1/2, new venue. No history vs any of the players. About 25 minutes into session.

It is a Wednesday night, and the table is passive and predictable. Perhaps 40% of all hands don't get raised. Most hands are multiway.

Hero ($260) is in the cutoff with Qd Jd.
Four players limp, Hero decides to limp behind, the button folds, the SB (30yo WM, probably the most aggressive player, $180) completes, BB (75yo WF, on heater, $600) checks

Flop ($14): Js 8d 2d

SB bets $15, BB calls, folded to Hero who raises to $75, SB folds, BB calls

Turn ($179): 5d

BB moves all-in


What do you do? Also, could you have done anything earlier to not bungle the hand?

Typically raising pre in this spot. Position is gold and I want to punish the people limping with random hands.

I don't really like raising OTF because I feel like our hand is too strong for it. I don't really want to just fold people out. I want to continue to play later streets against them. If I did raise, it would be a lot smaller, like 55 probably. I'm looking for calls, not folds.

Turn trivial call. Also, the hand isn't necessarily "bungled" just because you lost.

snap it off

why limp pre? If we're there to play fit or fold that's one thing but it's -EV to do it

I would have raised pre and am happy to call turn
Like your flop play

This hand was played optimally in my opinion. Don't fold to the 75yr old lady's turn donk jam of 183 into 179. There are plenty of smaller flushes in her range.

With 4 players limping to us and only 260 behind I'm not so keen on raising from the cutoff here unless we can be confident of narrowing the field to one or two callers.

Fist-pump snap call the turn shove. You beat plenty of flushes and sets and 2-pairs. Yes you'll lose to the nuts sometimes but that's poker. Reload and carry on - it looks like a profitable table.

Preflop I like limping behind: QJs is a great hand multiway in position but not great to go for a big iso-raise Vs 4 unknowns. I mean who are you expecting to isolate? No idea - so why do it? Good limp behind IMO. Not totally against ChrisV's raise-pre line though. QJs is a strong hand, it can make some strong 1-pair hands and has great drawing potential so with position too you can raise here profitably for sure. I just prefer limp behind, play multiway post, get some reads and maximise chances of stacking someone while minimising chances of messing up vs unknowns. I mean one of the worst things that can happen here is we inadvertently isolate a nit who limp/calls strong hands and then value-own ourselves with a decent but not great 1-pair hand postflop over two or three streets.

Flop raise is too strong in IMO. You'll be isolating yourself against stronger made hands so if you don't hit a flush the rest of the hand is tricky.

If you just flat the flop you can keep in junky JX/8X and you don't care about letting them draw since you have redraws to a big flush anyway. Potentially you force out a small FD if you raise - you certainly force out 8X and some JX too.