A Badly Misplayed Hand

In loose-aggressive limit hold'em games, some of the most difficult hands to play are those that I really love in either tight-aggressive or loose-passive games: pocket queens and pocket jacks. In games in which lots of people see the flop even for multiple bets, these hands are often too good to get away from but very hard to defend after the flop if you have what you want: an overpair to the board. Because of the huge pot and the small size of the bets in relation to the pot, people are usually committed to go all the way to the river even with hands as marginal as a gutshot or bottom pair/ace kicker. Now, of course, if you flop a set with your Q-Q or J-J under these circumstances, it is a highly profitable situation (with people putting in a lot of money when drawing thin or even dead), but in almost any other case, your big pair will be very hard to play.



I like queens and jacks even less if, under the game conditions described here, I am up against an early-position raiser whom I don't know or who seems to have very tight raising standards. In a $10-$20 game recently, I was up against someone who had both of these characteristics. (I had never played with him before, and from what I had seen, he needed a great hand to raise from up front.) Possibly because of this, I misplayed my pocket queens in a way that probably would not have happened under more "normal" circumstances – say, in less crazy games than this one and/or against people I could read more easily.



The Situation
While waiting for my regular pot-limit game to start, I got into a very juicy $10-$20 game. I had two rather inexperienced players to my left who knew about my reputation as a rock, but who still played back at me with some rather marginal holdings. To their left was a man in a wheelchair who asked the dealer after every flop to call the cards "because he could not see them." I had noticed that every time he had a good hand, he was able to see the boardcards properly. I didn't know if he was a very experienced player who was trying to act weak and ignorant or if he genuinely had problems coping with the speed of the game. What I did know was that in more than an hour of play, he had not made one single preflop raise – but on this hand, he raised from under the gun, making it $20 to go. From his general demeanor, I put him on a premium hand. To tell you the truth, I put him on aces or kings, and maybe queens, jacks, or A-K, but almost certainly a hand that he thought was a monster.



Two relatively loose players called his raise. On the button, I looked down at exactly the hand I did not want to see in this situation: pocket queens. While under normal conditions, against people I know very well, I am usually very good at making the correct preflop and post-flop decisions, in this case I didn't like my hand much. The reason: I didn't know enough about this player to be absolutely certain of anything he said or did. Thus, I was uncertain as to how I should rate the strength of my own holding. Instead of reraising with my quality hand (what most people would have done in this situation) or folding (what I might have done in a tight-aggressive game against someone I could confidently put on a monster*), I decided to simply flat-call. As expected, both blinds called, meaning we had six players for the flop – and I had no clue what any of them held at this stage.

*While folding a premium hand before the flop can sometimes be correct if the pot is small and you have an extremely good read on someone, in this case I knew it would probably be a five- or six-way pot. This meant that I would almost be getting the proper odds to call the raise with any pocket pair on set value alone! So, in a multiway pot like this, folding seemed out of the question – and even more so because of my good position, having most of the action in front of me.



Post-Flop Action: A Few Bad Mistakes and Lapses in Judgment

With the action flop 10 9 3, and knowing the tendencies of some of my opponents, I wasn't too pleased with my two queens, despite the fact that I had flopped an overpair. This was mostly because of the likelihood of big action when I would not know exactly where I was at, and because I knew that if I was behind, I would be drawing very thin. The small blind led into the preflop raiser, the big blind called, the preflop raiser immediately raised again, and the two players in the middle called quickly. I took my time to try to analyze this situation. For all the world, it looked like the preflop raiser had an overpair to the board. Now, if he did, it almost certainly would be bigger than mine, as I thought it was much more likely that he had kings or aces than jacks (and very unlikely that he had the other two queens). What's more, if for whatever reason my read on him before the flop had been incorrect and he had a relatively weak hand like nines or tens, he now would have outflopped me and I would be drawing to two outs or fewer. Also, the small blind had led into the preflop raiser, so it was entirely possible that he had outflopped me, as well! Another problem was the fact that there were almost no cards on the turn that I would really welcome that would give me a true lock. There was only one "good" queen in the deck (the Q would complete a flush draw that, considering the action, was almost certainly out there), and even the "good" Q would create two possible straights. I also knew that if I called or raised now and small cards or relative blanks continued to fall, there would be no way I could lay down my hand, having invested this much money already. Also, I knew that if I called now, the flop bettor could easily reraise, with danger of the action being capped when I still would not know where I was at.



Now, while I was contemplating all of this, the flop bettor on my left simply called the raise, and then the big blind called, as well: They had not even noticed I was still in the hand, trying to figure out what to do. But these out-of-turn actions confirmed for me that I had the flop bettor beat for sure (I figured he probably held a 10 for top pair), and probably all of the other callers, as well. Now, with all of this money in the pot and the small but distinct possibility that I actually had the best hand, I decided that folding could very well be an awful mistake. I called, with the intention of letting the turn card and the subsequent action determine my best course of action.



The turn card was the 8, completing a possible straight and creating a second flush draw. It was checked to the preflop raiser, who bet. One player called, one player folded, and it was up to me.



I thought it was highly likely now that the man in the wheelchair had aces or kings – but I also knew that both he and the other players in the game feared me quite a bit. What's more, the turn card did present me with a semibluffing opportunity, and even if I couldn't get the preflop raiser to fold his overpair against my "obvious" straight, at least I could get him to slow down. This way, I could probably reach the showdown for just two big bets, which seemed like an acceptable price in a pot this big, and if I improved on the river, I would almost certainly gain one or two additional bets. Also, I thought that if I made this move to raise, I could possibly get the lady in the big blind to check-reraise us and make it three bets, whether or not she actually had made her straight. I knew it was probably a bit of a long shot, but during the times I had played with her, I had always been pretty good at manipulating her and luring her into making decisions that would favor me. And with this much action from no fewer than two opponents, the man in the wheelchair might then reason that his big pair could not be any good – so I could perhaps win this huge pot with my unimproved queens. After some deliberation, I decided to go for it and use my strong image to represent the current nuts – Q-J, a hand I might very well hold in this position, and also a hand that would be consistent with both my preflop and post-flop actions. When the small blind folded, I immediately looked for eye contact with the lady in the big blind. She immediately responded as I hoped she would, by three-betting, which did not necessarily mean she had my queens beat.



I hoped the flop bettor would realize that after all of this action, there was no way his aces or kings could be good. But, alas, after some thought, he called the two extra bets – in a manner that indicated he would reach the showdown regardless of what the other players did. I cursed at myself for playing my hand this badly, and for getting myself in this situation. Because of the pot odds I had created myself, possibly with a hand that had been second-best to begin with, I was now forced to call one more bet simply to try to catch a lucky river, knowing that a jack and possibly even a queen could still rescue me. I called, and when a blank came on the river and it was bet and called, I knew that with this much money in the pot, folding a possible winner would be an absolute disaster. So, again I called, only to see all of my reads confirmed: The lady had J-9 for a pair and an open-ender, and the man in the wheelchair won a massive pot with pocket kings.



Some Final Words
When the dealer pushed this massive pot to the opposite side of the table, I replayed the hand once more. I had put a bunch of bets into the pot while knowing from the very first moment that there was a good chance I was behind. And I had tried to make up for that later in the hand by using my tight image to make a move, when I knew the man in the wheelchair would not be a good enough player to lay down the hand that I thought he had.



All in all, I had invested two small bets before the flop, two small bets on the flop, and then three big bets on the turn and one more on the river with a hand that had been in dire straits to begin with. In fact, I had played this hand like a total amateur, like a sucker who knew better but who didn't have the courage to act according to his convictions. The end result was that I had lost 12 small bets in just one hand, and all the money went to someone who, at the river, suddenly had no problem reading the board anymore. Despite his awful play throughout the hand, he had been rewarded by winning a massive pot, for no other reason than he had found someone who had played even more awfully than he had – someone who had very well known and felt what to do, but was too stubborn to act according to his beliefs.

Rolf "Ace" Slotboom has been a professional money player since 1998, specializing in limit hold'em and pot-limit Omaha. He is the tournament reporter for almost all major European tournaments, and is the Dutch commentator for Eurosport's EPT broadcasts. His first book, Hold'em on the Come: Limit Hold'em Strategy for Drawing Hands, is scheduled to be available in March. Rolf can be contacted directly through his site, http://www.rolfslotboom.com/.