The latest issue of CardPlayer magazine went online today. In it, Lee Jones (of “Winning Low Limit Hold’Em” fame) writes a column about playing AQo to a raise in mid-limit ($10-20 to $30-60) hold’em. Link

He essentially makes two points. First, he says that AQo may often be a favorite over the raising hand, even if the raiser is in early position, but consult your player notes. The second position, one which he spends more time on, is this:

The reraise/call decision depends on one crucial thing: What is the rest of the table going to do if you three-bet? If they’re going to clear out of the way and let you play the pot heads up against the raiser, go for it.

It’s an important point, but after reading his column I took that away as the main message of the column.

For me, in a typical casino live $15-30 game, the easy determination is whether to raise or call. The harder part – and I think by far the more important determination in playing AQo to a raise – is deciding whether to play or fold. Jones makes this point, but I think really understates it.

In the typical mid-limit games I play in Vegas, there’ll usually be around 2-5 tight-aggressive players who I will fold slot gacor to a raise every time, 2-5 loose-aggressive players who I will re-raise in the hope of isolating and beating them outright, and 2-5 loose-weak players who I will re-raise and bet or raise the flop almost every time regardless of what it is.

The advice I’d add to Jones is: when in doubt fold! If I just sat down at a $15-30 table, and get AQo in mid position and it’s raised to me, unless I have an “instafeel” for the opponent, I’ll fold every time.

Playing AQo to a raise in a live game is one of those circumstances where I think you must have a lot of data on your opponent to play correctly. And so if you don’t, or you’re really not convinced you likely have the opponent beat already, folding is a very solid option.

As for playing AQo to a raise online, that’s a very different case. In a typical loose low-limit ($1-2 to $3-6) online game, I pretty much call any bet or single raise, fold to any three-bet or above, and raise in middle or late position only if I’m the first to enter the pot. I generally don’t raise in early position because I’ve found that I either am in a tighter game where I’ll only likely get called or re-raised by hands that have me beat, or I’m in a looser game where my raise won’t really thin the field. As with almost all online games I play, I will play for the best hand, not to outplay opponents after the flop except in rare cases.

I say all this because I think that a lot of readers will read Jones’ column and take away, “raise if I can isolate” when that should be a WAY secondary consideration to whether to even play the hand. If you’re opponent has an even money or better chance of holding TT/JJ/QQ/KK/AA/AQ/AK when he/she raises, you’re in for a world of pain whether you isolate or not.

Coincidentally, Paul over at Paulsburbon doubled up on AQo today:

Played ace-queen flop came q-6-2. The small blind bet out. This guy is a bluffer so it could be a feeler bet or a complete bluff. I raise all in. Well he calls with queen ten. Luckily for me no ten falls and I take the pot. This is why I love that game.

While I’m at it, if you’re a Windows user and are still reading this site through a web browser, you really should at least give newsreaders a try (see this post for instructions). So far about 30 readers have taken up my instructions and are using the Syndirella newsreader for their daily news reading. Hope that is making things easier for all of you! As Ash points out:

This will probably cut down on my time repeatedly checking sites for updates dramatically. It will, however, increase the time I spend reading poker blogs – as there are about 50 that I didn’t know about.

Using a newsreader will definitely make your blog reading WAY more efficient, but will also cause you to read a lot more blogs than you do today. Seems like a great tradeoff to me!