I understand Q8 isn't an easy hand to play, but IMO it's a little too good to justify folding. Here is a question: if you were all in for 25 more would you call or fold? Meaning, you call the SB and then check it down with four players, will you make a profit or not? Clearly I think the answer to that question is an astounding yes.

So, the question lies in how well you play post flop. For a bad player, they shouldn't play ANY hands really, as they'll likely make mistakes with every hand they play and lose more money than they would if they just fold every hand! However, for a winning, capable player, it makes sense to call with the price in the hopes that you A) flop the best hand or are able to represent something on a ragged flop. I think all of the most successful players would call here with Q8 and not think twice about it.

This made me chuckle.

Dan, do you use Poker Tracker? If so, can you filter it so it shows your profit in the blinds? If you don't use PT, would you consider getting it and trying it for a month to see what it says?

Daniel instant messaged me to come check this hand out, and maybe I'll stop by a little more often to include my thoughts.

Preflop is a standard limp for me with a hand like Q8. I think I outplay people a lot more than other people can outplay me in unraised pots. With that said, I think the difference between Q8 and Q7 here is pretty big given the straight possibility with Q8.

On the flop I would check almost every time but might lead with bigger Q's like KQ or AQ. If I lead the flop and get raised, I call, and then if I face a big bet on the turn with a hand like Q8-QJ I dont feel too good, whereas with KQ/AQ it's much easier to call down as there is a significant value difference between Q8-QJ and KQ/AQ on this board. I dont like to check-raise here because that builds the pot when there's no reason to since it'd be sick to get lots of value from worse hands, we're out of position, and there's no draws. The guy who overcalls usually means a Q, I think 444 raises a lot here but is also capable of calling as well as 55-JJ peeling for two outs.

I expect the Turn to be checked a lot and that's what happened, I'm actually pretty happy about this. However the Turn and the River complete 2 of those pocket pairs that might peel although fairly unlikely so I'm not thrilled about that. Although 89 and AK makes straights I'm not concerned about that either. I dont like to bet the river either because I dont know what would call me that I would beat, especially into two players where a lot of flop strength was shown. Overall, I think DN's play is good here and I'd play it the exact same except maybeeeeeee call once in a while on the river against an unknown UTG, if I know him then i dont even bother calling. But I'd like to call to get a feel for his timing tells with what he had and how he actually plays whatever kind of hand he had since it's cheap information.

Smart kid this BoostedJ... :-) Y'all can learn a lot from him.

You recruited him to post in your thread, so you have to agree with him

It is a very good post by BoostedJ.

DN - Your other post about calling the all-in is a valid point and it's certainly an instacall for $25 to see the next 5 cards. I think that if you're that confident that Q8o in the SB will be profitable for you here, or even oEV, which helps balance ranges, then go for it.

To everyone else here, I'm sure that folding Q8o should usually be the more standard play.

Can anybody back up a belief in a positive result with Q8o in the SB in full ring NL with results from 100 hands or more? If so, do you play it on the button?

To be clear, are you asserting that a superior post flop player should play all the hands that would break-even hot & cold? If so, I think this is a counter example:

Villain open raises in early position with a range of nines or better and Ace Jack or better (99+,AJo+,AJs+) for 2.5BB.
Folds to hero in the big blind holding the krablar (K3o). The hero is a 2.7 : 1 dog against his range. The pot is laying him 2.7 : 1.

I think this is a clear fold against all but the weakest opponents (even considering the opportunity to do a stupid dance) for these reasons:

1. The hero has poor position.
2. The hero will have few opportunities to semibluff with this hand.
3. The hero will have few opportunities to value bet with this hand.

The second and third point apply somewhat less to Q8o, but still significantly, imho.
Even really bad players make money on big pairs. Bad players can make money on fewer hands than good players, but it's unrealistic to expect them lose money on all their hands unless we're playing extraordinarily deep.


I suspect that's true of live players. Every time they get involved is a chance to exploit tells. I know I'd be far more likely to play it live than online. I can assure you in either case that it would have absolutely nothing to do with 7 : 1 pot odds and everything to do with the desire to play a hand with a particular opponent.

I really don't think you can flat call the flop bet and then lead right out on the turn. It doesn't make any sense. You would be better off raising the flop if you were going to lead out on the turn because then you would gain a lot more information from villain's reactions. I'm not endorsing a raise on the flop by any means, only saying that a lead out on the turn after c/calling the flop is a bit disingenuous. Also, is there any merit in leading the river after the c/c/c on the turn for a small amount and then folding if raised?

i don't like this call preflop......the only reason i call here every now and again will be to mix up my play, but for straight up value i think its bad.

How do you expect to make profit from this?
Your theory is if you play this hand 7 times, your postflop skills are obviously good enough to win it once, thus breaking even or better. But you're problem is your never going to win a big pot, unless you get a freak flop like Q-8-4, Q-Q-8, 8-8-Q, that is just too unlikely and then to get action aswell.

Sure you can get a flop like 8-4-2, but once again...you won't win a big pot here, u'll either just pickup the 200 pot, or run into an overpair, a set, or whatever...which is alot more likely with the UTG limper....(but you didnt give us a read on him). Thats just another flop like the one that came (Q-Q-4) where you are going to just pickup the 200 pot or throw away some extra chips.

So you paid $25 hoping to be able to pickoff a $175 pot......but ironically the hand ended up costing you exactly an extra $175. Which WILL happen 1 in 7 times i'm afraid, either just from you making a bluff trying to pickup the pot, or getting a small piece of it and playing it out like you did.

So let me get this straight:
- You have a hand where your not even happy with flopping 3 of a kind
- With an UTG limper
- 3 other players in the hand
- Out of position
why bother playing it? WHY!?!
Just pick a better spot, this isnt a tournament...the blinds aren't rising....patience.....

Just because you have good postflop skills does not mean you should pick horrible spots, you will have plenty more opportunities, just pick a better spot and use your great postflop skills there where you are going to be more profitable more often

Anyway thats just what i think, but like i said......if you're just trying to mix up your play thats fine.....and post flop i think you played it perfectly, i agree with your check on the turn for the reasons you said.

That is all

the idea isnt to play Q8o as a premium hand. its the fact that we already have 1/2 the bet required to see a flop in, and we're being offered 7-1 on the other half.

Not really the same idea as playing it from other positions

again, this is like comparing apples and oranges.

you assign villain a range for opening from EP. we obviously do not call the bet here when we know we're pretty well dominated and have a small chance at outplaying someone OOP vs their range. The point that pot odds alone shouldnt be the only factor is obvious.

in the original case, UTG limped. this can be any PP, any suited connecting cards, any face cards, maybe a suited ace.. etc... followed by a few more limps.

I really dont like bluffing in multiway pots, but thats not to say it cant be done effectively , if the flop doesnt hit anyone "hard enough" we can certainly take it down from SB since we also have a large range. and adding to the times we do hit an actual hand

Right.

So we're looking for someone who has a large sample size of NL hands, who plays Q8o from the SB, who has a winrate with it, which is better than the cost of the small blind.

well, im gonna go out on a limb here, but i think anyone on this forum who would have enough hands, that its possible that he had Q,8o in the sb 100 times is probably among the `Dont complete Q8o` group.

then again, who knows.

16 combinations of Q8o, 1,326 variations of 2 card starting hands.

1 in 83 chance of seeing any 1 version of Q,8o. factor in the fullring aspect and having to get it in sb, + having it limp around to you.

= I have no idea.

but hopefully pokerplayer24 sees this and completes Q8

I don't think UTG had a queen although taking this one hand out of the blue doesn't give me a feel for a player. If this were my first hand against the the UTG player and I had no read on him yet. I would probably call the river to get a better feel for his play. All told it was a relatively cheap info hand.

HE might very well have 1010 or JJ . I disagree with you slightly though Boosted J. I think he could have AK. He might have called the flop thinking the button was bluffing and daniel was calling with a 4. I'm not saying I'd have called there with AK but others might have.

When I first saw you folded Daniel I thought are you nuts? But that is because at the levels I play at the player could have called with anything postflop and they simply don't deserve that much respect.

lol i misread the hand.....i was assuming he limped/called pf.........thats why i eliminated AA's and KK's from his range.....i still dont think AA or KK's value bet river.........better Queen, still jams flop, as do 4's...hoping to get called by a hand like DN's....that said, i really think your getting shown 10's or JJ's 90-95% of the time......that just my guess

Fair enough. I only said I'd lead out on the turn because I've taken down many pots this way with hands like this when I sense weakness. I don't do it very often online, just when I get antsy. I do it when I sense weakness in live games, but not very often either.

I still call the river just for the info of knowing what UTG is capable of limping with.

That would explain why it was so easy to debunk.

It's 12 combinations.

Expect to see Q8o in the SB once every ~1000 hands.

(1 / ((4 * 3) / (52 choose 2))) * 9 = 995

Multiply by a factor to account for raised pots

= I have no idea

But I'll make something up anyway. Figure 2 raised pots for every limped one, so I'll say once every 3,000 hands. So I'm looking for a database with 300,000 hands.

Oops, I put in suited hands by mistake.

I call river.. only because you played it super passively.. he is value towning alot of hands.

i like the burger youtube vid. when will the world start caring about slowly killing each other. the fda doesnt seem to care. you being a influential guy and a vegan im surprised you havent had more to say about the food in america. nobody seems to notice, nobody seems to care.

people notice, and people care.

supersize me, for example.

nothing will change because a % of the population loves that food and that lifestyle, so they fuel the problems.

its really your own problem if you live on a poor diet.

Alright, I will show you how green I am....

Q8o SB = CALL.
Post flop = CALL/RAISE (I would have raised)
Post turn = CALL/RAISE (I would have bet, with the stack size hero is supporting, I would have made them all pay2play)
* My guess is that UTG and button would have folded.
Post river= RAISE (At this point hero had the best hand, take what you can)

I surmise that Q8o was the best hand, I would guess that button had paint, and UTG was bluffing, perhaps had a T. But no-one that stayed in for the flop had a flush.

.... but, then I am green.

Thats a raise or - of course much more often - a fold. Dont limp with trash in SB.
Worse, dont limp trash in SB and get passive on a great flop. Thats just mathematics gone really wrong.
As for the river, I definatly like the fold. Against a random player I think you did the right move.

There's not a flush possible on this board.

If you think UTG is bluffing, then raising or betting just discourages him from continuing. Thinking your ahead most of the time isn't sufficient reason to be aggressive. If it turns out that Q8 is the winner against a bluffer, check/call is much more profitable.

"Great" is entirely subjective. I don't view this as a "great" flop. I view this as a WA/WB flop. If we have the best hand, we have the best hand by a mile and not much to fear. If we have the worse hand, we have the worse hand by quite a bit and don't want to get a bunch of money in.

I'd like to point out that BoostedJ and I are mostly in agreement.

Also, you guys know that we can flop a straight with this hand, right? We can win a good pot on a JT9 board outside of someone having KQ. Additionally, everyone keeps saying we're not going to be happy if we flop trips...we're plenty happy if we flop trip 8s.

OK.. Just curious...
Why is everybody discounting the likelihood AKs lucking into a straight at the end?

From looking above, not knowing how long the game was going on, any recent beats maybe laid upon the UTG, etc. He could have limped in UTG, was disgusted by the flop, but knew the button would try to buy the pot, so he hung in there figuring maybe he'd spike the Ace or something. Of course, he'd check the turn to the button. When the river came up and he completed his hand (beating all but a FH), he bet out a value bet.

All that being said, DN betting or (better) raising the flop probably would have pushed him out. But, it likely would have sent the Button packing, too, with the effect being, basically, stealing the blinds. So there wasn't likely to be more money made by checking everything down anyway. Early position sucks don't it.

Noteworthy, I usually play for low stakes, so should I assume from this conversation that people at the $25/$50 can't occasionally play something badly and luck into a made hand?

Flop action? Overcalling with AK when you're likely drawing almost dead is pretty stupid.

Take this for what it's worth:

You aren't going to find any of the most successful no limit players folding Q8 off from the SB. Not Patrick Antonius, not Phil Ivey, etc. I can understand the idea that for lesser players it may be the more profitable play, but the goal should be to make a better play as you improve. The better play is to complete from the SB, no question about it.

I think given the fact, that you could fold a hand like this, and not even really think twice about it, shows why you can play a hand like Q8...most ppl that are arguing about not completing it from the SB, are too afraid to make a big hand, that they cant fold, where they are beat....in which case, they ultimately pay off the value bet....which leaves them with this, "If I had folded pf, i never would of gotten into this situation, feeling"......most ppl are looking to make some sort of hand with it.....you are looking to make a hand as well, but also for the steal situation on ragged flops (as you said), etc., thus i completely understand what your saying.....i just think it depends on the individual player.....for every LAG professional you give me, I could give you the same amount of TAG professionals, that would lay that down pf.......Sbrugby, Green Plastic, even prolly Jennifer H. (LOL @ YOU VALUE BETTING THE 5 high flush draw vs her....on PAD)....i LOVED IT

Harman would never fold that hand in a million years.

Well, Harman mightve won the pot

I'm on the "completeQ8 in sb"wagon. i said so right from the start of this thread

now, anyways, to the real issue at hand.

who was UTG, and did u guys talk about the hand after?

any results?

lol ya that was a dumb example on my part lol...but i've seen her fold better, in similiar situations...i might have to do a lil research and re-watch HSP season 3 and 4......i swear i saw a couple hands where she folded better holdings then this from the SB....but im sure post-flop...she's able to dissect it and fold....w/o second guessin herself....

FROM FULL-TILT POKER CHAT ARCHIVE.

QUESTION FROM HitRockBottom1: what is the best strategy for NLH cash games?

ANSWER FROM Jennifer Harman: I would say to play pretty tight in early positions and play more hands in the later positions.

Actually, when I was a bit more fresh I´d complete that SB every time.
I kept reading that I shouldnt, but thought I was getting too good value to fold. Now a days I would only do it if im up against really bad players. If someone is likely to give me his stack with QK on Q8x, then yes, lets see a flop. But then, if im up against really bad players I´d often even raise it concidering I woudnt respect the limpers and I would like to enhance my metagame in the process.

My problem is not that I coudnt lay down a monster. I´ve thrown away far better hands than that whenever my opponents range dictates it.
My main problem with the hand isnt really completing SB either. It is the passive aproach. I mean; complete SB with "trash", check/call your floped trips, check/check the turn, and check/fold the river. If we think the flop is good, we want more money in there. If we think its bad, we dont. Its not like we are going to pay potsize to chase a 3-outer. And in either case, if we arent going to get payed of by a worse hand, what is Q8o doing in our range OOP? It doesnt add up. I know DN is a great player, but I dont think that justifice such a passive aproach.

EDIT:
I might add that about a year ago I´d play the hand pretty much exactly like DN did, and I cant for sure say its "wrong" as I did make money back then as well. But all in all, it feels like a bad idea.

They could all be leaking some very small amount with this play and not notice it during their lifetimes. People don't rise to the top level who don't have a bit of hubris about their skill. That doesn't make that hubris right in all situations.

As a little joke on me, I have to confess I completed with J7o while typing my first post on this subject without really paying attention.

Newbie alert!

I'm sure I'll deserve all kinds of crap for this question, but since I'm bad and want to get better... Why don't we lead the flop here?

I think completing the SB is a no-brainer (but I suck, so what do I know).

I understand that this isn't a dream flop, because QJ, QK, Q10, 44 (all very likely limp hands IMO) have us crushed. Are we worried about getting called and getting no information and setting ourselves up for more losses later?

Similarly after the check around on the turn, would we ever lead the river? (I know the board is even more dangerous now, but it just seems like we're setting up someone behind us to steal this too easily).

Checking the flop giving the button a chance to bluff, which apparently he does. (Both the other villains can't have queens here. We could theoretically be up against a queen a full house, but that's pretty unlikely.)

It's most likely that no one has a pair other than the one on the board, so if we bet out it's hard for a hand that we beat to call.

Yeah, that makes sense.



If we're not going to call this down to the end, don't we want everyone else to fold here? The weakness we've displayed all along just invites people to steal later (doesn't it?)

Isn't it better to win a small pot here than to lose a bigger pot later? (be gentle, remember I suck and am trying to learn...)

Yeah, it's better to win a small pot.

Here's the way I (and I believe Daniel also) think about the hand. There are only two possibilities:

1) We're way ahead.
2) We're way behind.

If we're way ahead and we lead the flop, they probably both fold. We made the minimum after the flop. If we check and call, check the turn, and then call or make a bet on the river, we can make money on two streets.

If we're way behind, we lose money on every bet we make.

So in either possibility, it's better to play the hand pretty slow. We can still call the river if we think we're ahead (even a small fraction of the time). We learned new information by the action on the flop that we're unlikely to be ahead. The action on the flop didn't cause us to be behind; we just learned from it.

Thanks David, I think I understand. The best thing that can happen is everyone folds, the worst is that everyone calls and we have the same or less info as check/call?

Now let me ask this... What did we learn on the flop and turn? Is there any card that comes on the river that would be ok for us to lead or call?

I don't think we anticipated this, but when UTG calls after we've already called; it's pretty clear that he has a big hand. The button can clearly be stealing or value betting something pretty weak, but our call looks extremely strong. His call really says he can beat a lot of queens.

You guys throw away Q8os in the small blind?

That's news to me. I dont' play online for cash, but I play at various B&M's in Los Angeles.

If you're that concerned to call $25 into that pot with Q8os then maybe you should play lower stakes or something. Daniel is right. One reason I look up to players like Daniel is their ability to play these hands, see a flop, and outplay their opponents....

Also @ Daniel: your television personality suggests you can be a POW sometimes with hands/boards like this. So, great fold - likely this is a value bet with any number of hands that have you beat, straight, or boat, or higher Q's. I read an article once written by Todd Brunson about players like this, mirror players. Limp, Call, Check, Bet....smells like a trap with that board. Your hand is probably the exact hand he was hoping someone would have.

UTG played well if he turned a boat too. Someone said he could have had AK, true, or even 89! It's more likely though that he checked to the button on the turn hoping someone else would make a hand like that....or letting the button hang himself.

One thing I would wonder is why you check that flop, and not bet. I would make maybe a 1/2 pot size bet there to feel out the other queens (yes out of position I guess?). The only trouble you get in is with those mirror players who smooth call you, which means you probably have to check the turn and fold to a large bet? Either way you lose the same, but have more control. But there's a reason I am just an amateur and maybe these minor difference in play are it....

The assertion that you should muck Q8o in the SB has nothing to do with fear of losing half a bet or what $25 or whatever 1SB means to us financially. It has to do with the belief that it's better to muck the hand because in the long run, we will not show an average profit of >1SB by playing this hand.

Being a great player, Daniel understands that there are times for aggressiveness and times for passiveness. This is one of those appropriate times for passiveness. You can't just stop at the maxim that all great players are aggressive. Yes, aggression is a major tool and will outweigh the passivity. That said, a player needs to have a wide range of tools to approach a wide range of hands. Our goal is to maximize our value regardless of how that characterizes our action.

I couldn't of said it better....this is exactly what I was trying to explain to DN

Indeed, the way Daniel played the hand limited the amount he lost. Clearly anyone who doesn't have

a) an over-pair to the board
a queen
c) two 4s

has no business in that pot. If UTG has a queen, its very probable that his kicker is higher than Daniel's because Daniel's kicker is the lowest possible that it still makes sense to call the blinds with. Obviously, if UTB has two 4s, Daniel's had it. The only hand Daniel can beat is the over-pair. After the Button bet 150, I would be inclined to raise to 400, just to see where I'm at in the hand. If I get calls, I know I'm beat. From a long term perspective, Daniel's play is correct, because he lost the least possible, although he clearly didn't WIN anything this way. I think the way you'd play this hand greatly depends on what kind of player you are.

Daniel, if this hand occured in a tournament, rather than a cash game, would you have played it the same way?

Probably depends a lot on stack sizes (and stage of the tournament).

Daniel knows what people are saying. He's just making the reasonable assertion that he (and other players of a high enough skill level) can play hands this weak from the SB and still show a profit. I question that assertion only for the reason that he might not have the actual data to back it up, but that's kind of a silly point to make because without software like pokertracker, it's basically impossible to figure these things out anyway.

For anyone who's not at or very near the level of DN and certain other high stakes professional players (with regards to overall skill), I can probably say with a high degree of certainty that completing the SB with Q8o is going to be a losing play for you in the long run.

But the question is: was this a good time to get passive? I think not.
First, because DN is such a good player, its easy to justify his every move with "things that only makes sense to him". But thats simply not right. Every player makes bad plays. DN is probably the player who I´ve learned the most from and who I respect the most, but I have seen him make bad plays none the less. This hand isnt a huge misstake, but I still disagree with the apoach.

So, we are going to limp SB with Q8o. Then, what do we expect? Do we expect to win the money already in the middle >1/7 times? Might be fair odds, but im actually not sure. BB will often raise, and we loose our 0.5BB without seeing a flopp. Even if he is a passive noob he might wake up with AK/AQ or anything else he simple wont check. Most of the times we will flop nothing. And, judging from the outcome on this particulair hand, we dont really expect our opponents to bluff thus we will fold and loose our 0.5BB every time someone bets and we dont hit a monster.

Do we expect to hit a monster? What is a monster? Is QQ4 a monster? Because if its a monster, we cant just check/call potsize,check/check/,check/fold if we want our make our Q8o SB play pay off.

Heres another thought: what if 9TJ hits? Now thats a dream flop for this hand. Will we get payed by 78? Probably. Will we pay QK? Definatly. We are out of position and probably go brooke. Sure, there´s 99/TT/JJ. But: 1) Its highly unlikely 2) Its not very far behind.

(stupid comment ----------->)
On the one hand, we obviously dont think people are going to pay us when we hit QQ4 if we dont go passive. We give them that respect, otherwise we woudnt play it passive. If its a crowd of loose players, theyde call an opening bet and sometimes even a raise with a pocket above 4, or maybe even call with something like A4s, and thats a fair range. On the other hand, we dont think they are willing to bluff when they sense weakness. We dont give them that respect. That tells me two things:
- We havent really decided whether we play against a bunch of fishes or a bunch of pros
- Why on earth do we play call/check-poker if we dont expect people to take a stab at the pot, while our draw is as low as 4 outs?
(<-----------------------------)

Yes, DN is exceptional on reading weekness, and might steal some pots after limping SB. But he did call a decent bet on the flop and was pretty lost in the hand, so its not an automatic +EV move to just to be in the pot even if your name is DN. We could fold the flop, meaning we could expect something even better. But then, once again, I dont think the odds we get makes it worth it.

All in all, I dont know why we limp SB in a crowd we havent really pegged. I dont know why we call the flop and then get passive, only to fold when someone "finaly" takes a stab.

EDIT:

While I still hold true to the "fold SB!!!" part, I like to back away from the bashing of the particulair hand. I´ll blame the fact that im sick, and mixed up while typing. Checked the hand again, and of course noticed the riverbettor act behind him on the flop, meaning DN might have pretty much given up on the hand on that moment. But still, that goes to show just how bad of a position SB is.