The CO or HJ means s*** if you don't have betting power on the flop. This is valid if you are a player, a good player .. you know ..,

I’m a Hold'em player. I start with the best hand, try to. When you’re a Hold'em player, you don’t get out there and draw with Q9s. I start with the best hand, that’s the reason why I don’t have to draw. For big pots, big money, I got a good hand on the flop. I usually got the best hand when I get my money in the middle. I can’t help it if I get outdraw. If my opponent gets the best hand at the last card with Q9s, he would be with the worst hand until that last card. He would have to outdraw me to take the pot away and the player who stays on the worst hand with garbage and hopes of catching a winner,..., I’m gonna break him for sure. That’s a good Hold'em player.

You have no idea what you're talking about. Probably you play some family weekend church goers games collecting money for hospitals and homeless people. In that games where people play every hand Q9s is like AA in my Vegas games. If a hand is suited or unsuited means nothing if they don't have big-card-value because both are garbage in a raised pot. And, pardner .., wtf? Q9s has no big-card-value when you flop 33% of the time one pair and makes only 2 str8s that can be nutted by AK or AQ. Neither pair's good for nothing. On top of all this mess is the fact that Q9s flops a draw to the flush exactly like any pair 22+ flops a monster Set. You flop a draw to flush and the pair got a Set 10.5% .., Good luck !....,on your draw and on your no good pair. Either one is worth a FoS goddamned trouble.

Be in Vegas this weekend. Where can I find this dream game.

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LOL. No. Q9s is vastly better than Q9o. He's 200BB deep if you didn't notice. And you get at least a backdoor flush draw over half the time, and a backdoor straight draw or better about 57%. And we'll flop some kind of combo draw (maybe just two backdoor draws) about a third of the time. It's an excellent bluffing hand. Q9o is not. The ability to make top pair is not worth much in considering whether to play these type of hands. We'd generally rather have 98s than Q9s even though 98s makes terrible top pairs.

I think it's a very very easy fold when you account for your bet size being raised, the action, and two nut changing cards on a board where straights are air and flushes are razor thin value.

It makes no sense for V to check the turn with AK, especially if he is a thinking player which he seems somewhat. Why would he let a heart get there on the river?

Due to the action that has commenced, i think calling the river is mandatory and that V is bluff heavy and getting out of line with AQ, AJ. You block AQ so that is less likely. Especially when he also checks the river. Also, you are at the top of your range with the nut flush, there are plenty of lower flush combos that will take the line V took.

Also, I believe your turn bet is questionable, you are betting into a strong range IMO from the action that took place pre and flop and I don't see you have so much fold equity.

I think gotta call getting 3 to 1 here.

Partly that his line looks suspicious and partly that OP describes him as active and he has shown some small bluffs. Really feels like a flush to me, or even a bluff. I know he has a boat sometimes but I think at most 50% of the time rather than 75% of the time so I'd call pretty quickly.

Also, this is HU, does a flush not look like a winning hand here most of the time? (I mean, prior to the x/r of course.) And if villain is not thinking too hard he may just decide the river looks like a great scare card when it pairs the board and completes the flush.

As I much I would want to call based on the price, this is a fold in this situation.

River is too big of a value bet and easy fold after the c/r

haha! ha ha ha!

Q9 vs. AK
38% vs. 62%

Q9 vs. AK
34% vs. 66%

Good luck on playing and shame on ....., for encouraging other new honest 2+2 beginner players on losing their money by playing inferior starting hands in a RAISED pot just because that hand is suited.

If you got a FD on the flop and missed the turn your garbage Q9s becomes 20% vs. 80% and the AK will not let you get to the river unless the entire stack goes in. What you gonna do? ..., LOL ... call Mama or Lolita?

No! ..., this is all a nonsense of suited or offsuited. the 4% difference means s*** against powerful cards. If the cards have no big-card-value from the start you are on a uphill battle of trying to draw and scream for help when heavy money goes in.

This game is a game of big-cards and flops. We need to play cards that flop big close to the nuts. Near nut flop cards. This is what makes money. Not bluffing or BDSD or BSFD. Bluffing is worth FoS and the BD are worth 1 out also a FoS. The back-door or runner-runner are the most ridiculous consideration a player can count on when he's in a desperate mode and needs help.

Folding pre, but as played:

Calling, but not liking it. With the price we are getting we are good enough of the time to make it profitable I think.
There are no boat hands that should be checking the turn. Sets and Aces up should be betting unless V is super MUBSY.
Check-tank-shove doesn't happen all that often. Any reads on it?
It really looks like JThh to me. He blocks both QT and QJ so you should never have a better flush. He may put you on a hand like AQ, AJ or QJ and is going for thin value.

pre call is bad.

flop you could consider raising, you have a ton of equity vs made hands, and can fold plenty of hands. depends on how often V is cbetting flops, or if he only value bets. Turn bet is fine, but id bet bigger. Youre repping a straight or Ahxh pretty reasonably.

River... why would V check a FH on river unless he was 100% sure you were gonna bet? and then he tanks and ships? i mean, yeah he could be hollywooding but still. If he had 2 pair or a set on turn is he check calling out of fear of exactly QJ? that makes no sense.

The issue is i cant really see him having any other value hand. AQ or AJ maybe. lower flush. This honestly looks bluffy, but i also dont know what hed bluff with. Maybe KQ or KJ? JhTh??? thats literally the only hand that makes sense. Picks up a royal draw on the turn, hits the flush on the river snd tanks deciding whether to ship or call.

I think im calling, although I cant safely put him on a range, because I cant see a single hand he plays this way 100% of the time.

You may be right based how the hand has been played. But the main idea of starting with suited or unsuited without big-card value is wrong plus the fact the board has paired. The value of flush gas gone down significantly. This for sure. Maybe not this time in his case but this is the math theory. The bigger the stacks the more in trouble he is when the board pairs and villain shoves.

Big-card-value and suited Yes!
Card-under King suited or unsuited are not good but garbage. The difference of 4% not good enough. The only good suited hand id JTs that makes 4 nut straights + flush value. But the poor Q9s doesn't make any nut straight and in raised pot could be nutted by AK, AQ. Being suited doesn't makes up for not having big-card-value. This for sure.

Big cards and hitting flops and you are 71.5% at your final hand in one shot, else is running up the hill for help.

I don't know why I'm bothering responding to you. I don't think I've seen you make an intelligent post yet, and I'm skeptical you'll correctly parse this one. But I'm not writing for your benefit. I write this so people reading your asinine posts don't get the mistaken impression you know what you're talking about. You don't. I'm not trying to insult you, but consider listening to some other posters before creating your trollish, half-intelligible rants about big cards and AK and bluffing is FoS.

Here's the main thing you seem to be missing. Poker has four streets of action. We don't just go all-in or fold pre-flop. Sure, if we all have 10BB stacks, there's not a huge difference between Q9s and Q9o. But this is not the case. We're 200BB deep. The ability to flop powerful draws is huge, even if it's only 4% difference in all-in equity. With Q9s we can barrel on most flops, then often fire again on the turn, and sometimes when called we get there and stack our opponent. This value is enormous, and we can't play Q9o in this manner to even close to the same degree.

This is really funny coming from you. All you do is post nonsense that will lead new players to rapidly go broke. One can argue to fold Q9s here. It's marginal. I'm not saying we should call with Q9s against all villains, but it's close, whereas Q9o is a very clear fold. And there's nothing wrong with a skilled post-flop player calling with Q9s in position, particularly if he has straightforward, fishy opponents. The point is Q9s vs Q9o is night and day.

What? You are seriously confusing to read. Why are you convinced villain has AK? That being the case, we actually have over 47% equity on this flop vs. AK. If we miss the turn, we bet again. It's called barreling. We have tremendous equity against villain's flop continuing range and often pick up the pot on the turn. And even when called, we sometimes hit an out and stack villain. Obviously the A is the worst possible "out" for us, which is why this situation is a bit murky.

Big-card-value is not that important 200BB deep. Sure, we'd rather have AKs than Q9s. But we'd rather have Q9s than A9o or KTo etc. Since you're focusing on AK, let me ask you this--how comfortable is a player with AK on this flop when we bet into him? What if the turn blanks and we bet into him again? What if the river blanks or worse, completes a draw and we bet into him again? It's not a good spot to be in with just TPTK, which is what you almost always have with AK (when you don't have air).

AK does not flop close to the nuts, unless suited, but you don't care about suitedness, right? If you want cards that can flop nutted hands, we want suitedness and we want connectedness. Barreling is massively profitable on the right board textures against many villain types. In fact beyond the smallest stakes, bluffing is more important than value betting. For you to say "bluffing is worth FoS" (whatever that means, though I think I get your drift) shows a total lack of understanding of this game. It's not 2003. Value-betting with top pair does not get it done anymore beyond the smallest games.

Read some poker books. Ed Miller, Matthew Janda, Jonathan Little, Will Tipton, to name a few respected authors. See if they support your contention that it's big cards that matter and bluffing is worthless.

I know that you don't know, just want to look important because there's not a single crack in what I'm saying.

If you play every day for living you got to count on big-card value and domination because in any poker game after the pot has got been raised you absolutely can’t win, no matter how smart you think you are and no matter how well you pretend to play, if you don’t hold good cards pre and get good flops. This is a flop game, there money are hidden. Big card value and domination holds the key. Bluffing and back-door draws are bread crumbs for birds and worthless in raised big pot. They are impossible options. When the pot is protected only big-card value counts plus suiteness help too, but big-card and domination is boss in protected pots.

Reciprocality is any difference between you and your opponents that affects your bottom line and if you play garbage like Q9s in a raised pot, reciprocality works against you. Another words you are in a FoS of trouble.

No offense but I can't believe ppl get into discussions with outdonked. He makes zero sense so often, it's almost like he can't be serious or is here only to argue.

Yeah I don't think I can convince him of anything, but letting him spew nonsense all over the forum without rebuttal seems irresponsible. This forum has gone downhill enough without having trolls posing as experts giving out horrible strategic advice.

And I have no idea what he's talking about in his last response, except that having good cards and good flops is good. Okay, I guess we agree on that.

Some other gems:

"This is a flop game, there money are hidden." --right. Of course. I understand now.

"Bluffing and back-door draws are bread crumbs for birds and worthless in raised big pot. They are impossible options. " --nice metaphor, but no good player thinks bluffing is worthless or impossible

"When the pot is protected..." --but this pot is not protected. It's HU OTT...

"Reciprocality is any difference between you and your opponents that affects your bottom line" --ehh, what? Reciprocality?

"Another words you are in a FoS of trouble." --I'm pretty sure Outdonked's native language is not English (if it is, well done public schools), but come on. I think I get the gist, but it's really confusing.

So I've deciphered several of his posts and I think Outdonked is saying to dump all suited connectors if there's a raise, except KTs+, ATs+, and JTs, but that sounds crazy. Why would we do that this deep?

I expect another confusing reply, maybe with some popcorn, some poorly worded insults, and of course that avatar that makes me picture my evil twin twirling a cane somewhere, leering at the helpless over his sinister mustache.

I make zero sense ?... Hm,,

Some dudes think NL cash is played the way you see results on a simulator on your computer where you cannot insert the power of betting.

So, Q9s beats 56s in the simulator hot&cold but in live cash games 56s flies in the face of Q9s because 56s either hits the flop hard with 4 straights that cannot be nutted by the raising hands or miss the flop and mucks. AA, KK, QQ, JJ, TT AK, AQ, AJ, KQ all those hands have no effect on 56s when the small hand hits the flop. This small hand is faraway from the raising hands and that's the way to look at things in NL, hit-or-miss and not getting in a bind. The big hands cannot extract money with TPTK from 56s. This hand never pays off the big TP or overpairs. Never happen. If you have some serious experience at the tables you'll know those things. The T9s, JTs are the same, they either hit or miss. You cannot get in a bind on the flop with 56s like you gonna do with Q9s and a flop like Q, 7, 4 ..., are you good or not if you get action? --- haha .., deep deep FoS trouble.

Well done. Hope you had the spare time.

I will add. 200BB+ deep. Having Q9s IP, may very well be more +EV than AK OOP Depending on opponents .

And yes Q-9s is marginal call here pre.

To make it profitable things to look for.
-Button to be tight
-PFR to have normal to wide HJ range
-PFR to have leaks
-c bets to much (betting power)
-weak checking range
-can't fold TP
-bet sizing tells
-etc........
-PFR to be outdonked from 2+2

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You have absolutely no idea what you are talking about. Do you beat low stakes for >$5/hr?

haha .. haha ..., and you do have ideas how to make a living playing NL? - you do know how is all done? ..,Hmmm.. You do?

Being suited doesn't make a bad hand into a good hand. It just adds a little value to the bad hand and in most cases is even a serious big nasty wtf FoS problem when they hit the flop only to lose to a better hand.

More's the pity, youngster. More's the pity.

For a given hand, "suitedness" isn't about the increase in raw equity, it's about playability and equity realization. There's simply more boards that allow continuation and barreling opportunities.

Apologies if I'm simply re-stating points already made by Shai Hulud.

Maybe you are correct in case you compare T9o with T9s where T9s has a little more playability and equity. I can agree with that because that's a no-gap connector. The same goes for 98p vs. 98s, 76o vs. 76s or 56o vs. 56s all of those no-gap connectors make 4 straights beside str8-flush or just flush. But in our case the entire argument started fro Q9s a two gaper that makes only 2 straights and neither is the nuts and can be nutted by AK, AQ in a raised pot. Another reason why Q9s is bad in a raised pot is the fact Q9 resides on the scale of hands too close to the traditional raising hands and that reason alone is a very serious argument to consider the domination factor.

Otherwise I'm OK with our hero, I hope he won that hand. I'm not against 2+2 dudes winning with such starting hands. I only commented about that hand because it was in a raised pot and in that case our starting standard has got to go way up. Especially if the pot got open raised and called in 1-2 places, the raiser maybe mixing up or trying to represent strength or something but the callers got to have strong holdings. There is no way around this. That's the GAP concept on solid rock, so to speak. The callers has got to have better hands vs. Q9 unless we play in the cuckooland or we are talking about ridiculously loose games with complete morons, calling with Q9s is pure gambling on hitting the flop because no seasoned good player never hope to make TP with Q9 and be good in 4way volume raised pots. They not even play such hands unless in the blinds for free.

Domination and big-card value where you can add suiteness to the big-card combo, those factors rules this game. You see, on the flop when you both hit your common card. What you gonna do? Are you going to draw to 3 outs? Or what? Here domination is boss.

In a 4 way volume raised pot, I'm generally not hoping to make a top pair hand, and especially not with something like Q9s. On that we certainly agree.

OK, that's good, actually very good

Now, so 4way pot has got raised, becomes a protected pot and we have a non premium hand that can flop near the nuts. No connectivity because Q9 make only two straights, both are not the nuts and both can be nutted by AK/AQ.

And on top of all this, two suited random cards flop a Flush-Draw the same percentage of 10.5% as a pair flops a Set. With the flush draw we don't have yet a made hand while the set is a monster made hand. Big difference plus all the domination factor and paying to draw with not even the second nut flush.

I understand suited King down to maybe K9s to cover straights and str8-flush possibilities. I can live with that. I'm not looking to play a hand just because the suiteness from the start because it's so hard to just flop a draw in the first place. Most of the times we start with good strong premium like AKs, AQs, KQs but end up winning other ways like TP, 2P some gutshots + 2 overs that hit a str8 or just a c/b on the flop can win for us. But Q9 has got no chance to accomplish all this because has got no betting power and we all know how important betting power or betting with confidence is worth. The betting power is worth at least 8 outs or even more. If you bet you may win and that is like you have hit your "outs". So, yes.., betting means "outs" .., no betting no outs. If you call you give up some serious outs.

I actually agree with a lot of what outdonked is saying, even though I think he's too nitty at times. Q9s belongs in the muck right along with Q9o.

Again about the hand, people saying to call, I mean come on what do you think he's just gonna all of a sudden be like "well uh ok I bluff now." People don't do that sort of thing, and OP's hand looks strong. Even the price you're getting your hand is no good here, even for the price it's a fold. This coming from the guy who's always telling people to call...

The art of "putting a guy on a hand" has really fallen out of favor, but people seem to ignore the fact that certain hands in a given v's range have a lot more weight/likelihood than others. This is what gets lost in EV calculations, you can throw all the hands in his range into the calculation but some of the range is going to show up more often while other hands would be more surprising to see, while also in v's range.