/Raise gets you in trouble. I'm folding this flop 0% of the time as played.

Turn: I actually really like the check here. Once again, it sticks with the idea of losing the least amount possible if you are beat, and once again masks the true strength of the hand. Most people with trips in the SB would've come out of the weeds making some sort of bet on the flop or turn by now. Although you didn't get the information you were looking for, you'll receive it more often than not.

River: When UTG bets, we're faced with the problem that gives everyone the most problems here. I strongly believe that this could easily be a AQ or KQs.

Look at it from the point of view from the UTG player:

1. Not unreasonable to limp in with AQ KQ
2. Checked the flop, not wanting to scare anyone out. Realizing that flat-calling the Button's bet could be a profitable play after seeing the Hero call, try to string along the Hero or lose the minimum if beat. Even if he has 55-99 Range like some of you suggest, why would he even consider an overcall? Seems like a dangerous spot to pick off a button's bluff. At best, he'd have to hope DN was coming along with a 4. Still doesn't look like an ideal situation
3. Checked the turn, perhaps hoping that the button would fire away again? Once again consistent to a strong Queen.
4. The bet on the river seems to signal strength to me. Other than the hands that people have suggested, what really makes sense other than some ridiculously out of line bluff. Aside from the possibility that the UTG has ACTUALLY figured this hand out perfectly and is convinced that DN has given up and the button was firing away with nothing, he MUST have a legitimate hand at this point. Daniel's logic and experience came to that same conclusion.

I don't believe that he would've played any of the hands that people suggested other than AA or KK, but I don't think those 2 pairs see a check/overcall on the flop.

I feel as though this hand was played correctly, but it was just a tough and unfortunate situation. Given the circumstances, not much of a choice but to dump it and give credit where credit is due if you've been bluffed.

if i had to guess based on how little value he seemed concerned with getting for his hand, there is a good possibility that he was holding Jacks or tens (most likely Jacks). He smooth called on the flop believing that his Jacks could still very well be good. On the turn or the river he hits his set. Both could make sense based on his play. Certainly after catching the boat on the turn, he could conceivably check to the button who led the betting last time. The Jack makes more sense to me though because his bet on the river reeks of a desperate value bet. My two cents. Regardless, good fold Daniel.

Without a read, I call.

It's just as likely for this player to be value betting KJ as anything else.


The way the hand was played, especially on the river screams of weakness. Any decent player will see this as an invitation to take the pot.

Do we really think villain is over calling the flop with KJ/ small mid pair etc?

I'm not trying to be an *******, but how the hell do you ever get to the river with KJ or AK or whatever? Look at how the whole hand played out.

The UTG player's river bet screams of nothing other than "I'm value betting what I think is the best hand and offering a very good price to anyone who wants to call."

Acid Night: if you continue to fold Q8os in the small blind getting well over 5:1 on your money, well, my hats off to you.

I think that's technically a "nit", no? [edit] no offense actually, cause I do understand the concept of folding junk from out of position - but the next level of poker play is somewhere in between where you would call Q8 with 5:1

Now, if you are saying to poker newbies "fold", okay. But consider a newbie needs to learn to play odds, as most serious new player actually fold the best hand too often! I have hardly ever met a new poker player who was serious about their game who didn't concern themselves with being beat by another hand. Sure, you overvalue your hand as a newbie sometimes, and that's when you get slaughtered. In fact, a newbie could get in trouble here after the flop not before. Because of this should they fold? No, they should play, and challenge themselves to get better post flop play. It takes beats like this to teach you when to back off and when to move forward. If you never play Q8os from SB how do you expect to win?

Daniel's response about seeing a flop in expectation that you may be able to pickup the pot is exactly why I respect these guys so much. I would play Q8os here if only to challenge myself to see if I could pick it up out of position. [edit2]: not online though....I do believe a move like this could be more difficult online

Call to see flop, good. Call the flop bet, good. Check the turn, good I guess. Fold the river, I agree but would have probably reluctantly called due to my assumption that the person probably didn't put me on a queen.

LOL



LOL



First, LOL

Second, live players need to make starting hand adjustments and understand their reads are going to be different than live.



Agreeing ...



My new strategy.



Agreed. ALTHOUGH last night, after our NL STRAT conversations about playing from the blinds, I played 5 full table SNGs and CONCENTRATED on releasing blinds unless they were premium hands. I won 3 of the SNGs and cashed second in the fourth and busted out early in the fifth. OBV small sample size but ...



We checked the flop, intending to make someone bluff and got three people calling a flop bet. We got that, they checked the turn, obv representing the failed bluff, then even got the villain to re-bluff the river ....

You are responsible for the stuff you put in your mouth.
It's your mouth; they're your hands.



I don't mind including the hand in our range, depending on how the table is playing.
It's hard to play ANY poker hand in a vaccuum.





LOL



Right and we checked the turn and got him to bluff again, and now we don't want to engage.



Does anyone have data?

I don't have enough hands in PT to have enough trials (like, 50 or more) instances where I have Q8o in the SB. I'm sure people do.

Sigh.
You do realize that just because you're getting 5-1 on your money, that doesn't mean that you get to show a profit, right?
Yeah, you get to play bad hands out of position. I play tons of hands out of the blinds. Against weaker opponents, I don't even mind calling with this hand. My default is folding. You are going to be very hard pressed to be winning pots out of position with a hand that has very little capability to make a strong winning hand.


No, they should fold. The greener the player, the fewer hands they should play. Q8o is a very marginal hand at best in almost any situation. Playing it out of the blinds will result in a slight positive expecation for great players, a break even expectation for many competent players and a negative expectation for the vast majority of the poker world.



LOL
What do you think you give up by folding this hand? Really?
In big bet poker, defending the blinds isn't the biggest deal. Yes, at 6 max you'd better be stealing and defending your blinds or you'll get run over.

Playing hands in position is how you make money. The worse your position, the better your hand should be. That's pretty standard. I guarantee that I'm not any bettter or worse of a player for folding Q8o in the SB every time I see it there. Gimme 34o and I'm limping all day long.

It's not the absolute skill level of the player in the small blind that matters. It's the relative skill of the players. That is, even a newbie can play Q8o in the SB for a profit against complete idiots. And a good player can lose money with it against great players or other good players.

If every time a guy had a chance to limp with Q8o in the SB he instead folded, ordered some expensive rum, pulled out a hundred dollar bill, made an origami Godzilla out of it, placed it in the rum and set it on fire; he could still be a winning player.

Seriously, man...it's pretty standard WA/WB.

The more I read over this hand the more I agree with the fold. After having check called the flop, it is likely that a strong UTG will check again to the button on the turn. A bet by DN here is a waste. The pot is small, the board isn't very friendly and with only weak suppositions on UTG as a player, the best choice long term on the river is to fold.
Players often don't give credit for trips on a paired board but otherwise what is UTG putting the two other players on? Is he even savvy enough to give much thought to his opponents? Is he glued to his kings? Is he not scared of the queens? Is he aware of the queens against two players? Most definitely. So does he have the other queen then? If he does then his kicker is stronger. But maybe he doesn't. So then is he pulling off an audacious bluff? Nah. Fold.
Or perhaps the quiet turn has made him confident that nobody has anything? Perhaps. But still the overcall is suspicious. And he'd have to put both players on junk for this not to be a value bet.
Fold.

I think it's pretty stupid that so many posts are wasted in this thread talking about the unfathomable EV of completeing Q8o in the small blind when whatever you do with Q8 in the small blind when it isn't raised PF doesn't matter one iota in the long run.

I'm pretty sure that we're arguing that it does matter in the long run... hence the references it to being -EV.

They're arguing over something that at most would affect a person's winrate by .00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000001 BB/100 hands.

The rest of the hand is infintely more interesting and important, yet all everyone seems to care about is whether Q8o is a profitable hand to complete from the SB.

PF is the basis of poker, imo. If something is -EV, it's -EV, doesn't matter how minute it is. We're talking about the long run where that negative expectation will add up a lot.

I'm not necessarily sold either way on pf play, I'm just saying that dismissing it is being short sighted, imo.

Preflop is actually an interesting discussion, fwiw.

It does matter how minute it is, and this is incredibly minute.

There's a 0.9% chance of being dealt Q8o PF.

You're in the SB every ten hands.

That's like 1/10 * 1/100.

1/1000, so every thousands hands you sit at a poker table, you'll be dealt Q8o in the small blind.

How many times is it raised PF? 60%? 70%?

If it's 75%, you'll get Q8o in the SB with no raises PF every 4000 hands you sit at a poker table.

It costs you half a big blind to call. Lets imagine every time you complete you lose the half a blind.

That equates to losing a big blind every 8000 hands.

Which equates to losing 0.0125BB/100 hands.

That's an amount not even worth talking about, and this is assuming that every time you complete with Q8 you lose the SB entirely, which as DN and other top pros seem to believe it, this isn't the case.

If you assume that you lose half the SB every time you complete, which is more realistic, then the amount you lose is even more ridiculously minute.

It's not the fact that we're only paying an extra 1/2 of a blind, it's the fact that we're then playing a crappy hand OOP for the rest of the hand.

I have no doubt someone like DN can make this hand profitable in his live games, but 99.9999% of poker players won't be able to play Q8o OOP, and for them, it's not worth the extra 1/2 bb.

Don't bang your head on a wall at me.

Saying that is costs us such a % of BB per hand is taking all of these things into account and making an estimation of how profitable/unprofitable the hand will be in terms of BB per times play.

If Daniel pays 1/2 a BB to play the hand in this spot 100 times, it has cost him 100SBs, if after these 100 hands he's won 200SBs, then he makes an average 1SB/per hand profit. All i was doing was correlating that to show the minute effect it has on winrate.

I don't even understand what we're arguing about, but all I want to explain is that it doesn't matter how big or how small one specific decision is, with respect to it's EV. These things add up. If you know that playing Q8o out of the SB is a losing play (whether it be a 4 BB/100 or 0.000...001 BB/100 losing play), then you should NOT be playing it out of the SB. If it's a winning play (4 BB/100 or 0.000...001 BB/100) you should be playing it from the SB.

Say that it is in fact a -0.0000001 BB/100 mistake to play Q8o here, you can still be a winning player overall, even if you consistently make this specific mistake, but that still doesn't mean you're playing optimally. Our goal in poker is to maximize our EV, not be happy with such and such BB/100 while making small mistakes.

And i was explaning that the difference is so minute and impossible to assatain that it's stupid there's been so much discusion on it compared to the rest of the hand.

The point Zach is making is relatively undisputable. If you assume that your expectation every time that you get Q8o in the SB in a limped pot is -0.5BBs (1 SB) if you complete, then you should fold. It's a losing play. If you don't care about that 0.5BB of -EV, then what's to stop you from making hundreds of other -EV plays that are very small?

Poker is a long run game. In theory, you will eventually play enough hands to see the avg result of every situation balance out. If calling with Q8o from the SB in a limped pot has even the slighest -EV result in the long run after considering all factors, then it's a snap fold when it comes around to you.

Willingly making plays which are -EV overall, no matter how small, is stupid.

I am not even going to question his ability to profit with it in any situation, live OR online. It's just that for almost everyone else (pretty much everyone who posts in this forum, me included obv), calling with Q8o here almsot certainly has a negative expectation, whether it's small or not.

All i was saying is that i found it ridiculous how many words were spent on discussing PF as opposed to the rest of the hand.

It's stupid imo worrying so much about the minute affect completing with Q8o has on your winrate when there are 100000 other more important aspects of your game and thought process you should be worrying about.

This is true, but we're also analyzing THIS hand and not others.

Additionally, if we're making small leaky (my opinion) plays completing with this hand, we're surely doing it with many others as well and the sum of all of those minutely small leaks will add up to something substantial and should be considered.

The rest of the hand isn't like super interesting. I think he plays it incredibly standardly on the flop and turn and I like the fold on the river, though I wouldn't hate a call either. There's so talk about preflop because that's the root of all of the other decisions. If he mucks this marginal hand preflop, he doesn't find himself in a marginal post flop situation which wound up costing him money this time.

This is my first post so I hope I'm doing this right! LOL.

I've been reading the responses and took a day to think about what I would do and what I could potentially put the UTG limper on. Keeping in mind that you were in the SB without a raise in front of you, I don't disagree with the call to see the flop. On the flop, the Button's bet (to me) is a position bet. I would've raised; you would only expect someone who hit the flop to call, no? So potentially the UTG limper calls your raise and the Button folds. You can now derive that, seeing as the UTG is the short-stack in this hand, he hit the flop. He's not going to limp in preflop with a poor hand. He's going to limp with something that he can either push/trap with should he hit the flop. Knowing that, I would not have put him on AA, KK, or AK. Although I don't know how he plays, I would think he would've raised preflop. I could see him limping in, however, with KQ, JQ, or low pockets like 4s. His calling the flop bet leads me to believe that he's not holding a draw hand (8-9, A-K). On the turn, I'm checking. I can't beat 44, Q-10, Q-J, 10-10... Should he check the turn, the river doesn't do anything but dig me in deeper. I'm done.

Is it wrong, Daniel, to raise the original flop bet from the Button? Is it also reasonable to consider that the hand from the UTG is going to be a pretty decent hand considering his chip stack? He wants to see a flop cheaply but it's also going to be good enough to push with?

Imagine for a moment that we limped with Q8o (or anything similar for that matter) in the small blind. Then the table offers us the button position for an additional $25. Would you take it? How about $15? Or $35?

IMO, position on everyone in the hand would easily make the hand worth another $50 (1BB) because I think that we could easily use that to our advantage and make the situation profitable.

Amen, brother!

Therefore, a player who can make money after the flop with Q8o or similar in the small blind should also be playing it on the button.

This is true. Not always something I think of, but definitely a good point.

i think you can find a fold given that UTG overcalled the Flop. But remember the hand against Todd Brunson on HSP there he overcalled with a hand he knew that wasnt good anymore? He just did that to bluff you out on the river, you folded the acehighflush cause you thought he had jacks full ))

The problem is: To UTG your hand is absolutly hidden. The Button might just took a stab on the Flop or has some little to mediocre PP 22-77 and your call could mean everything from a 4 with some random kicker to a silly float attemped. So infact you and the Button have shown so much weakness and a 4 cant really call on that board anymore, so why is he valuebetting that strong given what he thinks about your hand? The UTG limp looks quite donkish btw or perhaps he limped cause a bad player was sitting in the BB or somewhere else at the table or he has some unconventional style.

So i dont think folding is terrible, but this is a quite odd situation and your hand is underrepped. Perhaps he is making a superthin valuebet. If i knew that villian is somehow tricky or loves to make longshotbluffs i would beat him in the pot.

I think the fact that the pot is still relatively small, would lead me to play this hand a little slower. As has been mentioned, either you're way ahead or way behind; and with the overcall on the flop, why risk it? On the river, there's not much need to call this bet. there are too many hands that beat you.