I'd suggest raising but I might get banned for it.

not raising QQ would make the baby Jesus cry.
if not queens whats your raising range just AK AA and KK.
tight is right but thats pucker up turn coal into a diamond tight

easy raise for value.

you might consider auto check raising flops with no A or K to gain some relative position on a few players and make them face two bets.

I think the flop will get bet 90%+

Raising 22 will give you worse odds to make a set.

Why am I even posting on two plus two anymore...

I should just keep quiet and avoid the spread of quality information.

9 way pot easily raise 22+.

I would never raise 22 even in a 12 way.

67s though . . .

Fine. We never said it wasn't. But that doesn't mean that raising with a pair of queens in this spot will maximize your expectation against all players.

You need to understand that maximizing your expectation and collecting equity are not always the same thing.

MM

You may want to read Posts #21 and 51 in this thread:

https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/5...-spot-1691623/

I would also recommend you read the "Playing in Loose Games" section in our book Hold 'em Poker for Advanced Players.

Okay. But you may also want to look at Post #30 in the same thread.

MM

Twos are super live, and when you flop a set they make fewer straights than other pocket pairs.

So to clarify, in some games we shouldn't raise 8 Limpers with QQ. I suspected that was the case bit everyone was so dismissive I wasn't sure.

Hi Mason,
Love your writing and reread Poker Essay's #2 this summer while camping in Colorado (Great book, BTW).
I just did some excel analysis and admit I was wrong that raising 22 is more profitable than calling assuming 9 ways pre-flop with a 10% chance of winning the whole pot. The scaling effect of the pot size postflop is valuable and the pre-flop action is breakeven.

With 8 limpers my analysis shows a profit of .2 small bets extra from raising.
With only 7 limpers my analysis shows breakeven.
With 6 limpers a loss.

With a 15% chance of winning the pot, raising QQ makes over .5 a small bet in extra profit from raising. So I know from reading your essay's that it can be right to raise post flop to try to win the big pot more often, but it's pretty gray to me that you will be able to influence the pot just perfectly to skip that immediate value.

brick

Hi Brick:

First, the bolding is mine. But the bolded paragraph is the question. Does keeping the pot smaller by either not raising or not reraising allow you to play your hand strategically differently so that the probability of winning the pot has gone up enough to offset the initial amount of expectation, which in your example you say is half a small bet, that you give up in your preflop play.

Also, in your Excel analysis are you adjusting in any way for how some of yur opponents play might change based on the size of the pot? or is this not a consideration?

Again, I'm not going to post the "Playing in Loose Games" section in HPFAP. But all of this stuff is addressed there, and it includes much more than not raising or reraising with a hand like a pair of queens.

By the way, against weak opponents, we would recommend that you raise a small pair with less than seven limpers. But if they play really terrible, then we say not to do it.

Best wishes,
Mason

PS: By the way, it seems strange that you're busy reading Poker Essays Volume II and yet you don't seem to be familiar with the material in Hold 'em Poker for Advanced Players.

I will add HEPFAP to my reading list for the next summer trip. Haven't read it since 2005!

I did make a small adjustment in the excel based on the size of the pot but I can see there is an opportunity for large mistakes with QQ if played incorrectly.

For example if I was to get "attached" to QQ, and call two big bets incorrectly just 10% of the time (assuming very little equity in these call downs), this could result in a negative -.2 BB EV.