Learning to play pseudo good starting hands...

I may have mentioned this before... but when I looked at my PT stats, I was shocked to find out what hands I'm actually losing money on. The best hand that I'm losing money in? AQo. I'm not doing much better with suited AQ, but AQo has been a clear loser for me. So I had to think about how it is that I'm losing money with a hand like AQ. I mean after all, AQ is clearly a good starting hand, right? I mean aside from the pair hands, the only hand better than AQ is AK. So, it must be good. So, for me to be losing money with AQ means I'm severely misplaying this hand. Since I'm an idiot, I am still (after all the posts about how should be studying my play) not devoting enough time to analyze my game. Having said that, I noticed that with AQ, when I win, I win small pots... namely, uncontested raises preflop. When I lose however, I am losing significant chunks of my money. And these are the following situations where I noticed that I am losing an incredible amounts of money:
- lose to AK when A hits the board.
- lose to A-x, when they hit two pair vs my Q kicker.
- lose to a pocket pair when I unsuccessfully try to bluff
- lose to AA or KK when Q hits on the flop
- lose to Q-x (generally a hand like QJ) when they make two pair and I have my tptk

Based on this, depending on how my opponent plays, I am gonna say that for now, I can live with the fact that I lose the pots where my opponent gets two pair. But for some reason, with AQ, I don't know when to hit the breaks. And that seems to be a common theme amongst all 5 situations that I listed above. So, I'm gonna try to analyze this on each street:

Preflop: Let's say I'm in late position with AQ (suited or unsuited, does it really matter?). MP makes a standard raise so I call. Ok, let's pause for a second. Assuming the MP is a normal solid player who doesn't get too far out of line, what's his raising requirements? AK, AQ, AJ, KQ, 88+. Ok, maybe make him a little looser (but still not creative because that's just too much to compute at this time) and add hands like ATs, KJ, QJs. Yes, I know, these three are pushing it but let's just include those. So, now that I think about it, of the range of hands where a guy who is just your average tight player, my hand is only better than AJ and KQ. That's 2 out of the possible 11 hands in my initial range. 5 out of the looser 14 hand range. But I got position and not calling preflop with AQ to me, is unthinkable. I don't think this is where I am making my mistakes. But let's keep those starting hands in mind.

Flop (1): All rags. Like 9-5-2. Opponent bets out 80-85% of the pot. What do you do? For some reason, I feel compelled to call most flop bets. The continuation bet factor seems too great for me. In other words, he'd make the same bet regardless of whether he hit or not as long as it's not too dangerous right? Well, I think this is my first error. First of all, we've already determined that my starting hand was most likely behind to begin with. On a board like this, if I can't sell the fact that I have a pocket pair, I don't think I have any business playing. So maybe I should be raising in this situation. More often than not though, I end up calling or folding. Weak, tight play that I need to correct.

Flop (2): Q high rags, like Q-5-2. Opponent bets out 80-85% of the pot. What do you do? Call or raise? I think this is a pretty favorable situation. Now, compared to the preflop situation where I was behind in most instances, most likely I am ahead. The only hands beating me at this point are AA, KK, QQ, 55, and 22. And it's very unlikely that he has QQ. So, a raise is probably in order, unless you feel like slowplaying is key. By raising, you can either take the pot down there or find out in a hurry that you are behind if he reraises you. It might get tricky if he calls but if he does call, there are only two hands that would call a raise at this point, right? AQ or KQ. Other than that, he's calling with hands that beat you...

Moving on... We'll assume that I folded on Flop (1) instead of calling because now that I think about it, calling is just utterly ridiculous unless I consider myself to be a much better player than the opponent which at the stakes I currently play at, I don't. So, let's take Flop (2) and assume that I raised and got called:

Turn (1) - J (board now reads Q-5-2-J). My opponent checks. What should I do? I always feel compelled to bet here. I mean how can I not? And this is where I become stupid and forget everything else that I thought about preflop and on the flop. So, if I look at this simple picture, the only hand that can beat me is AA, KK, QJ, QQ, JJ, 55, 22. Except QJ was not really in my opponent's starting hand range (it is in the expanded version but not the normal version). So, betting seems like a sensible play. And I'm not going against betting here but this is where I need to pause and think about what could the opponent really have? So let's rewind for a second.

Let's say the opponent had the expanded version of the starting hands. 14 starting hands of which only 5 I am beating preflop. He bets a relatively safe looking board but gets raised. At this point, if he calls, what can he have? He doesn't have position, he bets out and gets raised and still calls? That means he's gotta have a piece of the board, right? At least naturally, let's assume so. Then, based on the expanded version of the starting hands, he could have AA, KK, QQ, KQ, QJ, 55, or 22. Let's also say that he can't let go of JJ or TT in this instance. That's 9 of the initial 14 hands that I'm losing to and I'm still only beating 4 of the 9 combinations that I find reasonable to keep playing.

So, when the turn comes a J, what's the sensible play here? Should I still bet? More than half the time, I'm losing with this hand if it reaches showdown unless I get more help. Or should I check in order to control the pot size and also disguise my hand? If I bet another 80-85% of the pot size, I can either get raised or get called, only if the opponent has a better hand. In other words, I'm not sure of the EV situation here but it doesn't look good. TT would surely fold here and so now, I'm only beating KQ. That's the only hand that I can beat. I am losing to all other hands. By writing this down, to me, it seems like an obvious checking situation. True, I'm giving another free card but at this point, what card am I afraid of falling on the river? Based on the sequence and my thought process, if I'm ahead on the turn, the only card I don't want to see is a K right? Because if my opponent has KQ (which again, is the ONLY hand I'm beating), he only has 3 outs. I don't think a free card is all that bad. Actually, I think that's better than betting here.

River: X. The card that actually falls on the river doesn't really matter I don't think. But just for argument's sake, let's say it's a 2, pairing the board. (Q-5-2-J-2). If the opponent bets out, what do you do? I feel like I need to call. Most likely I will. But if I reread my own post here and think about it, it seems that there aren't too many hands that I can beat here... esp if the guy is betting out on the river. If he had KQ, I'm pretty sure he won't bet out. Maybe he will but that's an awful lot of money to find out if this guy is as big a donkey. And if he had AA or KK, he's no longer afraid of me having QJ cuz that 2 on the river would have me counterfeited. But even then, he could be afraid of my set so he might not bet. But the only hand that he would bet here would be if he had a bigger hand than mine right?

I don't know if spelling this out makes me look like a very weak-tight player. But it actually helped me out in terms of putting my thought process down on paper. When I look at it this way, AQ is not that good of a hand in light of what has happened. I feel that the hand pretty much ended when I raised the flop and got called.

I'd love to hear some thoughts on how you may have played it differently or what you could do. I have similar issues with a hand like KQ (even though I am much tighter with KQ). Overcalling with hands like this I think is one of many leaks I have in this game.