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Hand 1 - Only three players to the flop, and no one has shown any preflop strength. Betting is fine. Check/calling is actually fine too. Against a raise, you may actually still be ahead, this is 2NL and players may be doing this with hands from anything from queen two to queen ace. But since you don't have a strong kicker, folding is the better move. You're going to end up paying off hands like QT or two pair too often.
Overall, as played, I say you played it fine. That said, if you were to c/c or c/f, that would be fine too.
Hand 2 - There's nothing on the river even bad cash players are going to call you with that isn't way ahead on this scary a board. If he has a nine, he now has third pair on a flush board with a king out there. Not the time to value bet. He probably has a club himself. But say he had a king of clubs, and decided to check the turn, or a set scared of the flush, you could just be paying him off. At 2NL people also play anything, if he happened to have a hand like K4, with one club, you're likely just paying him off. The main thing to realize here is, against his calling range, you're often behind and ahead of nothing. If you made two pair on the otherhand, I'd value bet despite there being a flush possible.
Hand 3 - Two limpers is exactly the reason you should be raising preflop. KQo is not a good multiway hand. You want to raise opponents out and be heads up more often than not.
The more limpers, the more happy you should be to raise the hand. Two reasons:
1. No one has shown strength, as they've limped.
2. There's a lot of possible 'dead money' you can gain by raising other opponents out.
Try plotting KQ against 3 other hands, no matter how weak they are, then try plotting KQ against just one. See how your equity goes way up.
Now the flop. It's an unraised pot, so there's not a lot of money in it, no reason to be defending your hand. While he makes a min raise on the flop, you don't have many outs, assuming he has a set, you're practically drawing dead. Assuming he has two pair with a king, you only have the three queens as an out. The only real hand that you'd have outs against is 47o, which if the board runner runner pairs, or you catch one of your five outs, you'd still be ahead, in which case you're sort of priced in.
Flop you have to make a decision. Am I ahead? Am I behind? If you're ahead, calling is the wrong move, you want to raise to charge him from getting there with a hand like 56s.
Turn, again, if you called, it shouldn't be because you're trying to chase a 3 outer, so you should be betting this turn. Charge him for his draw.
River. As played it's fine. He's giving you 4 to 1 odds, so you only need to be ahead 25% of the time here. I like checking, you could get him to bluff at the pot with a worse hand or missed draw.
The main mistake?
You want to raise preflop. Calling with KQo is NEVER a good idea, the only exception is against someone who is hyper aggressive postflop and you have position. You're out of position here, and you have a good, but not excellent hand. Even against a hyper aggressive opponent, you do not want to smooth call KQ out of position. Why? If your hyper aggressive opponent raises, and the flop comes 789 rainbow, what would you do? Think of the scenarios, and you'll see most of them don't end well for you. This was your costly mistake.
To re-iterate, the only time you limp KQo is in position against an aggressive opponent.
The biggest mistake I've seen players make at these limits is limping strong hands, flopping marginal hands (marginal in the face of multiple opponents) and playing them too far. If you're going to go far with a hand, raise preflop. When a player limps his aces, then loses his stack to a guy holding 24o who hit a straight or two pair, it's not a bad beat, it's a bad play.
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$2NL 9Max bit of guidance?
, Q
, Q
, 10
(2 players)
but seriously is flop a fold or is that a call and river a fold?
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