I have had a complaint about many of the players that I sit with on a weekly basis. They will raise and call raises regardless of position with K-Q. Many times suit doesn't even matter, but God help us all if they get it "sooted". The problem, as I have outlined aloud every time I see it flipped over no matter what the result of the hand was, is that so many hands have this hand dominated! A-K, A-Q, K-K, Q-Q, A-A at least have it beat outright with a few other pairs slightly better statistically. I have a bigger problem with calling out of position, rather than raising, but 7-10 handed, I am not sure I see an instance where raising in a BFP setting is helpful seeing as how any A will follow along. With that said, I decided to play K-Q of hearts a couple weeks ago and filed this hand away to share here.
I am in early position. I limp, as do a couple others. My right raises 3 times the big blind. We are 10 handed so I should fold. Because I was testing out a BFP theory, I call. As well, I had good pot odds at this point to play a suited face card hand. The flop comes J high with 2 hearts. The BB is first to act and was the previous raiser. He throws in 3x the big. Thinking he is continuation betting, I call. Others fold and we are heads up for the turn. Another blank...no heart, no face card. He bets 3x and I call. At this point I made my 3rd mistake. The river comes K. At this point the BB throws in 6x the big letting me know that the entire flop through turn missed him and he is sitting on A-K, thus proving my teachings on K-Q!
I tank for a minute or two, call his hand A-K suited and fold. He shows me A-K of diamonds. Here were my mistakes:
- I should have folded preflop. No doubt, no question! The raise could have been a position raise or could have been a situation where he had me dominated. I ignored the first option and called.
- On the flop I started chasing in an incorrect manner. I believe if I bet my draw here and raise the BB, he might fold. He admitted that me might have called depending on the bet.
- On the turn I again did not raise. I am positive if I raise here I get the pot. Instead I called and made myself have to think about the river.
- Here is the worst case scenario with a hand like K-Q. I hit my K! I have a good kicker. Is he stealing? I correctly called his hand and made the correct read, but if I had thought about each step as closely as I considered the river, I wouldn't have had to think about it at this point and would have saved myself chips.
So many people blog about how they dominated someone else or how they took the worst beat ever. I wanted to break that trend and tell you how I messed up. I make these mistakes often enough to bother me. Hopefully, by giving you this situation, you can make that read earlier and save some chips and some face when you flip over a bad hand to show your idiocy.

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