Hey,well im pretty new to limit but have found myself doing quite well in it recently,this hand came up about 5 minutes ago...CO is a bit of a maniac so i wasnt really worried about him,and SB was a good solid player from what id seen,should i have just been jamming the pot here? i honestly felt i was beat on the turn but decided to go to the showdown anyway,did i lose value by playing it the way i did? cheers

Full Tilt Limit Hold'em, $1.00 BB (6 handed) - Full-Tilt Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

Preflop: Hero is UTG with Q , Q
Hero raises, 1 fold, CO calls, 1 fold, SB 3-bets, 1 fold, Hero calls, CO caps, SB calls, Hero calls

Flop: (13 SB) 10 , 7 , 4 (3 players)
SB bets, Hero calls, CO raises, SB 3-bets, Hero calls, CO caps, SB calls, Hero calls

Turn: (12.5 BB) 5 (3 players)
SB bets, Hero calls, CO raises, SB 3-bets, Hero calls, CO caps, SB calls, Hero calls

River: (24.5 BB) 5 (3 players)
SB checks, Hero checks, CO bets, SB calls, Hero calls

Total pot: $27.20 (27.2 BB) | Rake: $0.50


Results:
[removed by mod]

Don't post results. Read posting guidelines. Thanks.

Cap preflop. Raise flop. Get to showdown as cheaply as possible from there expecting the worst. The pot is to big to fold vs a maniac and obviously an unknown.

I think that sums it up.

You played this hand way to passively on every street. You should be capping this pre-flop and getting in more bets on the flop. From there, the aggression of the villian's will dictate your turn and river play. But, you're almost never folding on this board and you should be showing more aggression. I threw up a little in my mouth at all the calls in this hand.

As everyone has said, not capping preflop is only good if you hate money.

Most poker players do hate money, but since you've taken it a step further by posting in a strat forum, I'm going to assume you actually like money.

So, we've got that cleared up. I hate that I've seen the results in this hand, because I fear I may be a bit biased now.

Anyways, cap preflop, the action on the flop might change based on that, but either way, I'm not slowing down on the flop. If I can, I'm capping it. If we think the SB is good, then he could easily be trying to force you off your hand with a hand worse than QQ, but one that rates to beat the maniac. He's trying to isolate him by getting us out of the way. I would 3-bet him or cap, or however the action comes around, just raise.

Generally, now that we've repped our hand pretty strong, I'd expect a competent SB to slow down with hands that we likely beat (whether that's better than us 'slowplaying' and getting him to spew off with worse in this exact spot, I'm not sure), but it would make it a lot easier to know where we stand in the hand on the turn.

Since the pot would be monstrous, I'd still probably never fold anywhere in this hand, but I may easily go into call down mode on the turn, depending on the action.

Once we see that river, I'd really strongly consider raising as we now beat any flopped 2 hand, although the SB's presence in the hand might scare me away from that, as he's played it a lot like AA/KK.

yeah i meant to hide the results thats my bad yeah i played really passive in this hand,but as i said im a noob at limit but then again this hand pretty much plays itself right? i generally need all the help i can get. i suppose it didn't turn out too bad because every street got capped apart from the river...maybe i should buy a limit book

If you haven't read it, get SSHE (Small Stakes Hold'em) by Ed Miller and Sklansky. With just a minimal understanding of the concepts in that book you can crush low stakes live games. It used to be the same online, but the games have gotten so much taggier that the stuff in SSHE doesn't really apply to online games as much anymore. That said, if you've never played limit, there is no better book for understanding the general concepts of what you need to be thinking about when playing the game and what the most important considerations are when thinking about a hand.

Consider his hand distribution (AA-77, AK AQ AJ)... If the SB has AA, KK, 1010 or 77 you are beat; you can eliminate all other hands because of how he jammed the flop. The only hand you can beat then is JJ--that is only 1 hand out of the 5 possible. Since you called $2 on flop, $4 on turn and $1 on river, (the $2 preflop inevitable) you paid a total of $9 to win $27--only getting 3-1. Since you only could beat 1/5 hands that the SB could have had you needed 5-1 on the pot to break even....Raising preflop and flop would have helped you figure out where you are alot.

That is some incredibly flawed mathematical analysis. I'm sick and not in the mood to explain why right now, but I'll get into it later on if I remember.

[quote name='DinkDonk' date='Friday, February 13th, 2009, 7:31 PM' post='3020970']
That is some incredibly flawed mathematical analysis. I'm sick and not in the mood to explain why right now, but I'll get into it later on if I remember.
[/quote

The 3-1 and 5-1 are ball park figures--I know the numbers don't work out exactly like that...but the hand distribution is accurate. My point is that he could have saved at least 2 turn bets and a river bet by raising the turn/flop instead of flat calling.

Ok, but the problem is that this sets a really bad precedent as to the type of math we do during a hand. It matters far less which hands we are "beating" in a range and far more what our equity is vs. each individual hand in that range and our cumulative equity vs. that range. And even if you understand how to do that math, others might see what you did here and assume that it's a viable way of determining the correct course of action, when in honesty this method is rarely correct and even if it is in certain spots, it's more important that we determine why the math works than knowing a quick trick.

I don't mean to single you out as a new poster either. I hope you continue to post.

No offense taken--it's nice to be able to discuss these things with knowledgable pepople. So if we deduce this guy has either (AA, KK, JJ, 1010 or 77) on the flop, then our cumulative equity against this range is very low. We are huge dogs against 4 of these hands on the flop and a huge fave against only one. I still think at some point in this hand we need to ask ourselves, "what can we beat here?

I'm not really familiar with what a "good, solid" player 3bets with from the SB to an UTG raise and LP call at 1/2 LHE 6max, but your range for him preflop and to b/3b this flop seems remarkably narrow.

Your Assigned Range:
Hand Pot equity Wins Ties
QhQd 28.88% 6,861 0
AA,KK,JJ,TT,77 71.12% 16,899 0

Slightly Wider Range:
Hand Pot equity Wins Ties
QhQd 41.53% 13,980 0
AA,KK,JJ,TT,77,ATs,TJs,89s 58.47% 19,680 0

Maybe His Actual Range:
Hand Pot equity Wins Ties
QhQd 53.42% 28,032 0
AA,KK,JJ,TT,77,AK,ATs,TJs,9Ts,89s 46.58% 24,438 0

Extremely Wide Range:
Hand Pot equity Wins Ties
QhQd 67.16% 87,097 0
AA,KK,JJ,TT,99,88,77,44,AK,AQ,AT,TJ,9T,89,J9 32.84% 42,593 0

I was feeling charitable so I even added a hand that beats us to the "extemely wide range".

Of course, CO obviously has some non-zero amount of equity in this pot, which I am ignoring just because I wanted to address this specific issue of SB's actual range and hero's equity against it.