A King and A Jack

...walk into a bar.

Eh, it is never any fun when it is just two guys at the bar. Still have to wait in line for drinks. If it is crowded, you are lucky if you don't lose your friend. And if the King happens to find a Queen- the Jack get screwed. (eh, maybe the other way around).

Wait, what am I talking about...

I am talking about playing dominated hands. When I use the term dominated, I am referring to the situation in which you are playing a hand that can easily make the second best 1 or 2 pair hand.

Hands like QJ, KQ, QT, AT, AJ, an etc. are all dominated by there counterparts.

Now, in a game as positional as NLHE, we can use position to extract profit from dominated hands while trying to keep the hands that have us dominated at bay.

Regardless, playing any of the dominated hands out-of-position is not easy. What happens when we flop top-pair with JT? In our raised pot, we continuation bet most of the time. If get played back at, we cannot move on without a dead read. It even becomes worse when they just call and we are forced to check/evaluate one or two more streets, in general. (We should be making out decisions on the turn, imo)

I think situations similar to the one above are huge leaks in many players games because the player with the weaker hand will generally be inclined to call value bets by better hands.

Well, what if we have position? Then everything changes and we can do almost whatever we want. When we have QJ on the button and someone raises in early or middle position, we have the advantage of calling and evaluating our opponents hand strengths. When we have an idea on how broad of a range any particular player can have, we can start to playback at them appropriately.

Granted, I had a good read on this opponent, this is a example of how this can be applied.

Full Tilt Poker - No Limit Hold'em Cash Game - $0.10/$0.25 Blinds - 6 Players - (LegoPoker Hand History Converter)

SB: $40.15
BB: $8.50
UTG: $25.90
MP: $75.90
CO: $25.00
Mo D (BTN): $24.55
Preflop: Mo D is dealt (6 Players)
UTG raises to $0.85, 2 folds, Mo D calls $0.85, 2 folds

Flop: ($2.05) (2 Players)

UTG bets $1.70, Mo D raises to $6.00, UTG folds

Uncalled bet of $4.30 returned to Mo D

Pot Size: $5.45 ($0.25 Rake)


Now, had we decided to 3bet this UTG raiser and he cold-calls. When the flop comes and he leads, we probably can't do this because his range raising UTG should be pretty tight and if he is calling 3bets OOP we can definitely subtract most of the hands from his range.

So, long in short, when you have position, it is often better to call instead of 3bet with dominated hands, even if they are suited. This is not to say, you should not mix up your game and confuse your opponents but learning to play your position will open up more lanes for you to expand your game. It will help you improve your hand reading skills because you will be able to showdown more often and you can take pots away at the proper times.