Getting Back Into Playing

[Pancake407 0]

Havent played poker in a long time, so i apologize in advance for what are most likely basic decisions...Ultimate Bet .1/.2Pancake407 is dealt Q2s in the BBUTG raises to $.02, UTG+1 calls, 4 folds, CO Calls, 2 folds, Pancake 407...EDIT: Added my position.

[Chet Chetterson 0]

You mistyped that, it can't be a dime/20 cent game and a player raise to two centsIf you have the hand history please use a converter and post that instead

[Pancake407 0]

Sorry, its .01/.02....i tried using the converter but it will not work. It isn't really that relevant I dont think...

[Chet Chetterson 0]

Sorry, its .01/.02....i tried using the converter but it will not work. It isn't really that relevant I dont think...

Then I'm reading the hand as either a limp pot or a min raise of 0.02 to 0.04. If it's a limp pot you definitely check to see your option. I guess you can call with the others given odds. Either way you need to hit a very good hand to put any more money in this pot.

[RISEorFall 0]

youre getting good odds, but your hand sucks. especially multiway. and youre out of position. fold

[DinkDonk 1]

This isn't a fold. You're getting 7.5 to 1 closing the action. Call with all of your suited hands and most connectors.

[TheCinciKid 0]

I'm definitely calling here.

[RISEorFall 0]

This isn't a fold. You're getting 7.5 to 1 closing the action. Call with all of your suited hands and most connectors.

so are you calling with this hand on the button given the same odds? i'm not. anybody here make money playing Q2?

[DinkDonk 1]

so are you calling with this hand on the button given the same odds? i'm not. anybody here make money playing Q2?

If you can dream up a spot where I'm getting these odds closing the action, yes.And in this spot, yes absolutely.

[Mattnxtc 0]

so are you calling with this hand on the button given the same odds? i'm not. anybody here make money playing Q2?

This is a completely different scenerio...You dont have money invested in the pot already from the buttonYou arent closing the action preflop from the buttonYour odds arent as good from the buttonAs to your second comment. If we fold, we lose .5BB/100 instantly. So if we lose only .49BB/100 making this call then while we are still losing money it is a superior play

[MovingIn 0]

Even when Q2 hits the flop, it's typically beat in a multiway pot. Pairing the 2 is worthless. Pairing the Q on a Q high board gets beat by just about anyone else who paired the Q. And catching the flush costs us if anyone has the suited K or suited A to match. If you're lucky, no one does... or maybe you pair the Q and the 2. Or maybe you flop trips and nobody else does. But we're putting ourselves in a position where, to get paid off, everything must go absolutely right.Whether or not we have simple odds to make a hand, we must also consider the odds that making a hand makes one of our villains a better hand. I think our odds are too long for even a 7.5-1 shot to pay off here. AND we're out of position in a multiway pot.Much of the time, we either lose a small bet by folding... or two small bets by closing the action with a call. I'd rather lose a small bet than play a double price lottery ticket with Q2s. I'm fairly sure the flop doesn't disappoint me once I fold.

[Mattnxtc 0]

Even when Q2 hits the flop, it's typically beat in a multiway pot. Pairing the 2 is worthless. Pairing the Q on a Q high board gets beat by just about anyone else who paired the Q. And catching the flush costs us if anyone has the suited K or suited A to match. If you're lucky, no one does... or maybe you pair the Q and the 2. Or maybe you flop trips and nobody else does. But we're putting ourselves in a position where, to get paid off, everything must go absolutely right.Whether or not we have simple odds to make a hand, we must also consider the odds that making a hand makes one of our villains a better hand. I think our odds are too long for even a 7.5-1 shot to pay off here. AND we're out of position in a multiway pot.Much of the time, we either lose a small bet by folding... or two small bets by closing the action with a call. I'd rather lose a small bet than play a double price lottery ticket with Q2s. I'm fairly sure the flop doesn't disappoint me once I fold.

So you are willing to potentially play suboptimally because you may have to make tough decisions?

[MovingIn 0]

Calling a raise in the blinds with Q2s is optimal? I'd like to see your win rate with Q2s in the blinds against a raise.

[Mattnxtc 0]

Again...it doenst have to be profitable...you just have to lose less then .5BB by playing it...Given the odds you are getting its close enough to be considered and not a default fold.

[DinkDonk 1]

Saying that I would play this every single time is conditioned by my assumption that we play well postflop. If you can't, don't play it. If you can, I guarantee that you can correctly call here. I'm not going to get into a dickwaving contest about me showing you my win-rate in similar spots, but I will say that I'm most likely calling here for 5.5 to 1 as well. For 7.5 to 1, I don't think that it's particularly close. But again, this is entirely dependent on your postflop playing ability.As an aside, DC coach and 2+2 poster Oink did a study regarding suited card blind defense. He experimented with calling any 2 suited cards for 5 to 1 closing the action and had very positive results. I don't have a link for you because it's from a video, but if you look, it might be in print somewhere.

[Tactical Bear 3]

Saying that I would play this every single time is conditioned by my assumption that we play well postflop. If you can't, don't play it. If you can, I guarantee that you can correctly call here. I'm not going to get into a dickwaving contest about me showing you my win-rate in similar spots, but I will say that I'm most likely calling here for 5.5 to 1 as well. For 7.5 to 1, I don't think that it's particularly close. But again, this is entirely dependent on your postflop playing ability.As an aside, DC coach and 2+2 poster Oink did a study regarding suited card blind defense. He experimented with calling any 2 suited cards for 5 to 1 closing the action and had very positive results. I don't have a link for you because it's from a video, but if you look, it might be in print somewhere.

This is the important assumption, and it can depend on more than just the answer to the "are you any good" question. If I'm playing 6 tables and don't feel comfortable, I would fold a hand like this in a marginal spot, because I am probably incapable of squeezing value out of individual players. Maybe I fold here if a very good player called the raise cold from MP2, and the UTG player has a narrow raising range and plays very well against me postflop. That being said, I need a reason to not call here. I remember that Matt Matros (I think) made a very good point (somewhere at some point) about good/solid players playing way too tight in the big blind when they expect to be up against a legitimate or number of legitimate hands. If you play well enough postflop to exploit your opponents, then you should be inclined to splash around, especially when you're getting, you know, 7.5-1. That's a pretty big number. Run it hot/cold, and you only have to get there about 11% of the time to break even. I don't have poker-stove on this computer (I'm in a computer lab, skipping a stats lecture), so I popped a few hands into an odds calculator. If the raiser has KsKx, one caller has Ad9d, and another has TT, we win the pot outright more than 13% of the time. Our equity goes up to about 19% if that goes up to JsJ, AKd, and 8c9c. Of course, it will often end up that we're dominated, but I'm confident that the equity we give away by calling -- less than a quarter of a small bet when we're in rough enough shape that we win the 4-handed pot 9% of the time -- is made up for by the times we're drawing good and our ability to play well postflop. Any, my final point, and perhaps the most important one:Learn to splash. Learn to play marginal spots. Learn to get your money in when you are in tricky spots, and do it as much as you can, while it's not expensive. If you're just starting to play again, you should try not to form bad habits, obviously, but you should also play as many hands as you can get away with in near-breakeven spots. I learned how to play post-flop by expanding my range from LP and the blinds. It works.

[DinkDonk 1]

Look at all of what TB is saying and add into that the idea of implied odds. When a lot of bets go in postflop who do you think is in really good shape- us or them? We aren't going nuts on a QT9 flop, we aren't going nuts on a 332 flop. But if it comes down Q62, how much action do you think we're getting from AA? If we make a flush in a 4 way pot, how many call downs do we stand to get? on a 22x flop who expects us to have a 2?Also, calling with Q2s and similar hands widens our range significantly when we defend the BB, thus making us far more difficult to play against. If you can play a ton of hands that are slightly better than break-even in these spots, your range will become so much less defined. You will be able to bluff more boards, peel more flops, and get value where you otherwise wouldn't. In other words, your opponents will make more mistakes.Please don't just say Q2 is a bad hand, we can't play it. Learn to examine every decision you make at a poker table.

[antistuff 0]

on the flip side to this is that there are very successful players who defend their blinds rather tightly. blind defense is a funny thing. i wouldn't be suprised if somebody who was very loose and very tight ended up with the same winrate over time. on the flip side of that, as opponents get tougher who do you think is going to do better? i would suspect the loose player. and it has nothing to do with needing to defend your blinds rabidly in a tough game. they are very often going to end up being the better player.

[Tactical Bear 3]

on the flip side to this is that there are very successful players who defend their blinds rather tightly. blind defense is a funny thing. i wouldn't be suprised if somebody who was very loose and very tight ended up with the same winrate over time. on the flip side of that, as opponents get tougher who do you think is going to do better? i would suspect the loose player. and it has nothing to do with needing to defend your blinds rabidly in a tough game. they are very often going to end up being the better player.

Yeah, that second part is true, and is exactly what I was alluding to in my earlier post. Looser players have to play more, and get to refine some skills tighter players may never develop. If I perceive a situation as break-evenish (marginally profitable, marginally unprofitable, or somewhere in between) I always play. Even if I ended up costing myself 1/10 of a BB/100 (and I would argue I was not), I was learning enough to more than make up for it.

[MovingIn 0]

I must note there are a lot of hands I'd play in the BB against a raise. If this were J7s or Q9s or a suited connector like 54s, I'd play it. It comes down to how often we hit the flop hard enough with the hand in question to continue, our definition of hitting the flop hard, and how well we get paid off when we do hit the flop hard. Then again, I play lower stakes where the action is far different than your typical tough game with 2-4 players seeing flops.IMO it seems Q2s is just too low on the spectrum for even implied odds to warrant a call. Oink's study sounds appealing but I would need to know what kind of a sample size he analyzed to draw his conclusion. Profitability over a simulation of thousands of hands would be encouraging.

[DinkDonk 1]

I must note there are a lot of hands I'd play in the BB against a raise. If this were J7s or Q9s or a suited connector like 54s, I'd play it. It comes down to how often we hit the flop hard enough with the hand in question to continue, our definition of hitting the flop hard, and how well we get paid off when we do hit the flop hard. Then again, I play lower stakes where the action is far different than your typical tough game with 2-4 players seeing flops.IMO it seems Q2s is just too low on the spectrum for even implied odds to warrant a call. Oink's study sounds appealing but I would need to know what kind of a sample size he analyzed to draw his conclusion. Profitability over a simulation of thousands of hands would be encouraging.

You can try to find it in print at 2+2 or something, but I would assume it was a pretty significant sample considering he mentioned it on a video. He's a very smart guy and I wouldn't expect him to say anything if it was a meaningless sample.

[Tactical Bear 3]

IMO it seems Q2s is just too low on the spectrum for even implied odds to warrant a call. Oink's study sounds appealing but I would need to know what kind of a sample size he analyzed to draw his conclusion. Profitability over a simulation of thousands of hands would be encouraging.

Is this based on gut feeling, or some kind of evidence? If it's the latter: show me. I could very well be wrong, but you need to show me. Show me ranges and numbers. Just because it generally feels like we're in bad shape doesn't mean we actually are. So: show me

[MovingIn 0]

Some of my TTH sims from the SB show Q2s turning, at best, a very small profit, but frequently finishing in the red 10000-20000 hand test runs, against a typical lineup mix of loose passives and average players with about 4-5 players seeing each flop.The general range I see posting an average net loss of less than two small bets from the BB against a raise (and thus being worthy +EV wise of calling a raise): all pairs, Axs, A9o+, Kxs, K10+, Q6s+, Q10o+, J8s+, J10o, T7s+, 96s+, 85s+, 76s, 65s, 53s+

[DinkDonk 1]

Ok, first I don't know what TTH is but I can see some flaws already. As has already been said, WE DON'T HAVE TO SHOW A PROFIT. WE ONLY HAVE TO LOSE FEWER THAN .5BB. That is the only thing necessary to make calling better than folding. Also, I really don't understand how this program accounts for postflop edge. With that said, I checked my own database, filtering for the times I called a raise from the BB with any suited deuce. Not only was Q2s in the magical losing less than .5BB range, nearly all my suited deuces were. Even when I take A2s and K2s out the results are overwhelmingly in favor of defending. The only suited 2's that were losing more than that were specifically 92s, 102s, and 24s. And all of those hands were pretty close. I encourage the rest of you to play around in your databases to see which hands you can profitably defend with. I assume nearly all of you are too tight when it comes to blind defense. This is not only a small mistake every time you do it, but you're robbing yourself of opportunities to learn how to play marginal situations postflop and improve your entire game.

[Tactical Bear 3]

I encourage the rest of you to play around in your databases to see which hands you can profitably defend with. I assume nearly all of you are too tight when it comes to blind defense. This is not only a small mistake every time you do it, but you're robbing yourself of opportunities to learn how to play marginal situations postflop and improve your entire game.

I can't emphasize this enough. I'm probably not even a winning online player anymore, but back when I was good, I used to do a lot of one-on-one instruction with solid players in an attempt to boost their winrate. My biggest piece of advice was always "if you think a spot is break-even or close to it, play." Look, it's very encouraging that people are arguing about this in the first place, and there have been some very solid points made. If you truly believe defending with Q2s from the BB is a losing play, then, by all means, fold it. It may very well be a hand you can't show a profit with in the BB, perhaps because of the games you're playing, or your style or image. There is nothing wrong with that. But, Dink has convinced you that it's close, then get in there and gamble. The more difficult decisions you make, the better you will get at making them. I know a lot of otherwise-solid players who avoid troublesome post-flop situations because, honestly, it's stressful and scary, and they don't want to make an incorrect decision. Unfortunately, a good player wants nothing more than to find himself repeatedly in really, really tough spots, because that's where your edge is. If you're struggling with a decision, your opponent will be, too. Get good at dealing with tough, disgusting post-flop spots and your winrate in ALL games (.5/1.00 LHE, 20/40 LHE, 3/6 LO8, and even 1/2 NLHE) will increase. I promise. Challenge yourself.