$2 NL HE 6-max: QKo pre-flop as BB, call or fold ?

Specifically with this hand pre-flop do you call or do you fold?

You don't have much information on your villains. You close the action pre-flop so there's no way you should be folding KQo from BB for that price (additional 1.5 blinds).

I think the rest of it was okay. I would be tempted to try betting turn and river to maybe get a fold out of the villain, but we don't block top pair and it looks like he is setting up to bluff catch. Would love to hear other thoughts.

The multiway action is in theory not ideal. But you are facing a standard 2,5BB open raise, and KQo is a pretty good hand. At 2NL the players calling likely also have far to many hands, so you will have a decent amount of their range dominated. Maybe if you had a hand like T9o or 98o, you could consider making a snug fold, but not defending KQo would be insanely nitty. The flop fold is standard in a multiway pot.

fundiver199 said:

The flop fold is standard in a multiway pot.

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Was a bit to fast there, so lets look at postflop.

Flop
If either of the other players had called, then this would be a snap fold. Now you are at least closing the action and going heads-up with the preflop raiser, and you are getting a decent price. But even so I am not in love with this. C-betting into 3 opponents his range should be reasonably strong. And even if you improve to a K or Q on the turn, it will not always give you the best hand, since the same card might give him two pair or top pair with a better kicker. Or he could have you drawing nearly dead with trips or KK+. So you are putting yourself into a bit of a reverse implied odds situation by drawing to top pair against the preflop raiser.

Turn,
As played I would check-fold now, but he check back.

River
As played I would strongly consider to bluff. He is not folding something, he pot controlled on the turn, like top pair, but its a disaster to check here and then lose to A high, that check back. I think, if you are going to call the flop out of position with just two overcards, it need to be with a plan, that involve a bit more than just trying to improve.

Its between call and squeeze pre, not fold!

As played you must bluff river

Thank you all for your insights. Seems all of this disaster could've been avoided if i folded on the flop, and now I'm confident to play these cards pre-flop, cause yes it seemed way too good of a price not to call.

I indeed considered bluffing the river but since this is 2 NL i was scared he'd be crazy enough to call me or maybe that he wouldn't understand that I'd be pretending to have trips or a full house, I had horror stories like that in the past.

Bluelime said:

Seems all of this disaster could've been avoided if i folded on the flop

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You lost a total of 5.5BB in this hand including the 1BB, that you posted, so I would not exactly label this a "disaster". If BTN and SB had folded preflop, you are actually supposed to continue on the flop with KQo to a small C-bet by either calling or check-raising. So its not like, its a punt to call, but you are supposed to play tighter in a multiway pot, because the responsibility for defending (making bluffs unprofitable) are shared between in this case 3 players.

Bluelime said:

I indeed considered bluffing the river but since this is 2 NL i was scared he'd be crazy enough to call me or maybe that he wouldn't understand that I'd be pretending to have trips or a full house, I had horror stories like that in the past.

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If we bluff this river, we are not trying to get hands like top pair to fold by representing trips or better. We are mainly trying to get A high to fold, and if we can get some random 6 or 7 to fold as well, thats an added benefit. A J with a decent kicker should definitely bet small for value (block bet).

U payed the hand good , fold is Okey u don't beat much hands also u are OP , so don't have much of a play here with this board. Imo fold river bet is good.

Bluelime said:

Thank you all for your insights. Seems all of this disaster could've been avoided if i folded on the flop, and now I'm confident to play these cards pre-flop, cause yes it seemed way too good of a price not to call.

I indeed considered bluffing the river but since this is 2 NL i was scared he'd be crazy enough to call me or maybe that he wouldn't understand that I'd be pretending to have trips or a full house, I had horror stories like that in the past.

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Using language like disaster and horror stories has me concerned about your Mental Game strategies.

@fundiver199 states "You lost a total of 5.5BB in this hand including the 1BB, that you posted, so I would not exactly label this a "disaster". "

for those of us that have played for years this is a very minor outcome in a poker hand. Your poker mindset is better if it is similar to ours- you had a middle strength hand which could have improved or even won unimproved after the flop, and it only cost you 5.5 bb's to try to win a pot.

As to the "horror" of bluffing only to be caught bluffing, we only ever want to study the spot we bluffed to see if it was an error to bluff- not because we were called but because we were not truly repping the bluff correctly -we do not want to assign such a high emotional imagery to getting caught bluffing. When we do that, we become afraid to bluff even in spots that bluffing and losing sometimes is still the best action to take.

You know GG has this thing called pokercraft, where you can download your hand histories, right?

It's much easier to do that and post them so people can understand the action clearer.