PLEASE HELP~~~

I was wondering (for the players who play AK, AQ , and AJ. Lets suppose your sitting in mid position with AQ, your the first one into the pot, do you raise with this hand, or do you limp? If you limp you risk someone in later position raising you and then having to fold, if you raise, your goin to miss the flop 72% of the time, and your only goin to flop the ace only 17% of the time. In other words most of the time you are goin to have nothing on the flop, so do you check/fold? Or do you bet praying he has nothing and will fold? Please help me out

my 2 cents...

1. get a feel for the table / players (is it tight, loose etc) this is the key to knowing what you can / can't get away with.

2. decide how you want to play it - if you raise then how much? (table knowledge also important here) can you slow play it or use it to reraise the maniac sitting beside you who will raise with anything if no-one else has raised...

3. you raise and miss the flop but it's raggy and rainbow - throw out a bet (two thirds / full pot - your call) and again, depending on the table you may well take it down there - people don't know if you have overcards or overpair remember. (i've taken to raising a set amount regardless of cards to this very end - AJ gets the same raise as AA) if you get called and don't improve on the turn then check / fold unless you have a read on the caller and figure he has overcards too and not as good as yours...

3a. you raise and miss the flop but it's a connected (flush or straight) board - probably same as above to be honest. you have the lead in the hand because you raised it pf - if you check then you give that up - unless of course you hit a monster at which point it's a whole different story

3b. you raise and miss the flop but there are high cards present - as above again - to be honest, i've found you are more likely to take it down if there are high cards present - people more likely to believe the bet.

you have to know the table though - that's most of the battle. as with most things in this game - there are no hard and fast rules. should you raise, should you bet, should you fold? well, you see it depends...

hope that's halfway useful.

You're worrying too much about winning every pot you enter. Preflop, all you have to worry about is having the best hand. Then on the flop, your op will miss his hand 72% of the time just like you, so the majority of the time you have the best hand too. But these lead to small pots. Small pots just keep you together between the big ones, where you raise with AK, AQ calls, A flops and you win a nice pot.

I always bet, never pray.

You're still too weak/tight, which is ashame. You've gotta have something click inside your head that makes you want to bet, want to raise and want to call with nothing. It'll be healthy for you.

-'rilla

Originally Posted by a500lbgorilla

You're still too weak/tight, which is ashame. You've gotta have something click inside your head that makes you want to bet, want to raise and want to call with nothing. It'll be healthy for you.

-'rilla

Yes. Perhaps you can go down to lower blinds and practice being aggressive without worrying about your buyin. A hand like AQ is a raise pre-flop followed by a bet on the flop. 20% of the time you will take the pot right there. The other 45% you will see an A or Q on the board and get to take a bigger pot once you've developed some post-flop playing skills. After factoring out the times you are beat you should still be turning a nice profit with that hand.

First in Mid-Late position raise at least 3xBB or fold unless you have a small pocket pair. In that case limp and call a raise for an implied odds shot at a set if you both have a good stack.

Like Rilla stated, you're way too weak-tight. Poker is about position and representation. Think about when a flop comes out 2 5 5 rainbow. From then on, assuming no one hit anything (which you would), you bet as if it's still preflop. You bet the strength of your hand against others blind. AQ would still be boss on this flop if no one has a pocket pair.

Raise your AQ every time. If it gets reraised behind you, then just call if it's not too deep to see a flop and play cautiously. A reraise could mean JJ QQ or KK, in which case a flopped A trumps it anyway, so it's worth a look see.