What is everyone's experience with KQ(o)? As for me, it has cost me some money over the past week. I will focus on the negative as I have forgotten anything positive I am really starting to regard this hand as a trap hand. Bobby Baldwin is the only author I can think that has grouped this hand in the trap hand category and now I know why.
Last Sat.: final table in a tourney and totally misplayed the hand. Knocked out 9th. I won't even go over the hand because I'm embarassed about the way I played it.
Last night: Almost doubled my initial buy-in and was getting ready to cash out. I say to myself...'one more round of blinds and I'm gone'. Next BB hand brings me KQ(o). UTG raises which doesn't mean too much as he was a weak raiser. A few people stay in and I call. The only thing I remember about the flop is that I was left with 2 overcards and 3 to a flush(hearts). Actions not too heavy so I stay in for one more card. Turn brings a J of hearts. So, I stay in for the card 5 and hit heart #4. Bet out, get raised, call, and meet A9(o) at showdown. The Ace was a heart and 2nd best doesn't win the pot.
The very next hand: KQ(o) again in the SB. A player who just entered the game raised from the middle and I called like a dumb ass w/o knowing how he played. I hit my K on the flop, bet, and he calls. We were heads up by the turn which is another blank. Well, not really, it left a 3 4 5 on the board. I bet, get called. River is a 2, I check, he bets, and I call full well knowing he most likely had the Ace...AK(o) to be exact. So, he had me beat the whole way.
I finshed up for the night, but these 2 hands really ate into my profit for evening. Actually, maybe it was just things evening out since I was up more than I should have been.
Anyway, I'm really starting to think that KQ(o) usually leaves you with 2nd best. Any thoughts?
I totally agree with you, KQo sucks when someone raises. I'll almost never call 2 bets cold with it unless I know the raiser is really weak in which case I might re-raise. If I hit my flop decently (i.e. top pair on a rainbow board) my strategy is to become aggressive if there was no raise pre-flop and passive if there was one. I've found that checking and calling with KQ and top pair is often a better play against a preflop raiser and only a couple players. Someone with something like JJ or TT may bet all the way with only one non-ace overcard out, or someone with AK (with a Q on flop) or AQ (with a K on flop) may bet all the way. In this way, you win more when your hand holds up and lose less when it's no good. Against a lot of players, it may be best to bet into the raiser so that he raises and knocks people out, then you can play passively with less worry abouy draw-outs.
As for your hand where you made the K-high flush, I don't agree with you staying past the flop. I'm not sure what limits you play, but from my experience at $10-20 and under, unless you have at least a gutshot on the flop to go with two overcards, dump it, particularly with more a couple people in the pot. Drawing with the one card runner-runner flush chance will cost you a lot of money (especially with KQ) not only because it's a longshot to hit but also because it won't always be good, particularly when opponents play any ace.
The problem with KQ is that it can win a lot of pots, but they are not good ones unless you suckout a Broadway or hit top two. But they can get you caught up in big heads up situations,drawing rail-thin. So they tend to win small and lose big in bad odds situations.
Ya, in hindsite this was pretty dumb. Playing overcards is one area of my play that needs some work. I am definitely going to focus on this in the very near future. Thanks for the feedback.
King Queen off are good if you have the psychological edge with them. If you don't don't play them on a raise unless you get odds to draw for straight. Too many times you will get dominated by Ace King or KK or AA to be worth your while mano a mano........
Pokertracker helped me prove what I've always suspected, that KQo is one of my weakest hands. I still play KQ to some extent, but after seeing the results on pokertracker where KQo ended up being my number one losing hand, I'm going to ditch it out of my starting hand selection.
Of course this doesn't mean KQo sucks, but for me personally it does, maybe I push it too hard and that's what giving me these results but I am not a fan of KQo at all.
The raiser utg may have been a weak raiser but what about those "few people" who cold called his raise? Were they all weak players? I think you should have folded KQo. KQo is fine in the right circumstances but these weren't right.
Ahhh... the KQ offsuit. Also known as the 'Kournikova'... because it looks good but never wins. hah hah.
Yep, KQos just busted me out of a tournie (actually it was losing a 50/50 followed quickly by losing an AJs to a JTos straight on the river that really did the damage).
Relatively short stacked at about 2200 blinds coming round to me (600) so I thought KQos was as good as any to make a stand.
SB called my all-in and so did the BB (bugger). Flop came 6 K 7 I think so I had hope. Took their opportunity to check, turn 9, check, check, river 8. (big bugger)
SB turns over AQos and BB turns over T2s! From memory he wasn't loaded with chips (UltimateBet hand history feature is crap for getting info back) but I guess for an extra 1600 felt he had to call.
With a hand like KQ, I'm hoping to hit a perfect flop, top two pair, straight draw, or top pair in a short handed game. If I don't get that, I'm out on any resistance unless the flop is garbage and I can draw for top pair cheaply (assuming I feel it can win). I will only do this in an unraised pot where if I do hit a hand like top pair, I can bet out, or call down with a fair amount of confidence that my hand is probably good. If the pot is raised pre flop, you have to consider what cards you may be up against. I play low stakes no limit, so a raiser could have any ace, but they could also have a legitimate hand. Hands like AK,AQ, and KK will be your most trouble. If you flop anything less than top two pair, you have no idea where you stand.
Good feedback from all. You substantiated what I was getting at...KQ (suited or not) needs to be played carefully.
Here are my stats from poker tracker:
KQ(s): played 14 times - 28.57 win % - currently down $11.30
KQ(o): played 33 times - 30.30 win % - currently up $6.22
drum roll...for a net loss with KQ.
I will be looking into this (as well as other hands) as a leak point in my game.
#1 all the way. The way I see NL is that it thrives on implied odds. If I can see the flop for 1 or 2 BB and make a hand against a player with 200 BB in front of him, well then I'm getting 200:1 implied odds for my hand. At the limits I play it is very easy to get people all in when you make a hand with low cards, especially if you are against AA or KK. The reason I like strategy #1 is that it goes against the "correct" way to play in limit games, and at the NL stakes I play most people are either generally poor players or so-so limit players. So when a guy raises 3BB with AA and I call from the button with 57s and flop 346 rainbow, he's more than willing to go all in with me. Not to mention breaking someone with Jc5c will do wonders for your table image. People will be scared to get involved with you on trash flops.
Pre-flop, I'm more likely to call raises with low suited connectors and gappers, but I will fold hands like AQ, AJ and AT (unless suited) KQ,KJ, and JQ. Reason being is that if the board comes out low cards, I may have made a hand against his big cards. But if I called with the aformentioned hands and hit top pair, how can I know my kicker is good or he doesn't have an overpair like AA? AQ vs AK can be a big money loser, but 67s vs AK will either be a big winner or a get out cheap hand.
Strategy #1 necessitates tight-aggressive post-flop play. More than that, it really, really requires you to play a good post-flop game. You really need to know how to play the board and the players once the cards fall.
If I have big hands pre-flop, of course I raise. I do this not to build pots, I don't care about building pots, I want my opponents whole stack. I either want the blinds, or I want to get heads up with a hand that figures to be a favorite. If I raise pre-flop, I'm going to bet the pot on the flop if called. I want to take it down. With big cards I really just want to steal blinds. This gives me bets to play smaller cards that I can use to make hands against opponents later.
As far as strategy #2, most people who I see play that way overdo it, and although they can force bad players to make bad calls out of frustration, a good player will pick a spot and then do some serious damage. I see it all the time, especially players who go all-in almost every hand. They can only jam pots for so long before somebody makes a hand against them, and of course the will push one time too many and get broke. I was playing against a guy at $10 NL who was jamming almost every pot. I tried playing back at him one time and he moved in on me. I couldn't call. It took me two hours, but finally I made a hand against him and busted him.
I'm still learning. Well we all are, but me more than most. I only have about 15 hours of Texas Holdem under my belt and all local tournaments.
Last tournament I played my table was loose aggressive. Only one hand that didn't have at least 2 players stay in after the river ( large stack all-in with the nuts ). I virtually never got anything under and I folded often. On the hands I played the flop never helped. On the hands I folded the flop wouldn't have helped either. ( Amazing that 2 at the table of 9 were out before me ). But I did learn something.
Both players who went out before me had each played an early hand when they shouldn't, stayed to the river, and won when they had about 3 or 4 outs. Again there were some "nice play" and "good sack" comments ( as if these players knew their card was there for Pete's sake ). This emboldened them to play reckless and they were the first two eliminated even though I NEVER raked. I lost early, but learned something about the thin line between aggressive and reckless.
And it might help me not to go on tilt after a few hands where the flop does match the cards I "rightly" discard.
