$200 NLHE Full Ring: Live 1/2 Line check UTG with QQ

Hero is effective stack with about $600. I thought both pre flop and turn were fairly interesting here.

V is Old-ish guy. We recognize his face but don't remember playing with him before. He comes from a broken game and covers. First or second hand so no reads.

OTTH: Hero opens UTG to $12 with QsQc, one call and V 3 bets to $31 from MP. His undersized 3 bet shows strength but I don't want to flat and likely go 3 ways with the worst position (inviting the caller to come along). Folds back to Hero who 4 bets to $100. With no reads and a big stack I like 4 bet / fold here Vs big stack arriving at the table. I think my sizing was too large though with only one caller in between. I think $80-$90 was probably better. There have been no 4 bets in the entire 8 our session but this is a new player. At 1/2 Vs an unknown who covers us and 300 BB deep I'm ok with folding to the 5 bet OOP. First caller folds and V calls way too quickly though so we've probably stepped in it. Ranging him here with mostly KK+, with some AK as well. I think QQ, AQs hands would have to think a bit before flatting or folding. I expect AQ and JJ- to mostly fold but an unknown could always have a spaz combo or two.

Flop (~$210): Qd 6d 3s
Bingo! Hero $75, V calls fairly quickly but with a sense of caution. Was hoping to induce a raise here from KK+ and AK with diamonds while still getting value from his entire perceived pre flop calling range ( we don't want to blast AK no diamond out of the pot by sizing too large right?).

Turn ($360): Qd 6d 3s Ah
Seems pretty gross as the only cards we didn't really want to see were the A or the K. I feel like x/c is best here since we may get KK to fold to the barrel and AK will want to bet a lot, AA may x back allowing us not to get stacked when we are behind. We x, V x.

River ($360): Qd 6d 3s Ah As
Ok, now there's only 1 combo of AA that beats us, we x'd turn which may lead V to believe his AK is nutty and V may also think it's less likely we have an Ace if he holds KK. Even if we give him both the combos of AQo here we are only behind 3 combos. So how much do we bet here? We have $425 behind and V covers. I wouldn't mind a jam at 2/5 but at 1/2 I think it scares people away too much. We settle on $250 after quite a bit of thought (20 secs?) and V goes into the tank. After about 2 minutes he finds a call.

Thoughts?

Online opinions, sorry

c0rnBr34d said:

Hero is effective stack with about $600. I thought both pre flop and turn were fairly interesting here.

V is Old-ish guy. We recognize his face but don't remember playing with him before. He comes from a broken game and covers. First or second hand so no reads.

OTTH: Hero opens UTG to $12 with QsQc, one call and V 3 bets to $31 from MP. His undersized 3 bet shows strength but I don't want to flat and likely go 3 ways with the worst position (inviting the caller to come along). Folds back to Hero who 4 bets to $100. With no reads and a big stack I like 4 bet / fold here Vs big stack arriving at the table. I think my sizing was too large though with only one caller in between. I think $80-$90 was probably better. There have been no 4 bets in the entire 8 our session but this is a new player. At 1/2 Vs an unknown who covers us and 300 BB deep I'm ok with folding to the 5 bet OOP. First caller folds and V calls way too quickly though so we've probably stepped in it. Ranging him here with mostly KK+, with some AK as well. I think QQ, AQs hands would have to think a bit before flatting or folding. I expect AQ and JJ- to mostly fold but an unknown could always have a spaz combo or two.

Flop (~$210): Qd 6d 3s
Bingo! Hero $75, V calls fairly quickly but with a sense of caution. Was hoping to induce a raise here from KK+ and AK with diamonds while still getting value from his entire perceived pre flop calling range ( we don't want to blast AK no diamond out of the pot by sizing too large right?).

Turn ($360): Qd 6d 3s Ah
Seems pretty gross as the only cards we didn't really want to see were the A or the K. I feel like x/c is best here since we may get KK to fold to the barrel and AK will want to bet a lot, AA may x back allowing us not to get stacked when we are behind. We x, V x.

River ($360): Qd 6d 3s Ah As
Ok, now there's only 1 combo of AA that beats us, we x'd turn which may lead V to believe his AK is nutty and V may also think it's less likely we have an Ace if he holds KK. Even if we give him both the combos of AQo here we are only behind 3 combos. So how much do we bet here? We have $425 behind and V covers. I wouldn't mind a jam at 2/5 but at 1/2 I think it scares people away too much. We settle on $250 after quite a bit of thought (20 secs?) and V goes into the tank. After about 2 minutes he finds a call.

Thoughts?

Click to expand...

Hello there c0rnBr34d, thanks a lot for sharing your hand with us!

Preflop Action:

I like your preflop action since we are deep stacked. I also like the size you used, players like to pay so much that we don't want to give them too much of excellent preflop odds. Mostly because we are going to play the postflop out of position, so I don't see the sizing with a great variance between $ 90 and $ 100.
Because the player is new, it doesn't matter too much our sizing because he doesn't know if we polarize more for bluff or more for value and, as a default, players tend to consider polarized bets more as bluffs versus unknown players.
MP could have called you with KK+ and AKs however it is more likely that these hands could be 5-betting. However MP has position and sometimes MP can call with this range as well so I think it is okay to put it on those hands.

The Flop is good, also your c-bet strategy for 1/3 pot for protection. Because it is a 4-bet pot our range here becomes quite easy to read: hands that could bet for value are AQ, QQ, KK, AA and for bluff the flush draws. It is not so drawie, there is only the flush draw and we must remember the pot is already too large for us to bet 1/2 pot here.
On the other side, MP has excellent odds to continue paying with its AK and KK+ here, either with flush draws, runner-runner straight draws or simply because of the power of the overcards.

Nice Turn decision!

It is beautiful too see players who are really thinking about the hand and ranges, this is why you decided to check here when it comes an ace and it makes a lot of sense!
The Ace is a scary card: When you 4-bet you will have almost all the combos of AA in your range and Villain will not have. When you 4-bet you can have AKs and AQs (as a bluff) in your range, so it completes too much and scaries the hell MP's range, so both Ax and Kx are not good cards for us too keep betting.
Now MP can easily fold some KK, depending how NIT the player is and fold some AK with TPTK. MP would continue here only with AA, and AQ, IMO, even knowing that it will not have too many of it right now, specially AQ because we are blocking 75% of its combos.

The River is really sweet for us, because now MP almost never will have AA and most of times it will have AK. AK will not leave here for absolutely no price. I believe that we could be checking, betting small, betting big, almost anything we do here is correct, of course, depending on the player we are engaged with.
Check is good because it might induce MP to think that we have an underpair and try to jam the river for bluff with AK and trips and it would be an easy call for us. Check isn't good because some regulars are going to check-behind this river, having knowledge that when you 4-bet preflop you'll have, in a river like this, all the combos of QQ and AA, and even AQ, and the MP will have none.
Also, when you bet here you almost have no bluffs: either you have an ace or you have QQ or you are bluffing some missed draw, but even so you get in the river, in a 4-bet deep stacked, very, very strong.
So when you bet here, it is a hard call for AK, but I guess it is call, since both decided to check turn.
However, there are some weak players that will call this river with KK, JJ and TT, but I don't believe it was this case. This case, almost 100% of times, Villain MP will end up showing AKs or AKo.
I liked very much the way you played, congratulations!

Regards;

Carlos 'Aballinamion' Barbosa

You probably found a reducible force in villain, after his 3-bet preflop. That is why the line from 4bet / fold to 5bet seems reasonable in this case. But probably this size that you propose, induces little attack frequency, from a better position. So if you were looking for a way to neutralize his line, I think it was a successful sequence to It.
In the flop your bet allows significant leaks, when you suspect that you could face wider ranges. This time it was not the case, but I think you made a good induction attempt. On the turn there is not much to do. Now A probably hits the V range, more often than desired.
And on the river the A is a good street for our range. But with it we are blocking valuable combos, which work as bluffs cachers for the villain. Then it is a situation where you face, most often the weakest part of the V range.
At this point, we must think that we are looking for an inverse sequence to what really happened. That is why it becomes more difficult, to find a more comfortable place to bet. But I think you chose a suitable size. I think he would have stacked me, thinking that maybe he could try to catch me.
Greetings.

Great analysis here! I believe the hero in the case A) Protected his holdings pre-flop and showed enough strength to not get 5bet on. B) Realize that the A on the turn is the ultimate scare card since the Villain came along so much pre-flop. C) Realizing there's only a select few hands that beat us on the river.

You mentioned on the river that only AA beat you, when actuality it's 4 hands. While the A3 and A6 are EXTREMELY unlikely as to how the betting went pre, we're still not sure of the villain's style. So AQ is still a possibility. As to 3 of the queens already being out, we can basically knock that out hypothetically. Leaving the AA which is also, extremely unlikely.

The river bet looks like a bet that you're trying to push KK or an A off their hand. You made it look bluffy enough to hope to get a call. When you shove, it's the ultimate polarizing move, which more than likely means the nuts. Great sizing and great play!

@Aballinamion - Thanks, you're too kind. I do still think there is a decent difference with pre flop sizing. $10-20 is 5-10 BB here. If called the pot will be 10 or 20 BB larger on the flop and the effect will compound on each street.


@everyone - One alternate line suggestion I got from a poker friend was to continue on the turn with another 1/3 bet of $120 or so to set up a river jam. I kind of like this line too since realistically I'm not folding if V bets turn and river anyways. We may get KK to fold but most or all of the rest of Vs range should be continuing. I think the line we took maximizes and gets more value from KK but a little less from AK. It is perhaps the "safe" line. Either way we lose to AA and in most cases it's probably for stacks so it's debatable how to maximize on this turn.

c0rnBr34d said:

@Aballinamion - Thanks, you're too kind. I do still think there is a decent difference with pre flop sizing. $10-20 is 5-10 BB here. If called the pot will be 10 or 20 BB larger on the flop and the effect will compound on each street.


@everyone - One alternate line suggestion I got from a poker friend was to continue on the turn with another 1/3 bet of $120 or so to set up a river jam. I kind of like this line too since realistically I'm not folding if V bets turn and river anyways. We may get KK to fold but most or all of the rest of Vs range should be continuing. I think the line we took maximizes and gets more value from KK but a little less from AK. It is perhaps the "safe" line. Either way we lose to AA and in most cases it's probably for stacks so it's debatable how to maximize on this turn.

Click to expand...

I agree that 2b 1/3 in the turn, is the safe line. But on the river, we probably build a higher frequency of fold equity for the villain, if we plan jam on the river. Because now, the last street is negative for the range of the villain.

I think this is the kind of preflop spot that will lose you a lot of money in the long run. You should never 4bet queens here, especially deep but even at 100 blinds I wouldn't.

You say in your own post that you expect KK+ and AK to call, so why 4bet/fold? Turning your hand into a bluff is a waste and worse you will lose your whole stack on many boards.

As played of course you have to shove river, why would AK ever fold to any size?

fast_frog said:

I think this is the kind of preflop spot that will lose you a lot of money in the long run. You should never 4bet queens here, especially deep but even at 100 blinds I wouldn't.

You say in your own post that you expect KK+ and AK to call, so why 4bet/fold? Turning your hand into a bluff is a waste and worse you will lose your whole stack on many boards.

As played of course you have to shove river, why would AK ever fold to any size?

Click to expand...

This post sounds MUBSy and results oriented. If we never raise because KK+ and AK might call, our raising range is reduced to only KK+, AK. Surely you aren't saying that we should only 3 bet+ with KK+, AK? A guy who I've seen before but don't remember suggests they aren't brand new. He's coming from a broken game and covers the table and comes out with aggression. I think this range is fair for V:
TT+, AJs+, AQo+

Against this range we are over 56% and should 3 bet for value OOP. The fact that we are very rarely getting 5 bet is a bonus in my opinion because that means even the times we are behind we have the opportunity to flop a set. If we get a fold from AJs or TT and take down $57 uncontested with no rake that sounds like a great result to me. We also prevent the pot from going 3 ways which increases our equity by about 15%. We aren't turning our hand into a bluff at all pre flop when we are ahead of Vs range. We are only behind his continuing range about 60/40 but we now have the benefit of being heads up and knowing almost exactly where we are at which makes it less likely we get stacked instead of more likely we get stacked in my opinion.

As far as the river, we aren't only playing against AK, we are playing against a range. AK is the most likely hand but not by much. There are 8 combos of AK and 6 combos of KK that we should consider. If we shove it will make it that much harder for KK to call. If we size down slightly we may get some KK to bluff catch. AK may still make a mistake and raise. I'm not saying that jamming isn't the best option here, I'm just pointing out that there is merit to considering other sizings. An extra $175 and the fact that we are all in can make a difference at 1/2 so don't be so quick to say "well if he's calling $250, he's calling $425". Because obviously that is not always true.

Your just setting yourself up for failure by getting tricky. SPR is low. In my opinion, your best move is to keep your decisions easy. The best way to do that is to hammer the pot. Bet somewhere around $175, committing to jam the turn.

GWU73 said:

Your just setting yourself up for failure by getting tricky. SPR is low. In my opinion, your best move is to keep your decisions easy. The best way to do that is to hammer the pot. Bet somewhere around $175, committing to jam the turn.

Click to expand...

This is a 4-bet pot at 200 NLHE, not 2 NLHE, great difference. If we play this way too exploitative versus unknown players we are going to burn a lot of chips.
Versus a very known whale/recreational player, we can sometimes increase our sizings postflop, but even so with care: the whales of 200 NLHE are not the same whales of 2 NLHE.

Regards;

Carlos 'Aballinamion' Barbosa

GWU73 said:

Your just setting yourself up for failure by getting tricky. SPR is low. In my opinion, your best move is to keep your decisions easy. The best way to do that is to hammer the pot. Bet somewhere around $175, committing to jam the turn.

Click to expand...

Do you mean keep our opponents decisions easy? Against a very narrow range why would we want to fold out over half of his hands when we flop the nuts? If we size this large AK is definitely folding and some of the KK combos without the diamond may even think about folding. Realistically if V has KK he also blocks KK so if we bomb this flop we almost have to have AA or QQ and he's toast but we don't know how good V is. Either way we want to give him the opportunity to make a mistake. What we are doing in my opinion if we bomb this flop is pretty close to turning our hand face up. I assume you're doing this with QQ+ only. So V can make some pretty good folds and lose the minimum. If we are auto betting 83%+ pot every time we have an overpair or top set it's going to be really hard to extract value from hands that we have beat.

Also, eventually you will have to make difficult decisions in poker. If you are constantly trying to avoid difficult decisions eventually that will cost you money as well. And on the other side, getting comfortable making tough decisions in certain spots can lead to improved decision making in those same spots in the future, making you a better player.

Lastly, as an extension of your line, I would expect 3 combos of KK with the diamond to continue and the 6 AA combos. So then when the Ace hits the turn are you still jamming? At that point it would be a coin flip where he should either have one of the 3 combos of KK that are probably folding to your jam or one of the 3 combos of AA that have you crushed. This seems like an even tougher spot than where we were on the turn with the line above so I'm not sure you're making things easier at all.

c0rnBr34d said:

This post sounds MUBSy and results oriented. If we never raise because KK+ and AK might call, our raising range is reduced to only KK+, AK. Surely you aren't saying that we should only 3 bet+ with KK+, AK? A guy who I've seen before but don't remember suggests they aren't brand new. He's coming from a broken game and covers the table and comes out with aggression. I think this range is fair for V:
TT+, AJs+, AQo+

Against this range we are over 56% and should 3 bet for value OOP.

Click to expand...

First of all, villain 3bet, we would be 4betting - and it's not for value, it's for value if their calling range is behind (56% wouldn't be considered value anyway more like a flip).

But that's not his calling range, that's what you put very optimistically as his 3betting range. I don't have that in my 3betting range of MP vs UTG, if you look at any range building videos you will be hard pressed to find one that large especially TT and JJ, that's a losing proposition at 100 blinds deeper much more so.

So vs his calling a 4bet range we are going to lose even if we go with his wide range you placed, and vs his 5betting range we are positively crushed. Frankly I think it's always KK+ that deep from those positions, but even if you want to always put AK there it would still be crushed.

Your analysis further down just ignores one of the biggest part of the equation which is RIO - reverse implied odds. Since we're not folding it means most times he has KK and AA we are going to losee 300 blinds which is HUGE and winrate-crushing.

I can't stress this enough, really think if you go play with the mindset of stacking QQ from UTG vs MP no matter how deep it's impossible to have a winrate. Ranges are simply not nearly wide enough from those position.

Aballinamion said:

This is a 4-bet pot at 200 NLHE, not 2 NLHE, great difference.

Click to expand...

It's live 200nl which is the lowest stake, so it might as well be 2-5 nl online.

fast_frog said:

First of all, villain 3bet, we would be 4betting - and it's not for value, it's for value if their calling range is behind (56% wouldn't be considered value anyway more like a flip).

But that's not his calling range, that's what you put very optimistically as his 3betting range. I don't have that in my 3betting range of MP vs UTG, if you look at any range building videos you will be hard pressed to find one that large especially TT and JJ, that's a losing proposition at 100 blinds deeper much more so.

So vs his calling a 4bet range we are going to lose even if we go with his wide range you placed, and vs his 5betting range we are positively crushed. Frankly I think it's always KK+ that deep from those positions, but even if you want to always put AK there it would still be crushed.

Your analysis further down just ignores one of the biggest part of the equation which is RIO - reverse implied odds. Since we're not folding it means most times he has KK and AA we are going to losee 300 blinds which is HUGE and winrate-crushing.

I can't stress this enough, really think if you go play with the mindset of stacking QQ from UTG vs MP no matter how deep it's impossible to have a winrate. Ranges are simply not nearly wide enough from those position.

Click to expand...

First of all, obvious typo, I've clearly said we were 4 betting several places in this thread but hit the 3 in that last post by mistake. I'm sure you can follow.

Your reasoning seems like it is all heads up on the river closing the action type decisions. If we were heads up on the river and thought that Vs calling range had us beat then yes, our bet would be a bluff. But this is not that. Even if we are a slight dog to Vs continuing range pre flop it doesn't mean that a bet can't be +EV. By eliminating additional players and folding out portions of Vs range that have sizable equity against us we can win outright and capitalize on V's common mistakes of not 5 betting to still be able to realize our equity when we are behind. We are absolutely folding on certain flops / action / run outs. So the reverse IO isn't nearly as great as you make it out to be. Once we flop top set then yes. We could have RIO issues but when we lose to exactly 1 combo of AA and 2 combos of AQ that we now can be pretty confident are not in Vs range because of the 4 bet it is much easier to extract river value. If you are going to only bet the nuts, that's your decision, and you can play it safe.

It sounds to me like you're looking for reasons not to bet. We will almost always be behind the top of our Vs range. If you're never making a bet into a range that you are ahead of because Vs continuing range will put us at a 60/40 disadvantage then I think you're leaving tons of value on the table. All the times we get Ax or Kx to fold pre that would have out flopped us plus all the times we get underpairs to fold that would have flopped a set plus all the times we get QQ to fold a chop plus all the times we flop a set and stack an over pair plus all the times we don't go three ways count for something. The few times we get called we can still win the hand and not get stacked.

The analysis also shows that he doesn't have AA or KK most times. I've clearly listed that the most common combo is AK. You can disagree if you want and say it's mostly KK. But when we arrive at the river there is 1 combo of AA left and 6 KK, so if he has no AK or very little AK we are still in a pretty good spot. And if we don't flop a Q know we are behind 12 combos of AA and KK and only head of AK. We don't have to stack off. We can x/c or x/f or it may go x/x. If the A or K hits we lose the minimum. I agree there are some challenges with this line but I don't agree it's all doom and gloom and impossible to have a positive win rate doing this at 1/2.