Hi all,
Keep mailing me interesting questions. Here is one from Michel in Austria.

I sometimes find it hard to play overpairs in no limit holdem. Let’s say I have QQ and make a normal bet of about 4 times the big blind and get two callers. The flop is low and I bet about 2/3 of the pot. One player folds, but the other, sitting on the button calls. The turn is another low card, but there are no straights or flushes out. I bet between half and 2/3 of the pot and the button calls. The river is something like an ace. What should I do?
/Jeff
Playing over pairs can be tricky. I find my self in similar situations to the one you describe pretty often. You play your over pair aggressively and someone calls you down and a scare card hits on the river. I would want to have more details in this hand. Were there any busted draws etc? But let’s assume that we have at least a busted flush draw out there. In order to know how to act here we have to put our opponent on some kind of hand. If he is an ok player, there are two kinds of hands I would say are more likely than others. Either he might have a lower over pair or a flush draw with two over cards. If the later is correct the ace might be a very bad card. Most players tend to have the nut flush draw if they chase the flush in a situation like this, and in that case the ace is very bad news. But there are definitely other possible hands that you can beat; worse flush draws, lower over pairs, or even busted straight draws. What I would do here is to make a check-call. It is good for two reasons: you do not risk a re-raise if you are beat and you might induce a bluff. So just check and call any reasonable raise your opponent might make.

Good luck at the tables,
/Mike