queens in trouble - an interesting poker hand

I found the following hand on the internet and i think it is a really interesting. There is no additional information on the other players involved. Well they all limped in so i guess there are not really playing a TAG (tight aggressive) style.

Preflop: Hero is Button with Q, Q.

UTG calls, 2 folds, MP2 calls, MP3 calls, CO checks, Hero raises, 2 folds, UTG calls, MP2 calls, MP3 calls, CO calls.


Flop: (11.40 SB) T , J , Q (5 players)

Now that is a good flop – dangerous but good. Right now we got top set – a very strong hand – only 3 hands are beating us right now (AK, K9, 98). AK would have raised before the flop. So K9 and 98 are the only hands we have to fear. And even against these straights we have a couple of outs (cards that would give us the better hand) because we can still make a full house. Pokerstove - a program to calculate your chance to win a hand – says QQ is a 53% favorite to take the pot (assuming all opponents are limping with the top 30% of their hands and raising 10%). I think that range is pretty good for these enemies. Actually i think they will limp even more – given us a better chance to win.


UTG bets, MP2 calls, MP3 folds, CO calls, Hero raises, UTG calls, MP2 calls, CO calls.

The first player bets and everyone else calls. We have to raise here. Most likely the set is the best hand and we have to charge all players drawing for a flush or a straight. Maybe UTG has us beaten right now but we have outs and let the others pay if they are still drawing. Once again the queens have a 53% chance to win this hand. As soon as our chance is bigger than 20% (because there are 5 players) it wins money in the long run to put more chips into the middle.


Turn: (9.70 BB) 8 (4 players)

The 8 is a bad card for our queens. Now every 9 makes a straight already. Pokerstove still shows 32% to take the pot. We are still a favorite against the range of our opponents.


UTG checks, MP2 checks, CO bets, Hero....

Now we have to make a tough decision. The player in the cut-off wakes up and bets into us. We have to assume that the 8 helped him – he made the straight. If we believe he has the 9 and the range for all other players stays the same our chance to win drops to 20%. So that is really on the edge. I would love to raise and kick out the flush draws. But raising would give the following players still the needed odds to draw because they have to pay 2 BB for a pot of 12.7 BB and there are 9 cards of the remaining 46 cards giving them the flush. So raising will build a bigger pot for the guy with the straight and knocking out other draws or made hands would reduce the equity of our hand. Reducing the amount of players while building the pot with just a 20% chance to win will lose money in the long run. So calling is right. Remember we still have a draw ourselves to win the hand. And flat calling will invite others to call. So maybe some two pairs will stay in and give us additional money if we hit our full house - besides the flush draws.

Hero calls, UTG calls, MP2 calls.

River: (13.70 BB) A (4 players)

UTG bets, MP2 calls, CO calls, Hero folds.

The ace of hearts is maybe the worst river card we could expect. We did not improve our set to a full house. And in addition now every king makes a straight and the flush draw hit. Now the player first to act bets into the whole field. He really has to have a hand. I would say he was drawing for a flush and finally made it. He bet out on the flop with his flush draw to build a big pot. He called the turn so most likely he did not have a straight then. Well even if he did not complete a flush he is telling the table that he has a strong hand and there are two callers in front of us. There are to many ways we are beaten so we just fold our lovely three ladies.

If you think that the analysis is wrong and you would play the hand different feel free to leave a comment.