$100 NLHE Full Ring: Pocket QQs Hand Analysis!!

$100 NL HE Full Ring: Pocket QQs Hand Analysis!!

So here it goes,

I was playing online poker at FT in a .5/1 NL Holdem game. I bought in the max at $100 at a full ring 9 person table. It was about 1 hr into play and i have been playing relatively tight due to catching some ugly cards. My chip stack was still about 95 and i was in UTG+3 with QQ. It was folded to me and i raised 3.5 times the big blind. It folds all the way to the button with about 120 who calls. Small blind folds and big blind with about 75 calls. Both button and big blind were pretty good players. I never saw them make to many big mistakes, and never any crazy plays.

AcQsAd

i felt i flopped a monster. The big blind checked and i checked hoping to trap because i had a good feeling one of them had an ace. However, the button checks behind going into the turn..

4c

Though there was a flush draw now, I didnt really feel like that card improved either of their hands, and they probably felt the same way about my hand. This time the big blind bet 6. I felt hat was a relatively weak bet, a probe possibly. I wanted to raise but enough to possibly keep the button in play in case he had an ace. So i only x2 his bet and made it 12. the button calls instantly. i was kinda like wtf? I wasn't to sure what to make of it. But thinking it through i figured he was holding the ace. Of couse the big blind folds. River....

Js

I didn't know if the card helped him. but what are the chances of him holding AJ? I didnt think it made him a fullhouse. So i shoved all in, hoping he had something like AK, or AQ. But lone behold... he was holding AJ. and busted my ass while doubling through it.

Did i make the wrong move? man... fullhouse over fullhouse is brutal. I know it happens. What do you guys think about the moves i made throughout the hand, from preflop to river? And most importantly, do you think my all-in on the river was the wrong play?

Teach me you geniuses of the forum.... TEACH ME.......

Love and Respect,

Wlee013

Unfortunately, I'm not one of the geniuses - but if I get it wrong, I'm sure they'll correct me .

First off - cooler, it's variance, don't sweat it. As played, I'm all in as well.

Second - everyone wants to slowplay a monster hand. In this case, I wouldn't have checked the flop. You're the preflop raiser, so you're pretty much expected to make a cbet even if the flop didn't help you. If nobody has an A, QK, QJ, or QT on this board (and really, you'd have to be dense to stay in the hand with a Q, and there's only one Q left), everyone's going to fold - but what card could hit the turn that would improve any other hand (I'm assuming AA/KK/JJ/TT would all have 3bet pf, so I'm assuming nobody's holding these) enough to have them call a turn bet?

So, on the flop - cbet around 2/3 pot depending on what you'll think they'll call. You've got virtually the nuts here (discounting AA and AQ) and you want to get all your money in now rather than later. You're in luck, because there's a chance BTN will raise your cbet w his trips, and you may be able to get him all in here - and if not here, then maybe on the turn. Betting the river here is trivial, since you're pot committed taking this line (and you ought to be pot committed, no question about it).

Then when BTN sucks out on the river, you curse variance for a few minutes, remember that variance makes poker profitable for good players, and forget about the hand (well, not really, but that's the ideal ).

EDIT - oh, configure the FT client to save your hand histories to disk, much easier to post in this forum.

I suffer just like Slycbnew´s as im not a geniuses as well .

But here goes my analysis.

Prf i think if fine. My standard raise is 4x but 3x and 3.5x are fine to.

The flop, i dont really like checking here, You say "checked hoping to trap because i had a good feeling one of them had an ace".
If they have a ace withc is gonna be more profitable, betting and geting raised/called or checking and risking geting checked back on and losing a stree of value?
Basicly on this board your only geting paid if he has a ace since this very scarry board for all non A hands.
So yeah i def cbet here to build the pot.

The turn, i dont like min-rasing here, what hand calls a min-raise but folds to a pot sized raise? Villain either has a ace and is gonna pay u off or he has nothing and is folding either way(ok he might have picked up a backdoor FD,but that unlikly and a tiny part of his range).

River, yeah shoving is fine imo since most aces are calling every thing on the river so going for max value is fine.
Just sucks he sucked out.

Def. save HH(FT lobby>Options>HH), since its alot easier to understand all the action.
Also dont include results in HA since they scew the analysis.
And also turning on auto reload so your stack gets toped of every time u lose some chips(FT lobby>Auto reload ring games) is something i would look into.

Checking the flop is really, really bad. Whenever someone decides not to c-bet a flop like this the first thing I think is "aha, he flopped a monster." And I'm usually right about it. As for the rest, I agree with slycbnew and sindri_93.

Pre-flop: Your raise had the desired effect so it was the right play.

Flop: If they had an ace, they're not going anywhere. The only thing they're worried about is their kicker, but they called pre-flop so their kicker isn't going to be weak. Assuming they're holding an ace, their range is limited and they're probably not getting away from most of that range (AK, AJ or AT is a massive fold here). They're not putting you on pocket queens and they think they're ahead, don't slow play, bet a bit (nothing scary though).

Turn: Flush draw is good, means that anyone with trip aces may try to defend their hand. BB was probably taking a stab at it, may have had something, a weak queen or unlikely a weak ace/strong queen. Button calls, yeah he's got the ace but this betting should have happened on the flop, which would mean that on the turn you're setting this up for an all in on the river.

River: It's a tough one, but this guy's range is probably AK-AT (slow playing makes it hard to be certain about your opponent's hand, but even so you can still see it's a moderate to strong ace), AK you can beat and AT you can beat but AQ and AJ have you beat. No one can criticise your all in here, it's perfectly reasonable but in a game where you've constantly got to demand perfection of yourself, there should be alarm bells going off on that river, and you probably should check or bet something small.

Not saying you played badly on the river (and not tip-toeing around it either, I'd tell you if you messed up, for instance the flop you stuffed up), you had a monster hand and you shoved in a spot where you'd get paid off by weaker hands... but I think you could have seen it and gotten away from it. Particularly if you'd bet the flop, you'd have a lot more information coming into the river and you'd know for sure that he's got a big ace which would mean the only hands you could beat would be AK or AT and it'd be easier to get away from.

Nothing you could really do here. No matter if you check or bet the flop, he's gonna call you no matter what. As you were trying to get the most value out of your opponents, check on the flop is a good idea for 3 or more people in the pot. You want them to catch up. In this case, one of them really caught up. But this is a rare case so it's a cooler. On the river, you over played it. If I'm not mistaken, the pot is $42 on the river and you shoved $79.5. Like thepokerkid123 said, you're not going to get much value out of weaker hands if you over shoved the river.

boldnbet said:

Nothing you could really do here. No matter if you check or bet the flop, he's gonna call you no matter what. As you were trying to get the most value out of your opponents, check on the flop is a good idea for 3 or more people in the pot. You want them to catch up.

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What hand can villain have that a free card will make him want to commit on turn/river but wont put money in on the flop?
Sure KJ and JT have the gutter but apart from that and a PP catching a set on the turn villain isnt going catch up very often.
Also a check on this flop looks super fishy imo.

thats sicc...considering i had the exact same situation on PO last week...flopped Qs over aces...a jack river to give villian aces full

Pre-flop: ok

Flop
If i'm not mistaken it's checked to you on the flop - with that board it's almost expected (as pre-flop raiser) with position you have to bet. You signalled a strong hand by not betting.

Turn
I guess most people will always call a doubling of their bet unless they are bluffing and have nothing. In this instance I think you should have re-raised to 18. ** But I think he calls anyway ***

River
Brutal river card. If you bet a third of pot then I guess he puts you all in and you have to call. ** Can't be avoided **

With the way the cards fell, none of this made any difference. But if we think about improving for next time. If you had bet flop and turn and villain doesn't boat up you win a better pot on the river; you may pot commit him by then and he might feel he has to call your shove with trip aces. Just some ideas to think over.

Holy shit, im sorry..
Thats poker, no you played well.
U are just unlucky that he got the jack...

I have been guilty of checking this flop, but am learning it's a pretty big mistake.

You say you are "hoping to trap because i had a good feeling one of them had an ace", but if one of them has an ace you will be able to begin building a nice pot. I am learning that betting is required here.

The river is cooler city and it's time to resort to the adult beverage of your choice, preferably in mass quantities.

sindri_93 said:

What hand can villain have that a free card will make him want to commit on turn/river but wont put money in on the flop?
Sure KJ and JT have the gutter but apart from that and a PP catching a set on the turn villain isnt going catch up very often.
Also a check on this flop looks super fishy imo.

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Yes it does look fishy if check but if you bet on the flop you will scare KK, JJ, TT, 99 and below off the pot. He's not going to call the flop bet with a straight draw or KK, JJ, TT, 99.... By checking the flop, you want lower full houses and straight draw to catch up.

slycbnew said:

Unfortunately, I'm not one of the geniuses - but if I get it wrong, I'm sure they'll correct me .

First off - cooler, it's variance, don't sweat it. As played, I'm all in as well.

Second - everyone wants to slowplay a monster hand. In this case, I wouldn't have checked the flop. You're the preflop raiser, so you're pretty much expected to make a cbet even if the flop didn't help you. If nobody has an A, QK, QJ, or QT on this board (and really, you'd have to be dense to stay in the hand with a Q, and there's only one Q left), everyone's going to fold - but what card could hit the turn that would improve any other hand (I'm assuming AA/KK/JJ/TT would all have 3bet pf, so I'm assuming nobody's holding these) enough to have them call a turn bet?

So, on the flop - cbet around 2/3 pot depending on what you'll think they'll call. You've got virtually the nuts here (discounting AA and AQ) and you want to get all your money in now rather than later. You're in luck, because there's a chance BTN will raise your cbet w his trips, and you may be able to get him all in here - and if not here, then maybe on the turn. Betting the river here is trivial, since you're pot committed taking this line (and you ought to be pot committed, no question about it).

Then when BTN sucks out on the river, you curse variance for a few minutes, remember that variance makes poker profitable for good players, and forget about the hand (well, not really, but that's the ideal ).

EDIT - oh, configure the FT client to save your hand histories to disk, much easier to post in this forum.

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Yea, I agree with everything here. Just variance but make sure you bet the flop when you hit a monster if you were the preflop raiser. It always looks suspicious if you don't.

Checking the flop is really bad because your opponent either has an ace or he doesn't in this scenario.

What I mean is that if he has an ace, we want to swell the pot as much as possible as quickly as possible with the intention of getting his entire stack in. By checking the flop and then only min-raising the turn you are not accomplishing this at all. If he doesn't have an ace, it's unlikely that any turn card is going to improve his hand to the point where he wants to continue in the hand if he is facing a large bet, so slowplaying acheives nothing - you are throwing value away by playing this hand so passively.

Also, as other people have said, checking that flop looks even more suspicious than betting to most observant players. While you might get a call from some hands with a Q in them if you continuation bet the flop, the same hands are unlikely to bet or indeed put any more money in at all should you check the flop.

As it turned out you would have lost regardless of what you had done, but don't let results influence you - you could have played this hand perfectly and you still would have gone broke and that sort of thing happens in poker sometimes, unfortunately.

Im responding before reading other's responses so if this is repetitive sorry.

Flop: BET BET BET BET BET BET. If you "put one of them on an ace" why on earth wouldn't you want to start building the right right here and now so you can comfortably play for stacks by the river. This is also a board we're going to be cbetting quite often, so simply for balance we also have to lead. Finally, if they are weak on this flop what good can a free card be? Unless they 2 out a lower set, nothing is really going to make them like their hands anymore since even if they connect they can't beat an ace

Turn: Assuming we checked the flop (BAD) Either make a real raise or just call. By minraising you're announcing you have at least an ace anyway, so either raise more so we can comfortably play for stacks or just call if you're trying to be super sneaky trap etc...again this doesn't inflate the pot, so raising is better than calling but if its between miniraise and calling I might actually prefer calling.

River: This bet is awful. YES I've been saying we should play for stacks the entire time, but we've played our hand so passively and have now bet $80 into a $41 pot. Unless villain is very very bad, he will fold all aces that havent filled up, so very likely this bet will only be called if you are beat by AJ AQ or A4. YES its a cooler, but this bet sizing is very bad. If you are playing against moronic villains who will not put you on a hand and snap call with Ace Rag here then I guess shoving is fine, I just don't know how many type of villains left like that there are in the world....Assuming you played the flop and turn as passively as you did, I'd bet about $25 into the $41 and call a raise. Yea the result is the roughly the same (we might save a little $ depending on how much he raises), but we arent doubling the pot and only getting called if we're beat and this bet allows inferior hands to put $$$ into the pot


I wanna also add if it sounds like Im being a tool, it's not meant that way, just trying to enforce the proper way to handle these types of situations