Decent players are going to raise the button occasionally without a hand(esp shorthanded). I remember an old quote from Brunson where he said give me the button every hand and I can play my cards blind and win.
You're not playing Q8s here really but more playing position as you'll have a lot more information than your opponents throughout the hand while relatively deep stacked.
Of course occasionally you will flop a big hand and run into another hand that will pay you off. Your post flop skills have to be good though to get away as cheaply as possibly when behind(or find another way to win the pot if possible) and maximise your profit when ahead.
I think the concept of being dominated is sometimes overplayed. If you hit a pair of queens with an 8 kicker you will lose some money versus a better queen but are unlikely to stack off here, whereas it is quite possible that someone with AQ (if they happened to flat call you preflop) might well go broke on a Q 8 flop. Also the fact you share a card makes it less likely you both hit and more liekly you pick the pot up with post flop aggression.
Another reason to raise with this sort of hand was mentioned by byron and that's to disguise your real hands on the button. If you only ever have premium hands here, your raising range is predictable, which makes you easy to read and able to be outplayed more easily.
good post JC (and byron as always)
hand 1 I did fold, but Im pretty sure any competent players range is much wider then AA/KK, as its obviously a misclick (small chance of a fake misclick) and most peoples button range is wide, so they are shipping it in much looser. Not sure if its loose enough to call with Q7 however!
hand 2 I figured if they had a set theyd bet if I checked and call if I bet, so dint really care if they had a set or not, in my eyes it made no difference, given the preflop/flop/turn action its not likely they have a flush, so dint worry about that too much, and if they have a weaker made hand they will probably check back if I check, so betting I think is best. I of course checked and he checked back KK. The problem with betting here is that it forces good opponents to turn their weak made hands into bluffs, if you check then they can check back and expect to win at showdown some of the time, but if you bet, they will suspect that their hand isn't good, and its a pretty good board to jam into as my bet is pretty well defined, so im not sure betting and folding to a push is correct 100% of the time. Oppo dependant.
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