July 21st, 2009
QQ – You will flop one or more overcards without another queen on the board 31.1% of the time. If there are a lot of players already in the pot, you’re not going to knock anyone out by raising. If six players have already called, then they have a total of twelve cards among them. It’s very likely that’s there’s an ace and a king among those twelve cards, so I generally do not raise in late position with pocket queens. I like to limp in for one bet. If an ace or a king comes on the flop and there’s a bet, I can easily throw the hand away.
I want to emphasize that you’re not really playing against just the one player who bet. You’re playing against those twelve cards the others are holding. If you’re not sure you understand what I mean, try this quick and easy exercise:
Pull two queens from a full deck of cards. Shuffle the rest of the cards well, and then look at the first twelve cards off the top of the deck. Is there an ace or a king in those cards? I just performed this exercise twenty times and there was an ace or a king nineteen out of those twenty times. I don’t know if twenty trials is a large enough sample to be statistically valid, but it’s good enough for me, particularly since this nineteen out of twenty seems to coincide with my actual experiences in years of play. Kings and aces among these cards suggest that at least one of those players who just called may have an overcard to your queen.
JJ – You will get an overcard and no jack 47% of the time. For that reason, I usually like to see the flop as cheaply as possible, because I know that I’ll often be throwing it away often after the flop. There are two exceptions. If I’m in late position and only the blinds are in, I will raise to steal the blinds. If everyone has called and it’s raised, I will reraise to build a pot, since I have great drawing odds.
1010 – The best advice I can give you is to play this hand even more carefully than you play pocket jacks. You will get an overcard and no 10 60% of the time. If there’s no overcard on the flop, one will come on the turn or river 57% of the time. You usually have to flop another 10 or be drawing to the high end of a straight to have a good hand after the flop with pocket 10s.
99, 88, 77, 66, 55, 44, 33, 22 -1 put all of these pairs in the same category because each one has an incredibly high probability of flopping an overcard without flopping a set. The lower your pocket pair is, the more all caveats apply, and the luckier you have to get on the flop. If you stay in, see the flop as cheaply as you can.
There’s no law that says you have to play the hand anyway. I routinely fold pocket 2s, 3s, 4s, and 5s if it’s raised pre-flop and I respect the raiser. You can raise to steal the blinds in late position with these hands, but your decision to do so should depend on your ability to play and read your opponent after the flop, if he calls.
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