Playing Pocket Queens

Looking down at pocket Queens can stir mixed emotions. Yes, it’s a great pre-flop hand, but it is very vulnerable too. Everyone can remember stacking off with Q-Q many a time, and many will recognise that it’s easy to play either too passively or too aggressively. Good players should be able to minimise losses with Q-Q when behind and maximise profit when ahead.

PRE-FLOP

Pre-flop Q-Q plays itself most of the time. You should think about open- raising or three-betting from any position in order to build the pot pre-flop. Queens play best against one or two opponents, where the hope is that someone flops top pair or a weaker overpair that will give you the payoff. You certainly don’t want to be slow-playing Q-Q pre-flop – a common mistake at $ 100 no-limit. You are a big favourite against all but three hands (A-A, K-K, A-K) and should therefore be looking to get your opponents to put in as much money as possible with weaker hands like A-Q, A-J and lower pocket pairs.

Usually the only major issue pre-flop is if somebody plays back at you. As ever, notes are extremely valuable.

EXAMPLE 1: $ 0.50/$ 1.00 SIX-MAX FULL STACKS

You raise to $ 4 from the cut-off with Q-Q and it’s folded to the big blind who three-bets to $ 16.

What you do next depends on how you perceive the three-bettor. This is where notes are valuable and stats are like gold. For instance, you may have tracking software with a heads-up display and find you have 5,000 of the big blind’s hands logged. The HUD tells you that this particular player three-bets 9% of the time. That is an average from all positions, so can be increased to around 12% specifically from the big blind.

That’s a fairly big percentage to be three-betting with and quite clearly your Q-Q is way ahead of his range. The question here is how to flood the pot pre-flop and whether that is done by four-betting to, say, $ 45 or pushing all-in. There’s definitely an argument for shoving here as anything else is pretty much going to commit you to the pot anyway, being 100 big blinds deep, and will erase the need to make difficult decisions post-flop. This decision may also be confirmed by player notes that you have.

You may have noted this guy’s willingness to play for stacks pre-flop with 9-9 and A-Q. If that’s the case, shoving is definitely the best play, as your danger hands (A-A and K-K) make up only a small part of his calling range and you are still ahead of A-K by a 13 to 10 margin – a very healthy and profitable situation.

However, if the big blind plays a tighter style you may want to re-think. If your stats tell you your opponent three-bets only around 3%, this roughly equates to J-J+ and A-K. Hands that may worry you now make up most of his range and in this instance you may want to call the three-bet and see a flop instead of playing for stacks pre-flop. You are at less than 50% against that range, but by calling you have position and can re-evaluate depending on the flop texture and the big blind’s action. If the flop comes A-x-x or K-x-x, you beat only J-J, and you lose to K-K, A-A, and A-K. You can safely fold to a continuation bet on these bad flops. A flop of 9-8-5, however, puts you ahead of (or level with) 70% (J-J, Q-Q, A-K) of the big blind’s range and playing for stacks is going to be profitable, especially if his continuation bet committed him to the pot with an unimproved A-K.

The same stat-reading principles can be used to decide how to play pre-flop when faced with an all-in. Let’s say you three-bet pre-flop and the original raiser moves all-in for 100 big blind. Often you are going to be faced with A-A, K-K or A-K, and looking at stats and checking notes will help you to make the correct decision. Your action could range from snap-calling a maniac to snap-folding to an extremely tight player. Having good reads on your opponents is invaluable when you are facing lots of action pre-flop.

Of course, you’re not always going to have notes or stats on your opponents, which is where you may sometimes have to play fairly blind. In general though, you should be happy to get the money in pre-flop without reads, because at small stakes there are so many people who play poorly and/or want to gamble – don’t forget, A-A and K-K make up only 1% of possible hands and, in general, lots of small-stakes players are happy to shove or be shoved on pre-flop without much thought with a wider range than 1%.

Unless your notes and/or stats tell you otherwise, you should be aiming to get as many chips in as possible pre-flop, unless there is significant multi-player action. For instance, if your raise from under the gun is met by a three-bet from the cut-off and a shove from the big blind, we should normally assume our Q-Q is behind, unless strong reads on the two other players in the pot tell us otherwise.

POST-FLOP

It can sometimes be difficult to know what to do for the best with Q-Q post-flop, especially if an overcard flops (which it will do one time in three.) You are happier to see a King than an Ace as your opponents’ pre-flop calling range is much more likely to contain an Ace. Hands like A-J, A-10, A-9 and even worse Aces are all common calling hands at $ 100 no-limit, but being called with K-J, K-T, K-9 and lower, although still possible, is less likely.

You should be playing post-flop as if you have the best hand until something happens to cause doubt. Being called with an overcard showing or being raised when the board contains all undercards should make you stop, think, and at least slow down against certain players.

EXAMPLE 2: $ 0.50/$ 1.00 SIX-MAX FULL STACKS

You make a standard pot-sized raise pre-flop from under the gun+1 with Q-Q and get called by the button only. You have no reads. The flop comes K?-9?-4?. You make a standard continuation-bet of $ 6 to $ 8.50. The button calls. The pot is now $ 20.50.

Your opponent’s range could contain a King here. You would normally expect the button to three-bet pre-flop with A-K, though they may easily have K-Q, K-J or K-10. But there are many other hands that he can call the flop with here, including pocket pairs from 2-2 to J-J, A-9, 9-10 and 8-9, as well as other floating hands with room for improvement, such as J-10, Q-J, Q-10 and A-Q, so you shouldn’t be overly worried about being behind at this point. You still beat a lot of hands in his range.

The turn comes out 5?. Now you may want to slow down a little. You don’t want to build this pot too quickly with what could be the worst hand. Using pot control and checking here gives you a chance to re-evaluate the hand. Checking gives you a chance to value-bet the river if it’s checked through and also gives your opponent the chance to bluff with a hand such as J-10.

You check and the button checks. The button’s check here could still mean he has a King, but other, weaker hands such as 8-9 and pocket pairs become more likely.

The River is J?, which is not a bad river card for you. He can certainly call a river bet here with pocket pairs, any 9 and also hands that contain a Jack that called the flop with a gutshot straight draw. You bet $ 15, the button calls and shows down K?-8? to take down the pot.

Despite losing the hand you can be happy with your line. Had you checked the river, you would have been forced to call a bet anyway and would have lost the same amount. Your value-bet on the river gave you the best possible chance of picking up value from many weaker hands than Q-Q.

Looking back, it’s all too easy to feel you should have check/folded the river, but you should never base analysis on the specific results. Hindsight is always 20/20; you should judge your decisions based only on the information you had at the time.

FLOPPED UNDERCARDS

Obviously we like seeing boards with cards all lower than a King. At these stakes, in this scenario you want to be playing aggressively on all streets most of the time to take advantage of players who have hit top pair, as well as lower pairs.

On very low boards you can bet for value with Q-Q knowing that any other overpair below Queens will probably pay you off. There is a smaller percentage of solid players at $ 100 no-limit compared to say $ 400 no-limit and a relatively large percentage of players will call down or even move all-in with K-J on a 4-9-J board. Again, notes are crucial, but generally against players at this level you should be happy to play for stacks with an overpair to the board unless the board is very draw-heavy.

Another way of playing a good flop against some players when out of position is to check-raise. For this to work you have to be fairly confident that your opponent will bet, which can be tricky to foresee because normally you will be the pre-flop aggressor and your opponent may just smell a rat if you don’t continuation bet. Again, notes are helpful when considering this line. Should it go check, check, you will be able to bet the turn for value with what could be a well-masked hand.

To conclude, Q-Q is a powerful hand and should be played as such. Try to play big pots with bad players but be careful not to get too carried away. Falling in love with the ladies can lead to heartache and pain. Look for the warning signs of the relationship going wrong and don’t be too proud to dump them when the going gets tough!