Do you have a least favorite “good” hand pre-flop?
I just posted this question on a forum, and I thought I’d throw it out here:
What is your least favorite “good” hand? I’m talking about hands that are high in any pre-flop hand ranking system, but tend to get you in trouble. For me, that hand is definitely KQo. I have stopped playing this hand in the blinds against a raise, even a steal raise. It seems like the worst reverse-implied-odds hands, where you’ll either win a small pot or lose a big one.
With KQ, you’re behind pre-flop to every ace, and you’re dominated by quality raising hands like AK/AQ/KK/QQ. If a queen flops you can still lose a big pot if someone has AQ or a paired kicker.
I find this hand very tough to play from the blinds because, if you flat call and flop top pair, you’ve set yourself up to play a big pot. Say you call with KQ and the flop is:
Q T 2 unsuited
This is a great check-raise situation, where you can pick off a c-bet with nothing. But if you check-raise and get called, there aren’t a lot of cards I want to see on fourth street. Definitely not an ace or another ten. A nine or an eight isn’t great either. If it’s a total rag like a 6, I’ll probably move in, but I’ll mostly get called by sets, overpairs and ragged two pairs.
I still definitely open-raise KQ from almost any position, but I don’t like standing raises with it, especially at a fairly passive micro-stakes table. I’d much rather flat-call a raise in position with J9s (unlikely to be dominated, well disguised, steal equity later) or out of position with 77 (good implied odds, you’ll probably win a lot or lose a little).
Do you have a hand that you know is “good” but always gets you in trouble?
EDIT: Not five minutes after I posted this, I looked at DailyHandQuiz.com and found a situation where flat-calling with KQ took down a massive pot. Hmmm.
EDIT AGAIN: People on the forum mentioned AJ as a problematic “good” hand since it appears strong but is so frequently dominated in a raised pot.
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Comments
I agree with kq…even suited. Just a couple of nights ago I lost a bundle in the small blind to a guy who limped in with AK when a king flopped on the board. Seems like you win a little but lose a lot with this hand.
IMHO open-raising with KQ from early position in small/middle stakes 9-handed cash games is definitely -EV. I would muck this hand UTG, UTG+1, UTG+2.
KQ is a nice hand to play in position, but calling raises with it or playing it out of position is just asking for trouble. I think Andrew Feldman recently wrote about this on his ESPN blog like a week ago.
If you have KQ in the blinds and there is a button-steal or cutoff raiser, most of the time I fold but if I do play, it’s against someone that is clearly targeting my blinds. In that case, I like to put in a raise so I don’t have to play the hand out of position and I can just take it down there or get some more info. about my opponent’s range of hands. I think Dan Harrington refers to this as throwing down the hammer (?) in his tournament books.
Azn_cutie, should have mentioned that I only play online 6-max NL cash so I’m talking about opening from the hijack, cutoff and button. UTG I’d probably let it go.
JJ is my most hated “good hand”. I seem to always get in some trouble with it.. I posted about it earlier in this blog.