Reopening the betting with pocket queens in no limit

Pocket queens just might be one of the worst hands in poker when it comes to players overplaying it. Let us look at a typical situation with regards to how this hand could be played by a novice. The game is no-limit Texas Holdem and the stakes are $50 buy-in. An early position player makes it $1.75 to go and a player in middle position three bets to $7 and it is then folded to you on the button with Q-Q. All three of you have $50 stacks so you each have 100 big blinds before the hand starts.

If you re-raise here and four bet then you are basically committing yourself to the hand for your entire stack. A pot sized raise by you will put around half of your stack in the middle and if the flop comes all low cards then you cannot avoid committing the other half. But if you reopen the betting in this way then you are leaving yourself open to getting shoved on.

Each hand has a key decision point and it is wise to know where that is. It may be very early in the hand (pre-flop) but your key decision point is right now. If you four bet then your opponents cannot make a mistake here. Your four bet pre-flop in full-ring is in fact representing a hand stronger than Q-Q. Your bet to your opponents looks like AA or KK and not QQ. Because you have QQ then they are not likely to have QQ so the likelihood of hands like AK and AA,KK rises.

If they have hands like AKs or heaven forbid JJ then most decent players would lay these hands down but KK and AA would likely stack off and a five bet all-in pre-flop shove is basically telling you that they have one of these hands. So are you really going to call that bet with a hand that is only a marginal favourite against AK? You are basically hoping that your opponent has taken leave of their senses and shoved all-in for 100 big blinds when the betting all around them screams of “premium pair” with a hand that you dominate like jacks!

This is simply not feasible and if you allow the pot to escalate now then you will have surpassed the key decision point and be pot committed. If you are not pot committed then you will have lost half of your stack anyway if your opponent calls and an ace or king falls on the flop then what can you do? Or they shove all-in pre-flop and you fold then you have still lost half of your stack without ever having seen a flop.

If you can identify the key decision points in a poker hand when you learn how to play poker then you can keep yourself from getting into an awful lot of trouble. In this example then the key decision was before the flop. Your hand may be strong with QQ but that strength has to be relative to what is also out there. I would much rather run a three barrel bluff with air then get my stack in here with queens.

Carl “The Dean” Sampson

Popularity: 1% [?]