Villain is a reg who I havent played with in a few months I remember him to be a bit spewy who will try bluffs with busted draws and unimproved hands quite often.
Hero is a reg in his late 40s who probably is seen as TAGgish leaning slightly towards the nitty side
effective stacks are 250

Hero limps utg w KJdd 2 guys in mp call V calls otb and BB checks

pot 25 J58dhh

I bet 25 2 folds V calls otb and BB calls

pot 95 turn is Qd BB c I check and V bets 60
BB folds (I now have a bdfd) I call.

pot 215 river is a brick

I check he puts me all in for about 150
Hero?

Usually folding pre flop.
When I'm not folding pre flop, I'm making a decent sized raise that I think will get it down to 2 or 3 ways post flop.

If I don't know what that number is, or if that number doesn't exist at this table then I'm just folding.

As played, I sort of like the donk. I think it can get looked up lighter and maybe get some value from weaker tp/2ndpair type hands.
Turn is pretty ugly and we are usually losing to that sizing.

River is a clear fold.

Not sure why you are limping KJs UTG? This is really an at-the-table decision. Why did you check turn? What vibe is he giving off? What's he limping for BTN? What range of hands do you give him?

I think this hand was played poorly for 50bb. Raise or fold pre, jam or fold turn.

did not read post. just read thread title. fold preflop.

Ew, KJs utg, then donking. Ew.

So easy to play vs. What Jacks do you have pre that you don't raise? So you have a set or a weak jack.

What set checks turn, none. Your hand is a weak jack all day. I'm bluffing you all day and you put yourself in this tough spot by limping pre-flop.

If I call turn, I call river.

Don't spew pre-flop, and you don't set yourself up for high variance situations like this.

If you get to this turn, don't jam. C/f turn or c/c turn and a lot of rivers.

This is a good example of why KJs UTG in FR can be an absolute fold for >95% of players.

As for the donk, I think it gets value, but you're going to be put in tough spots too often being OOP and a lot of turns slow you down and you never know where you are in the hand in a multiway pot that's limped.

I think checking with the intent to call is the better option. This is the reason why we should not be limping KJs pre-flop unless we have a lot of information on our player pool. Makes ranges so hard to define when we bet flops/check turns. Or when we c/c and check turn and they bet again, etc...

You may want to reconsider your image is to others if you are limping KJs UTG. Based on that play, you're a loose passive.

Obviously, fold pf.

You've got 2nd pair, good kicker on the river. If you think he's bluffing for your stack over 30% of the time, call. Most people aren't bluffing that often.

My thoughts:

In general, if we are playing at an extremely loose-passive table, I don't mind open limping with "potential" hands like this.
At these theoretical tables, when we hit the flop big, we can win some serious value.
And when we miss, we can get away cheap.

Raising preflop against this type of competition will simply put us in a bloated pot out of position with likely the worse hand against sticky opponents.
When we hit a marginal hand (like OP did), we have the following differences in a raised pot:
- The hands we are ahead of (like worse Top Pairs) have already folded
- We have over-repped our hand, so it will be difficult to get much value from lesser hands still hanging around.
The only thing the raise seemed to get us is more fold equity.
And this means we need to be willing to bluff into the field out of position.
I don't like that.

Having said all that, if we are at an aggressive table, playing this hand from utg is a spew.
Limp-folding frequently is a waste.
And limp-calling and then folding most flops is a leak.

If I have a confident read on Villain, I don't mind checking the turn and river to see his action.
We can either give him the chance to bluff, and call him down.
Or we can see that he means business and confidently fold.

Without such a read, I like to take matters into my own hands.
We turned a Flush Draw, so continuing to lead seems strong.
I also like the idea of check-raising all in.
This line should get all Queens to fold. So he must have 2-Pair+ to play on.
The leaves the only likely dangers as QJ or a set.
If he is playing with the diamond Flush Draw, let's make him pay to see it.

I expect to take down the pot immediately very often.
And when we don't, we still have out.

--CM

Fold pre

Fold pre. Bet smaller on the flop, if at all. Probably ~$15. You don't want to build a pot only 50BB effective. Questionable call on the turn. You probably have ~30-40% equity. I just bomb the turn if villain has any kind of fold button.

I'm never calling the river for ~2.5:1 odds. Villain limped on the button. His range includes all kinds of silly two pair or QhXh combos. 55/88 make some sense as well. Congrats if you caught him going nuts with 76o, but calling is -EV in the long run for sure.

For the record, I question your 'TAG' image if you're limping utg with KJs.

Limping with that stack size is awful. Deeper it can be less so, but you have 50bb. Just fold.

Sorry, let me explain: If I were ever to limp KJs UTG w/ 50bb and pot flop, I am c/jamming the turn way before I am c/calling. Folding is obviously best, but I'd rather shove than call.

I like the limp pre, as long as you were setting up a l/rr.

Eff stacks 250 but who has the 250 you or villain? If it'sHero, fold pre without a doubt and reload next time to 500.

looks like HERO (edit) has 50bb stack in which limping KJ UTG is pretty bad. If anyone raises what are you doing? If it is a very passive table that ends up 5 ways to the flop always, you are set up to win small, lose big.

The very best player I've ever seen, THAT I'VE EVER SEEN, would limp this hand (100bbs I mean)

Not sure exactly why but I have some thoughts.

^ yea but I'm limp/3betting if it's heads up vs a late position raiser tho

Is that a popular strategy in live poker? Limping UTG? Online my limp stat for UTG is 0% . Is the game heading in the direction of limping more?

Oh, it's plenty popular.

Obviously limping pre is ok in certain spots. I would at a limp-happy table that rarely opens, multiple expected preflop callers to an EP raise, or where villains will call multiple streets with worse Kx and Jx

For the most part, you are going to get responses like this


But while people get the mechanics of poker, they often miss the fundamentals. Your UTG limp stat online should be 0%, you also aren't 5x opening and getting 7 callers with 60-80bbs online.

To truly understand mechanics vs. fundamentals ask someone whether limp/raising is good.

If they answer "no", they have only memorized the mechanics of poker, without understanding the fundamentals.

I know several very good players that would immediately answer "lol wtf no" to my sample question.

Now, getting back to our OP example, even KQs is going to be a tough hand to win UTG in a high vpip low aggression low SPR 10 handed game type. And often, the pots you win will not be large.

However, when you include hands that limp, and you include the fact that villains are incapable of folding top pair+, you start to see that limping decent broadways in EP might be optimal. You stack more flushes and trips, and you get the same value from your pairs. You invest less bbs overall before you have a good idea of your equity, and then when you do you pound for value.

The immediate response I get to this is "but you've got a good hand your letting in all sorts of trash in cheap!"

First of all, yes, exactly to bolded. Second, we have K high, and 5 more cards to see.

I agree with this response:

Hey thanks everyone for all the feed back I found a lot of it very helpful. I did play this hand very bad from start to finish but in my defense I am a human. I try not to play KJ s utg but will some times to keep people on their toes. In live poker if you always do some thing a certain way IMHO your screwing up.

Anyways I did call and yes I did go busto the guy showed up with KQ

Man, really?

I'm pretty confident that folding 72o to a raise with 50BB all the time isn't screwing up.