Not really looking to whine here, just curious how other might have played this. I'm SkateLulw in seat 7 and opponent is ElangLaut on the button:

Seat 0: pumbalumba (8975 Tournament chips)
Seat 1: ElangLaut (9525 Tournament chips)
Seat 2: football0730 (16100 Tournament chips)
Seat 3: Deadpool209 (9500 Tournament chips)
Seat 4: oldladyjane (9375 Tournament chips)
Seat 5: Bigdaddy4822 (20325 Tournament chips)
Seat 6: TCOMP (8100 Tournament chips)
Seat 7: SkateLulw (9725 Tournament chips)
Seat 8: Awwin (8350 Tournament chips)
Game #19016126-16 ends
Game #19016126-17 starts
Seat 0: pumbalumba (8975 Tournament chips)
Seat 1: ElangLaut (9525 Tournament chips)
Seat 2: football0730 (16100 Tournament chips)
Seat 3: Deadpool209 (9500 Tournament chips)
Seat 4: oldladyjane (9375 Tournament chips)
Seat 5: Bigdaddy4822 (20325 Tournament chips)
Seat 6: TCOMP (8100 Tournament chips)
Seat 7: SkateLulw (9725 Tournament chips)
Seat 8: Awwin (8350 Tournament chips)
The button is at seat 0
The button is moved to seat 1.
football0730 posts the small blind [75 Tournament chips]
Deadpool209 posts the big blind [150 Tournament chips]
pumbalumba, at seat 0, is in this hand with 8975 Tournament chips.
ElangLaut, at seat 1, is in this hand with 9525 Tournament chips.
football0730, at seat 2, is in this hand with 16025 Tournament chips.
Deadpool209, at seat 3, is in this hand with 9350 Tournament chips.
oldladyjane, at seat 4, is in this hand (absent) with 9375 Tournament chips.
Bigdaddy4822, at seat 5, is in this hand with 20325 Tournament chips.
TCOMP, at seat 6, is in this hand with 8100 Tournament chips.
SkateLulw, at seat 7, is in this hand with 9725 Tournament chips.
Awwin, at seat 8, is in this hand with 8350 Tournament chips.
football0730 is dealt: **
Deadpool209 is dealt: **
oldladyjane is dealt: **
Bigdaddy4822 is dealt: **
TCOMP is dealt: **

Awwin is dealt: **
pumbalumba is dealt: **
ElangLaut is dealt: **
football0730 is dealt: **
Deadpool209 is dealt: **
oldladyjane is dealt: **
Bigdaddy4822 is dealt: **
TCOMP is dealt: **

Awwin is dealt: **
pumbalumba is dealt: **
ElangLaut is dealt: **
Dealt to pumbalumba [ **** ]
Dealt to ElangLaut [ **** ]
Dealt to football0730 [ **** ]
Dealt to Deadpool209 [ **** ]
Dealt to oldladyjane [ **** ]
Dealt to Bigdaddy4822 [ **** ]
Dealt to TCOMP [ **** ]
Dealt to SkateLulw [ Qd Jd ]
Dealt to Awwin [ **** ]
oldladyjane folds [150 Tournament chips]
Bigdaddy4822 folds [150 Tournament chips]
TCOMP folds [150 Tournament chips]
SkateLulw calls [150 Tournament chips]
Awwin calls [150 Tournament chips]
pumbalumba folds [150 Tournament chips]
ElangLaut raises [825 Tournament chips]
football0730 folds [750 Tournament chips]
Deadpool209 folds [675 Tournament chips]
SkateLulw calls [675 Tournament chips]
Awwin calls [675 Tournament chips]
Round 1 is over.
** Dealing Flop ** [ 2s ] board:[ 2s]
** Dealing Flop ** [ 8d ] board:[ 2s 8d]
** Dealing Flop ** [ Qs ] board:[ 2s 8d Qs]
SkateLulw bets for 1350 Tournament chips
Awwin folds [1350 Tournament chips]
ElangLaut calls [1350 Tournament chips]
Round 2 is over.
** Dealing Turn ** [ 2d ] board:[ 2s 8d Qs 2d]
SkateLulw checks
ElangLaut bets for 2700 Tournament chips
SkateLulw raises all-in [7550 Tournament chips]
ElangLaut calls all-in [4650 Tournament chips]
SkateLulw is returned 200 Tournament chips (uncalled).
Tournament all-in showdown -- players show:
ElangLaut shows [ Js As ]
SkateLulw shows [ Qd Jd ]
Round 3 is over.
** Dealing River ** [ Ks ] board:[ 2s 8d Qs 2d Ks]
(no action in this round)
Round 4 is over.

So to translate that cluster:

Donkament of some description, everyone at least 50bb deep

Hero is folded to in MP, limps QJs, another limper behind, looks like button mashes the pot button, because why wouldn't you mash the pot button, hero calls as does limper

Flop comes Q82 one of our suit two of another, hero donks what might be exactly half pot ergo button mashing but it's 1am and I'm not doing maths this late, limp/call guy folds but original raiser calls

Turn is another 2 making two flush draws on board including our own, hero checks, button I guess is continuing the button mashing by going precisely twice what hero bet on the flop, hero jams and is called

It is a donkament of sorts; a satellite on ClubWPT.com into the $10k WPT World Championship later this year, with 1st winning a seat and some smaller cash prizes for runner-ups. I qualified into this from an initial satellite. Anyway thank you for helping clean up the mess.

Thanks for the translation sixfour, I was really struggling trying to parse that hh. Credit where it's due!

This hand was poorly played. Limp pre is bad, flop donk is nonsense, turn xj is unclear. It seems like you need to work on your basic skills and understanding the fundamentals of how ranges and the game works. After raise pre if btn flats we could cbet this flop, but when we limp and btn isos we shouldn't have a leading range at all. Turn play seems up in the air - our hand is midstrength but it is doubleflush board, jamming doesn't seem like the worst.

I appreciate the constructive criticism.

I understand my pre and post-flop play wasn't the greatest. I was trying to balance out with suited broadway connectors because I had raised 3x with KQs in a prior orbit UTG.

When I led out (reasoning that sometimes my pair of queens could be good) on the flop and got called, I figured I could be up against flush draws, especially of the ace high variety given the button raise, maybe a set of eights or queens, and eliminated overpairs and Q8s because maybe those play faster and come over the top with that type of flop texture.

The turn paired the board, and I decided if I was up against a boat (since i thought of the possibility of a set on the flop), that it would be more likely it would go check, check to help possibly improve my hand so that he might break me. When he half-potted, I thought about it for a little while and opted to ship because I didn't want to commit roughly 40% of my stack by flatting, granted if a spade fell on the river it would force me with a tough decision. My flush draw also gets there every now and then too, and felt it gives me another way to win if I get called.

Those were just some of the thoughts going through my head. There is a lot I can improve on and that's why I'm here. Thank you for your time

Your pair of queens is likely good, but that doesn't mean you should lead. In most situations, you should not have a leading range because the preflop aggressor has all the hands like tptk and overpairs in their range and you don't. And if you start leading with all your good hands, it means when you check you're going to get completely runover, plus if villains realize what you're doing they can also play quite carefully against your leading range. There are some spots where it makes sense as the preflop defender to lead, but this is a more advanced strategy and is basically never the case on disconnected boards with high cards on them. When we have a good hand on most boards, it makes a lot more sense to checkraise rather than lead.

Poker is a game about understanding the range of hands each player has in each situation, not just about clicking bet every time we have a good hand.

Any recommendations or suggestions to a resource that could help on the leading range subject?

My suggestion would be to avoid any sort of leading strategy until you start thinking about the game on a range vs range level. The big majority of the time leading is a mistake, and a good chunk of the rest it's not very important. Focus on fundamentals rather than relatively unimportant niche strategies.

Ok, fundamentals it is. I want to put in the work to get better, but I don't really know where to begin in the modern era as there are a lot of books, videos, classes etc. Could you point me in some direction? Or is this something I just need to decide on for myself?

I'm not sure exactly what the best resources are for learning fundamentals, but I often recommend Red Chip Core because the vids of theirs I've seen are decent, it's somewhat structured, and super affordable at only $5 a week.

Thank you for the recommendation. Looks like I have some work to do...

As a first step toward learning fundamentals, I would recommend working on your pre flop game. This is true for a few reasons

First it is a fairly simple way to improve your game. Depending on the level of competition, learning preflop play might get you to a point where you can break even, or at the very least lose much more slowly. At a low level, all you really need to do is find some preflop starting hand charts and learn them. To play at a better level, though you will need to study and understand WHY certain hands are opens and why others are folds (for a beginner, note that there really arenÂ’t any hands that should limp). This gets you into some of the basics like balancing ranges and playing hands that have good equity realization. A good understanding also allows you to vary from the chart in a profitable way when playing against opponents who use suboptimal preflop strategies.

Second preflop decisions are common - youÂ’ll have one to make on every single hand. You might hit a tough river spot once in a while or a questionable flop situation, but every hand starts with a preflop decision.

Third, preflop decisions often set up the rest of the hand to play much more easily and profitably. For example it is much more common to hit a tough spot post flop with a hand like A6o than it is with one like AKo. On a flop like A72 rainbow, what are you going to do if your opponent bets out at you? With A6o it’s a tough decision; with AKo it’s an easy call (or maybe a raise in some spots), which is why we fold A6o preflop and open AKo. With good preflop play you will find yourself on the right end of more “coolers”, such as running into an opponent with something like AJ in the example I described above.

Finally learning good preflop play can help with hand reading. To extend the example above, suppose you had AQo and you (correctly) raised PF from the button. The BB flatted you and you saw that same A72 rainbow flop. Your opponent bets out at you. Does he have you beat? Well consider the hands that beat you - AA, AK, 77, 22, A7 or A2. Knowing how he should play preflop, we can discount AA and AK from this range; these hands should have three bet. A7o and A2o should be folding. We may be up against sets or two pair hands with the suited combos, but we have narrows villainÂ’s range based on knowledge of proper preflop play.

The above is especially true if you are going to keep playing tournaments. Tournaments play short stacked, which makes pre flop play all the more important. In many spots, pre flop play is the entire hand - you should also learn push/fold charts if you want to keep playing tourneys.