Once you flat the initial raise and flop top pair though surely your struggling to get any money in the middle after that. 8 8 has to think that you've connected with either the A or the K or possibly even both.
Even if you manage to get say a pot bet called after the flop the turn Q has to kill it for the 88, there's just so much he's behind to.
Agree. However, there is also the original raiser in the hand, and we don't know what he has. Plus, of course, we didn't know what the BB has at the time.
Not claiming it is perfect. There is no obvious "best play" here
But I don't think the "best play" can ever be doing your conkers with KQ off in this spot.
Take your point. I don't think there is a good option here.
1 part of me is thinking firstly, I don't want to be shoving 35 Bigs with KQ off, with 2 to come.
But another part of me is thinking that I really really don't want to be calling someone else's shove with KQ off for 35 Bigs.
I'm starting to think this might be 1 of those rare occasions when flatting the initial raiser for the 500 may be the best (or rather least worst) option
It would effectively be around a 28BB shove, as we cover both the button and the big blind (button has 28BBs, BB has 25BBs). Still a fairly sizable shove either way but probably still reasonable.
Obviously we would need to have some 3-bet non-all-ins here but KQ off can still have decent equity against either villain if our shove gets called (8s-Js, AJs), hence why I think shoving would be my preferred play here with this particular hand. We'll occasionally end up being called and dominated, of course, but that's poker.
And button should be opening pretty wide anyway (whether people do on Sky is another matter).
I think its clear the play wasnt too bad but the correct thing to do is shove. flatting out of position here only makes sense if I think both the button and BB are weak loose passive players.
I think my mistake was not just jamming this would get the same result though.
I think the problem here is the Villian not realising he has very little fold equity against a three bet range here and is annoyed you called with KQ rather than the big hand he was expecting. I doubt he complains if you have AK here.
Comments
Not claiming it is perfect. There is no obvious "best play" here
But I don't think the "best play" can ever be doing your conkers with KQ off in this spot.
Obviously we would need to have some 3-bet non-all-ins here but KQ off can still have decent equity against either villain if our shove gets called (8s-Js, AJs), hence why I think shoving would be my preferred play here with this particular hand. We'll occasionally end up being called and dominated, of course, but that's poker.
And button should be opening pretty wide anyway (whether people do on Sky is another matter).
I think my mistake was not just jamming this would get the same result though.