How would you play AQ out of position?

LARSON7

Here is a hand below, not the best example. AQ out of position, so raise preflop to thin numbers,

If we miss the flop, we can cont bet but it's a lot more difficult out of position.

On this board below, it's not the best of flops so i just check fold, what is the best way to play this type of hand?

Raiser bigger preflop? Continuation bet?

pompeyred	Small blind		£0.02	£0.02	£4.70
GR8M8	Big blind		£0.04	£0.06	£4.50
	Your hole cards	Q A
LARSON7	Raise		£0.16	£0.22	£7.83
Trod85	Fold
BLIND-PUGH	Call		£0.16	£0.38	£2.22
pompeyred	Fold
GR8M8	Fold
Flop
		J 7 6
LARSON7	Check
BLIND-PUGH	Bet		£0.19	£0.57	£2.03
LARSON7	Fold
BLIND-PUGH	Muck
BLIND-PUGH	Win		£0.35		£2.38
BLIND-PUGH	Return		£0

dre136

Bet size pre flop is fine really. Personally i'd be C betting this flop more times than not, usually youre just going to get flatted leaving you to re evaluate the turn, checking the flop just allows your opponent to take a stab at the pot. Playing any hand out of position is difficult, you just cant win them all.

BorinLoner

If your opponents are paying attention after this hand, they will all now have notes on you saying "raises pre-flop and checks flop when he has nothing".

When you go heads-up to a flop you should be c-betting a high proportion of the time, particularly at this level where you generally get honest responses from people - They fold when they have nothing. This board isn't a brilliant one because it contains a few draws but you will still get folds from a decent number of his pre-flop calling hands.

Making the half-pot c-bet means you only need to get a fold from him one third of the time to break even. The bigger your usual c-bet, the less profitable it will be as a bluff.

Your pre-flop raise should be the same size with all of your hands. That should be a hard and fast rule in your mind.

unknown_username

In Response to Re: How would you play AQ out of position?:

If your opponents are paying attention after this hand, they will all now have notes on you saying "raises pre-flop and checks flop when he has nothing". When you go heads-up to a flop you should be c-betting a high proportion of the time, particularly at this level where you generally get honest responses from people - They fold when they have nothing. This board isn't a brilliant one because it contains a few draws but you will still get folds from a decent number of his pre-flop calling hands. Making the half-pot c-bet means you only need to get a fold from him one third of the time to break even. The bigger your usual c-bet, the less profitable it will be as a bluff. Your pre-flop raise should be the same size with all of your hands. That should be a hard and fast rule in your mind.
Posted by BorinLoner

Another fine post by borinloner.

You were the pre flop raiser so just continue on the flop. Bet half pot as a c bet as said above and dont worry too much about what you bet when you make a hand as they very rarely notice at NL4. The flop could be better for a c bet but nonetheless it should just be an auto c bet vs one opponent.

craigcu12

larson with hands like AK AQ KQ wiith a board j high it is always better to do a cbet because what you can then do is get a better chance of making villians with a pair fold and also it will help hide the A and K so if a villian called with A high and saw an A on the turn he will get excited right away and bet without even thinking you might have c bet with AK AQ KQ.
in NL4 tight aggressive play is best and most villians don't think enough about what you could hold all they thinking is "i'll make the call preflop with my raggy ace and kings suited cards and pictures and see if i can hit" cbets are very safe and get villians folding very easy.
the hardest thing with nl4 now is getting paid well with you monsters flush and straight draws i see so many that will just fold right away some will even fold when they get reraise after they only just raise our bet and or basically will just wait until the river then bet big as you saw with that set of jacks

z	Small blind		£0.02	£0.02	£4.06
z	Big blind		£0.04	£0.06	£10.67
	Your hole cards	5 5
craigcu12	Raise		£0.16	£0.22	£3.87
z	Fold
x	Call		£0.16	£0.38	£2.80
z	Fold
z	Fold
z	Call		£0.12	£0.50	£10.55
Flop
		2 Q 5
z	Check
craigcu12	Bet		£0.25	£0.75	£3.62
x	Call		£0.25	£1.00	£2.55
z	Fold
Turn
		J
craigcu12	Bet		£0.75	£1.75	£2.87
x	Raise		£1.50	£3.25	£1.05
craigcu12	All-in		£2.87	£6.12	£0.00
x	Fold
craigcu12	Muck
craigcu12	Win		£3.70		£3.70
craigcu12	Return		£2.12	£0.30	£5.82

LARSON7

Heres an example with AK, should this always be a 3 bet? I was happy to call playing it out of position, dont know if i should be 3 betting these type of hands

LARSON7	Small blind		£0.02	£0.02	£3.21
Gibbo77	Big blind		£0.04	£0.06	£2.61
	Your hole cards	A K
jonjon78	Raise		£0.12	£0.18	£3.30
dobo81	Fold
the-future	Fold
gottalent	Fold
LARSON7	Call		£0.10	£0.28	£3.11
Gibbo77	Fold

Slipwater

I really hate playing AQ in any position - it often trips me up wherever I am and whatever I do! I think the moral is: be careful, as it's a hand that can get you into a lot of trouble.

skeg01

Definitely c-bet the AQ hand, if you get called then re-evaluate on the turn (an ace or a queen might even come as well you can't rule that out) and with the ace-king hand, definitely 3bet oop, you won't like to play ace-king post flop oop if you miss, but if you have the betting lead going into the flop it is a bit easier.

You shouldn't hate AQ, it is a really strong starting hand, but i am probably just saying that because it is so profitable for me haha

craigcu12

with AK larson you should alway do a full reraise especially AKs have you not noticed that normally when me and tintin have AK and are raised we end up shoving it preflop the only two hands that you are still well behind too are AA and KK. Even QQ is not that big a favourite to AKs. the best hands you should probably just call a raise on the BB preflop is AJo KQs KJs and 1010 but even these should still be raised if they had just min bet.
as for AQo-AKo+  AJs-AKs+ and JJ+ always do a reraise because far to many nl4p villian will make raised with any suited cards and aces.

if you are in position i would even include KQo KQs and KJs as hand you can reraise because bluffs will be possible.
it is when you get into the bigger stake and are playing in MTTs where you have to be more careful.

BorinLoner

You shouldn't seek out a set of instructions for playing a particular hand or type of hand. You need to play the particular situation. It may be best to have a "usual" manner of play but you need to understand why you're doing what you're doing and when it's appropriate to do something else.

You're really asking the wrong questions when you ask "Should I 3-bet with AK?". The questions you should be asking when considering 3-betting are always:

i) Which hands does my opponent open-raise with?
ii) Which hands does my opponent call my 3-bet with?
iii) Which hands does my opponent 4-bet?
iv) Which hands does my opponent fold to a 3-bet?
v) How does he play post-flop if I don't 3-bet?
vi) How does he play post-flop If I do 3-bet and he calls?

There are other questions but you get the idea.

You need to think about these questions before thinking about your own hand. Once you've answered them, ask yourself which action is best with your particular hand based on your opponent's likely response.

For example:

1) We're facing a raise from an opponent we know has a very wide opening range and who will call 3-bets with any Ax, Kx, suited connectors or small pocket pair. With all of these hands he plays fit-or-fold on the flop. He only 4-bets with QQ+ or AK but he ALWAYS 4-bets these hands.

This opponent is the perfect opponent to 3-bet with a strong hand like AK. He won't fold any of the hands we dominate and will play all of the hands that dominate us completely face-up. We can even 3-bet-fold AK versus this opponent and be confident that we've played the hand profitably.


2) We face a raise from a very tight opponent. His pre-flop raising range is very narrow and he folds all the weaker hands in his range to a 3-bet. He only 4-bets or calls with super-strong hands. 

This opponent is a very poor opponent to 3-bet with AK. The only hands he continues with are hands that are beating us. He folds lots of weaker hands when we 3-bet but we can keep his range wider by just calling. We'll want to try to keep the pot small, post-flop against this opponent if we don't hit a big hand.



Whenever we make a bet or raise we should be doing so for one of two reasons: To gain value from weaker hands or to try to bluff better hands. Knowing which hands your opponent calls with and which he folds is obviously key.

That general idea doesn't change when we're out of position. Being out of position does make things tougher post-flop but we always want our opponent to put more money into the pot when we have the best hand and we always want our opponent to fold when he has the best hand.

You should ask yourself the same questions when playing a hand like 22. The player in our first example isn't just a great player to 3-bet with AK, he's a great player to 3-bet (in position) with any hand: He calls alot pre-flop and just folds post-flop when he misses. This also means he's a poor player to set-mine against because he'll rarely have a hand to pay us off when we hit.

So against the type of player in our first example we can 3-bet any old garbage (near enough), while against the player in our second example we should only 3-bet a very narrow part of our range, perhaps none of our range at all.


Play your opponent's range. Ask yourself which hands you can get him to fold and if you want him to fold them; which hands you can get him to call with and if you want him to call with them. You shouldn't allow yourself to think things like "I have AK and that means an automatic 3-bet".

LARSON7

Cheers boring, your post makes a lot of sense.

I was having my weetabix this morning reading your post on my iphone lol

I was thinking what a brilliant post!

I was always worried i reraise with AK, if im reraised what do i do, i'm compelled to shove or call/ Hit a flop play a big pot/ miss a flop and fold.

I've never really thought about it in the context of i'm putting opponent of range x-x

Totally different dimension to the game, and shows just how complex poker is.

Your knoweldege on poker, did you just read up a lot on poker or just watching learning from websites and the like?

BorinLoner

I'm no more knowledgable about poker than Lambert, Rancid, GregHogg or dozens of others. They just have families and friends and better things to be doing than spending so much time writing about these things.

I don't have better things to be doing. lol

I've been posting in here since the start of last year. While I wasn't a poker idiot back then by any means, I think my unerstanding has been significantly refined by regularly posting and debating things with others. Sometimes they've convinced me that I was wrong, sometimes I've convinced them that they were wrong.

Be willing to stick your neck out and detail your own thoughts. If someone feels your view on something is wrong, defending that view will either reinforce it if it's a good idea or dispel it if it's a flawed idea. Either way, you gain something.

10NGY

I'd say that the first example is a great position to cbet... we do have equity in the hand with two overs and even a back door flush draw. We can't say the opponent doesn't have two hearts but its more likely he doesn't so we could even check call and see if we can represent on the turn if we miss again? I don't think you need to fold. IMO the pre flop raise is a bit aggro. If we miss the flop like we did things are getting steep because the pot is already a decent size. I know you're trying to get rid of any random player liking their 56 hearts etc but I think 12p can do that most of the time.

percival09

c/f is fine op

waller02

In Response to Re: How would you play AQ out of position?:

c/f is fine op
Posted by percival09

melons />lemon

LARSON7

It's a tough one, Doyle Brunson reputdely wont even play AQ!

I am happy with the first hand check folding, based on the opponent, how he played before, and the board texture. As boring said every situation is different, i know most people would contination bet this all the time, but some times i think it's fine to check, and indeed check fold.

If i call this bet, i'm in a horrible spot, but interesting playing this hand out of position. I might do a doyle brunson and not even get involved with AQ lol