I'm UTG, villain is in the cutoff. Both players appear to have around $850 in front. This is 2/5 Live at the horseshoe Hammond.

Hero (UTG): KQo

Villain XX

Hero limps, another MP limp, Villain raise to 25, loose BB calls, Hero Calls MP calls.

Flop: KcQd 9c, Hero does not have clubs.

BB Checks, Hero Checks, MP checks, villain bets 60, Fold,Hero raises to 170. Vilain tanks and calls everyone else folds. At this stage effective stack size is ~600.

Turn: 7c
CHeck Check

River 9h


Hero to act. Whats my best line? The pot is about 420ish. I thought a blocker bet was a good move, though this is obviously a bad card considering I thought the villain has AA.

Hero bets 200. Villain tanks but eventually calls, wins with AA.

I'm curious what people think about the river bet? Villain seemed to be a solid TAG. I think he probably calls even a shove. Can I save a bet on the river? Is it wise to play the turn card fast?

Getting value from KQo is difficult in general.

Stopped reading right about there.

I don't get what you are doing.

Raise Pre.
Bet flop.
Bet turn.
Check/fold river.

+1

Fold pre is also fine

Limping is the worst

Why do you not lead flop?

I really don't think people give limping enough credit. If I had done it with 77 no one would say anything. I'm mining this hand for 2 pair and monster draws. I think this and most live 2/5 games are too loose to raise and profit in EV UTG. 60% of the time there will be 3 callers and I'll be OOP. The pot will get taken from me.

In retrospect I think the suggestion of leading the flop is probably where I went wrong, but I expect villain to bet very frequently and I have a monster hand. The board hit every thing.

KQo isn't going to flop monster draws

You won't hit 2-pair enough to offset the times you miss and c/f or get raised pre and either fold or play a dominated hand OOP.

At a very loose table where a raise will go multi way, this is a fold pre. Limping is bad. Your hand doesn't play well enough multi way

You're mining for exactly what you got - 2 pair. KQo, especially OOP is a pretty bad RIO hand. The reason you believe it is difficult to get value from is because worse hands that share cards (KJ/KT/QJ/QT) are much less likely to pay you off because they lose to both KQ and AK. Two pair hands are really the only spots where you're going to win a big pot and that's usually when you've 3 outted someone AND connected on one of 2 remaining shared cards - obviously this is a somewhat rare "perfect storm". You're much more likely to win a small pot or else be forced to fold (or payoff) to a better hand.

As far as a monster draw - what monster draw are you hoping to find with unsuited cards? It's pretty difficult to draw OOP anyway as your hand becomes very transparent.

There are some games that you can play this hand from UTG - and maybe this was one of them - but in a lot of cases this is just a fold.

OP, if checking this turn is standard for you, then I don't think you can ever play KQo for enough value to make up for the times that you play a RIO hand for a loss.

Moreover, limp-calling any RIO hand from early position is a guaranteed long-term loser for 95% or more of LLSNL players. As I've stated before, I wouldn't be surprised if the only hands that show a profit for SB/BB/UTG are AA, KK, and maybe small pocket pairs played for set value alone. Everything else is likely a loser if not a break-even play for the overwhelming majority of live players.

Heck, I'm a solid winning player and even AJo UTG is a fold much of the time for me. If my image is decent that session and if the table is fairly readable, then I will sometimes play a RIO hand from early position. I think you need to be honest with yourself, however, and determine whether your post-flop skills are strong enough to play hands that can get you stuck from a poor position.

I would be raising any hand that I'm playing utg, utg +1 utg +2. Other wise your going to get owned by any competent player in late position on so may boards. Your hand is always mid pp's, broadways, and Axs. Your going to have a miserable time playing past the turn on the vast majority of boards.

Raise or fold based on table conditions/game flow but never limp. Unless your going to start limping AQ+ TT+, which would be a disaster in virtually every llnl game imo. So yeah, raise or fold pre.

Here if you raised pre, villain would 3 bet AA and you can comfortably fold KQo.(fwiw this is my least favorite hand period to play in a 3 bet pot in this exact spot, where you open from ep and get 3 bet from late position)


As played, what's going on w/ our turn line? We can argue donking the flop vs check/raising but how can we not lead the turn after c/r the flop? The club is a great card for our perceived range. When we check the club turn we basically turn our hand face up as 2 pair and let him off the hook w/ a free card to beat us and play perfect otr.

When we bet the turn we can get called by worse AA, AK, AxQc, Acx, QcJx, QcTx, etc. a lot of the hands he would just flat our flop/check raise in position with. Plus he can now discount the top of our value range AcXc, the TJs part, and the 99 that we may have c/r the flop with. I would think we're leading these ott.

Lastly after checking the turn I don't think we can ever bet the river, he's never folding better/calling worse. However if we did bet the turn I would absolutely bet the river and expect him to fold pretty much everything as I doubt he would just call flop raise w/ KK QQ 99.

raise/fold pre, bet/fold turn