Should I have played this differently?

[amyval81]

Hi all,

I'm pretty new, I've been playing with play money on poker stars for about a year and finally made my first real money deposit ($25) last night. I played for a couple of hours on the 1/2 cent tables and lost just over $2. I tried to play pretty conservatively and only play good starting hands, but I must have been having a bad run of luck because whenever I would play a good hand and hit the flop either someone else would have the same straight and we would split the pot, or someone else had a better hand.

Here is one of the big hands that I lost. I was wondering if anyone could provide feedback as to whether I should have played this differently, and how. I need all of the help I can get! (I'm uberdooba)

pokerstars Game #6650311210: Hold'em No Limit ($0.01/$0.02) - 2006/10/15 - 23:32:26 (ET)
Table 'Sylvia' 6-max Seat #6 is the button
Seat 1: sds4 ($0.75 in chips)
Seat 2: kellychris ($4.89 in chips)
Seat 3: Chouime ($6.39 in chips)
Seat 4: Dancer King ($6.79 in chips)
Seat 5: uberdooba ($2.63 in chips)
Seat 6: joe1949 ($2.86 in chips)
sds4: posts small blind $0.01
kellychris: posts big blind $0.02
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to uberdooba [Qd Qh]
Chouime: calls $0.02
Dancer King: raises $0.02 to $0.04
uberdooba: calls $0.04
joe1949: folds
sds4: calls $0.03
kellychris: calls $0.02
Chouime: raises $0.02 to $0.06
Dancer King: calls $0.02
uberdooba: calls $0.02
sds4: calls $0.02
kellychris: calls $0.02
*** FLOP *** [Jc 9s Qs]
sds4: checks
kellychris: checks
Chouime: bets $0.04
Dancer King: calls $0.04
uberdooba: raises $0.16 to $0.20
sds4: folds
kellychris: folds
Chouime: calls $0.16
Dancer King: calls $0.16
*** TURN *** [Jc 9s Qs] [9d]
Chouime: bets $0.10
Dancer King: calls $0.10
uberdooba: raises $0.30 to $0.40
Chouime: calls $0.30
Dancer King: calls $0.30
*** RIVER *** [Jc 9s Qs 9d] [As]
Chouime: bets $0.10
Dancer King: calls $0.10
uberdooba: calls $0.10
*** SHOW DOWN ***
Chouime: shows [Ah Ac] (a full house, Aces full of Nines)
Dancer King: mucks hand
uberdooba: mucks hand
Chouime collected $2.30 from pot

 

[t1riel]

You played it fine. You got rivered, that's all. You made pretty good raises on the flop and turn.

 

[shinedown.45]

you couldn't have played it any different, at that level anyone with pocket aces would never lay it down especially with a pair on board.
as t1riel stated "You got rivered, that's all".
Better luck next time.
BTW, if I hadn't said it before, welcome to CC.

 

[Bombjack]

Welcome to CC!

LOL at mini-raises pre-flop! This is NO-LIMIT hold'em. Never minimum raise.

You need to thin the field pre-flop so ideally you're up against one opponent, to give your queens the best chance of standing up. Re-raise to about $0.20 pre-flop (because at these limits people call with anything if you bet less).

Bet bigger on the flop - a pot-sized bet (including in the pot the bets of your opponents on the flop) i.e. about $0.40, as you're in danger of being out-drawn if someone has a ten for the straight.

On the turn you should be fairly comfortable because you have the 2nd nuts (after pocket nines), but you could bet bigger for value.

I'd be all-in on the river. If someone has pocket aces or nines, that's bad luck, you should pay them off, but more likely you'll get paid off by someone with a straight or flush.

 

[ChuckTs]

First off, welcome to CC
This site will definitely help you with your game, and put you on track to being at least a break-even player if not a winning one. Try reading the Guide for some great advice for the beginner player.

As for this hand: you should definitely be reraising preflop. Two QQs is a monster hand, and you need to both get lots of money in the pot, and to isolate it down to one or two players to give yourself the best chance of winning. You don't want to let A9 in cheap only to see an ace flop. I'd be raising it up to around 20 cents or more. Playing tight is fine, but in order to make any profit you need to be very aggressive with your top 10 hands like QQ in this example.

As for the flop, it's a dangerous one that fits many hands that people call raises with. You don't want to give anyone with a flush or straight draw a cheap turn card, so bet this flop hard. Bet around 2/3 to the entire pot, or more. If you get callers, then you have to assume they're either beating you with KT or that they're drawing. I think you made a strong turn bet; you've pretty much got the hand on lock, and it's too bad that this guy got lucky with his (horribly played i might add) AA. Raise the river too - you've got the 3rd best hand possible, and I'd have gotten as much money in the middle as possible.

 

[Dorkus Malorkus]

- Calling two minraises preflop with QQ is horrible. You should be raising somewhere along the line.

- Flop is fine.

- Turn is fine.

- Raise the river. Don't be results-oriented here and think "lol it would be stupid to raise the river here 'cos villain had AA!" - so many worse hands call a river raise that there is definitely value in it.

 

[amyval81]

Thanks for the input. Yeah, I definitely agree about raising pre-flop instead of just calling the min raises, that was a mistake. As far as betting more on the flop, I tend to worry about being too aggressive in my betting and driving everyone out so that I don't get paid for my trips, but I guess if I had raised and gotten more money in the pot pre-flop that wouldn't have been such an issue. No matter how I had bet, I think this guy would have called either way, so it didn't really make much of a difference for this hand.

 

[amyval81]

ChuckT - just saw your comment about the straight draw. Good point, I wasn't even thinking about that at the flop, I was too focused on my trips.