At a nine handed table, what do you do with AJo and KQo from UTG and UTG+1? Any later than that and I'm very confident open-raising them at almost any table. At what types of tables would you muck them? What kinds of opponents would you like to have to raise them? Do you ever open limp them? Teach me how to play these troubling hands pre flop from early position.

In the games I usually play, it's profitable to raise them because people love to cold-call with worse hands. I consistently see cold-callers show down hands like KTo, QJ, A9s, A5s, KJo, JTo, etc. In those cases there's a lot of value there.

In games where it's pretty tight and aggro, where raises will only get you heads up with better hands (e.g. all the ATs and KJo hands will fold, and the AQ and 88 hands will call), it's probably better to limp or fold, with my preference being fold. But I just don't see games that bad that often, so if you're in a game where you have to routinely muck AJ and KQ from EP, then just change tables.

Do I need to answer this question?

eez fold imo

This depends wholly on the game. In a typical Borg 40 I'd raise ATo and expect to get called by worse hands. I witnessed one hand where boc4life opened KTo UTG and he insists it was a profitable play.

This.

So at Bay 101 you always raise in the 20/40 and the good 40/80 games. If the 40 is on the tight side then I usually limp, unless my image is good and I'm running over the game. The game is rarely bad enough to fold and if it is I go play 20 or cycle back thru the must move 40.

hank, how about 3 bets to you with AKo in the 80?

I think PJ got this absolutely right. It really is table dependent. The more passive the table, the more likely coming in with the raise even in UTG and UTG+1 can be. On tight tables, it can be a fold! I don't want to play at tables where I have to fold AJo UTG.

lol.

Also, I would never play in a game where I felt the need to muck either of these hands utg or utg +1.

huh, i guess I'm just a nit. a raising we will go.

seems like boc made quite an impression on you

I can't imagine this to be correct. There is a big difference between AJo and KTo.

OK since Boc doesnt seem to want to defend himself I will take a stab. Everyone knows that opening kto utg everytime isn't going to turn a profit but in the context of an overall strategy it can make sense. If you think about the general tendencies of the players that Boc plays against then you might see that there is a method to the madness.

Fwiw I would never open this hand on the west coast because people are gonna play loose and bad no matter what my image is.

I wasn't there but heard he was on tilt. Anyway, I prefer to raise with KQ than w/AJ. People love to call with A-x but not with K-x. So, if they hit their side card, you are playing 3 outs (and usually unaware of this). I [almost] never limp first in p/f so it is either raise or fold for me depending on the game. While trere is a luxury of changing tables on weekends, there is usually only one game going on a weekday, and it may still be profitable even if you have to muck these hands UTG.

This makes no sense to me. If people are going to cold-call with Ax, why wouldn't you want to raise AJ? I'll take the chance of getting reverse dominated, since the money is going in PF with me as a 70% favorite.

IMO, you lose more than 2:1 when this happens, especially if you hit an Ace. They fold the flop ot at best the turn when miss, you go to the river when hit, and get raised somewhere in the process. While you are almost never good if you are raised it is rather bad for your meta-game to fold TP good kicker. Anyway, these hands don't play well OOP, so I often fold both.

How can hands play bad oop?

Not only did I witness you open limp twice last weekend (this is not an insult just calling out a truth) but I have to agree with Joker and the rest. You get immediate value when you raise with AJ and they call with Ax (x<J), as opposed to raising KQ and them calling with Ax.

Jesse, like others have said at typical good tables, both are a raise. Unfortunately tables are not always that good and sometimes call for variation.

At tough tables, folding is best.

I've never been in a game online or live that I thought I should fold AJ or KQ.

wow. nits. raise. do you pay attention to your opponents? they call with worse. much, much, much worse.

Your tone is one of disagreement, but you're really just saying what everyone else has said, only more bluntly. I think pohuist is the only guy in this thread claiming these (esp. AJo) aren't raising hands.

Why do people hate getting bets in with the best had pre flop?

I just read my own post and can't believe I wrote the word "call." I can't imagine calling with AJo and KQo.

I do however sometimes Limp AJs, KQs. But those instances are few and rare.

Really? Didn't you say its a fold in tight aggro game? Both HEPFAP and MLHE speak of these hands as borderline, and neither says anything about limping. So this is raise or fold depending on the game, and that is exactly what I am saying.

Mitch, for some hands it does not matter that much whether we are in position or not. For other it matters a great deal. I consider AJ and KQ to be of the latter category.

Josh, I said [ALMOST] never. (There nothing insulting in your comment, btw, and I actually play very tight maybe even too tight p/f). There are games where I will limp occasionally with hands that play well multiway if there is lttle or no raising p/f or if a couple of people to my left are the type to limp liberally. Neither AJ nor KQ is a good multiway hand IMO so it is [almost] never a limp for me.