$400 NLHE Full Ring: QQ, villain 3bet preflop, king and flush draw on flop

Villian Stats (VPIP/PFR/AF): 9/8/67

villain stats are 9/8/67 over 73 hands

full tilt poker $2/$4 No Limit Hold'em - 8 players
The Official 2+2 Hand Converter By DeucesCracked Poker Videos

CO: $1042.75
BTN: $400.00
SB: $412.00
BB: $353.20
UTG: $164.80
UTG+1: $1169.00
Hero (MP1): $509.50
MP2: $285.40

Pre Flop: ($6.00) Hero is MP1 with Q:spade: Q:diamond:
UTG raises to $10, 1 fold, Hero calls $10, MP2 calls $10, 1 fold, BTN raises to $44, 3 folds, Hero calls $34, 1 fold

Flop: ($114.00) 8:spade: K:spade: 3:spade: (2 players)
Hero checks, BTN bets $84

I dont play these stakes but oop without the initiative im c/f.

But he'd expect you to do this with the majority of your hands with the board texture and the way the preflop went. You do have outs so if im continuing im raising.

You could have also donked into him to bring out the spaz element into his game and getting it in if he r/r would be alot easier to stomach for the same reason if he's bluffing or semi bluffing you.

What was the reason behind cold calling utg? Did you feel you lost the ability to 4 bet after you called?

like i say its all that he knows that i know that he knows garbage. But i could be talking that too

What is the button's squeeze and 3bet percentages? If he squeezes wide like 10% like i've seen some regs at 1/2 and 2/4 do, then popping it again might be in order, esp since he's likely to jam worse or AK. Given that he's soooo nitty I imagine his 3bet % is something like 2% which means that your preflop 3bet call oop wasn't really ideal eh?

These stats are over 73 hands and likely aren't as accurate as we'd like so villain isn't as big of a nit as it seems. Yea its full ring where rocks and nits gather, but we have 2nd pair and a 2nd nut FD against a 3 bet range that doesn't consist of exclusively KK+, AK. Add to that our hand is severely under-repped. We have the best hand a percentage of the time and we have the best draw a pretty high % of the time. AsAx and AsKx are really the only two hands we don't wanna see... I can't see anything besides c/c ing this flop being correct here.

KardKlub said:

But he'd expect you to do this with the majority of your hands with the board texture and the way the preflop went. You do have outs so if im continuing im raising.

You could have also donked into him to bring out the spaz element into his game and getting it in if he r/r would be alot easier to stomach for the same reason if he's bluffing or semi bluffing you.

Click to expand...

Raising makes little sense here. What better hands do we hope to fold out? What worse hands do we expect to get value from. Same with donking... it's like we take his bluff line away from him and inflate the pot the times he has Kx + and decides to pop us ... (if we're bet/folding then it's just bonkers since villain would pop us with As Xx almost always and any random cards a decent % of the time also.) His flatting range of our donk bet with hands worse than ours is pretty perplexing also. I just don't know what we r trying to achieve by donking or c/ring this flop

I'm raising here for all the reasons you said. If I call the flop I'm going to have to worry about a turn bet coming if I don't improve and this way I get it in with the best possible equity.

As for the donk I don't think we should ever fold to a raise. This is the whole point of the donk to increase his raising range.

That's the reasons anyway right or wrong. This is all if I thought he could do any of the above. Like I said I'd just fold this out and wished I'd 3 bet utg

Hmm...I play 20nl so whatever not sure if I should say anything here, if it's BS tell me and I'll stop.

It all comes down to the range you gave him for squeezing, if you were calling to set mine and think this is QQ+/AK for him then clearly you have to fold now.

Iif he's squeezing wide...someone said raise but the problem is your FE isn't nearly enough, and you can't get value from worse. I know Asx calls, but really are there many off-suit aces in his range? AsQx perhaps if he 3-bets it for value but that's about it. Rag-suited aces are perfect for a squeeze tho so you can be up against a flush a reasonable amount. That's why you still have to fold I think.

Obv you can't call and draw to a spade when you could be drawing dead and don't see you getting paid off if you hit by anything but KK which will probably not get stacks in anyway. If you think he's very weak and just cbets / gives up a wide range then calling is fine, but is any reg that weak at 400nl ?

I appreciate all the responses guys I don't care what limits you play at I just wanted to get some opinions on the hand.
I don't have the exact numbers right now but this was only the second time he squeezed and last time everyone folded preflop.

Also the reason I flat called preflop was because UTG raised and he was a pretty tight player (again stats not exact) but he was around 12/9/ and this was his first utg raise in 210+ hands. I pretty much always raise preflop with queens but I'm guessing this was my thought process during the hand.

and c/c was out of the question for me, it was either going to be a c/f or a c/r I was just thinking which one was the best line. check calling is to weak in this spot for me.

also was thinking about c-betting and folding to a raise most likely. If he calls then I would take the turn and reevaluate.

emccards said:

I appreciate all the responses guys I don't care what limits you play at I just wanted to get some opinions on the hand.
I don't have the exact numbers right now but this was only the second time he squeezed and last time everyone folded preflop.

Also the reason I flat called preflop was because UTG raised and he was a pretty tight player (again stats not exact) but he was around 12/9/ and this was his first utg raise in 210+ hands. I pretty much always raise preflop with queens but I'm guessing this was my thought process during the hand.

and c/c was out of the question for me, it was either going to be a c/f or a c/r I was just thinking which one was the best line. check calling is to weak in this spot for me.

Click to expand...

Well if UTG is that nitty then BTN is never bluffing here if he's watching what's going on, so it's pretty much a fold pre?

emccards said:

and c/c was out of the question for me, it was either going to be a c/f or a c/r I was just thinking which one was the best line. check calling is to weak in this spot for me.

Click to expand...

emccards said:

also was thinking about c-betting and folding to a raise most likely. If he calls then I would take the turn and reevaluate.

Click to expand...

Again, what do we hope to accomplish by doing this?

If we c/r what better hands are hoping to fold out? Or hat worse hands are we hoping to get called by? Are we bluffing? Value raising?

As far as donk bet folding, that's about the worst line possible. It doesn't give him a chance to bluff with worse holdings, it allows him to push us off the best hand when he has a naked As or any random cards that we feels like raising a donk bet with and it doesn't let us see a turn card which can improve us to the best hand if we are currently behind... as far as him calling, what worse hands are going to call? What better hands are going to fold?

There's absolutely no value in either of these lines

Listen to zybomb.

A squeeze is much less likely here pre given it was initially a UTG raise. I know if I'm BTN I'm not 3Betting AK, or probably QQ for that matter especially if UTG is nitty. I'm probably 3Betting KK+ and the odd A5s type hand. So really this could maybe even be a fold pre?

On flop donking is horrible so is c/raising so you either check/call if you think he 3bets enough Axs SC type hands or you check/fold. But if you called pre you must think is range is wider than KK+ so check/call I guess.

The more interesting question in this example would be after we c/c the flop what's our line against a virtual unknown if he double barrels a blank turn (i'd assume c/f since all we beat is naked As and complete air at this point, since we'd assume JsJx or TsTx would check behind for showdown value/pot control more often than they'd shoot out again)

fold pre

just to elaborate on my nitty reply:

If we feel that we aren't crushing a shortstack's UTG's range with QQ, what exactly is our plan for our hand?

And if we aren't crushing UTG then we are in a world of trouble OOP vs. this TAG who just 3-bet UTG. Yes, we are at the very zenith of our flatting range but a decent player will always put us on a mid-high pair here and we will be in a world of hurt on a lot of flops -- just like this one, where we don't know what to do but don't feel like folding. He's not paying us off with JJ or a red AK/KK/AA if we improve.

backraise/4bet or fold pre, fold flop.

Zybomb said:

The more interesting question in this example would be after we c/c the flop what's our line against a virtual unknown if he double barrels a blank turn (i'd assume c/f since all we beat is naked As and complete air at this point, since we'd assume JsJx or TsTx would check behind for showdown value/pot control more often than they'd shoot out again)

Click to expand...

Problem is this is an aggressive player with position who is representing the top of his range by 3-betting an UTG open and firing into two on a pretty scary flop. If he's capable of bluffing into two, including a shortstack and a solid reg, he's probably capable of firing again if he doesn't have us crushed already.

Not expecting many easy turn/river decisions, we're basically looking to draw to 1/2 an out (A spades, which he probably has half the time here).

and, sorry to hijack this thread totally, but this brings to mind many painful lessons for me.

one of the most common situations for us to bleed money is when we don't know where we are in the hand, don't know if our pair is good or our flush draw is good. Am I chasing or is he? Is villain near the top of his range? Is it possible I'm drawing dead?

We should never feel that it's too nitty to simply nod to the power of position and release our marginal holdings.

Against a decent hand-reader our holdings will be pretty much face up here. We have a weak pair and maybe we have a spade, maybe we have a king but no spade. If we had position and could force villain to fire 2-3 barrels with air, fine. But we don't.

If we call the pot will be $282 and villain has a PSB left. What do you think happens on the turn?

Are people really giving an UTGs opening range KK+ right now? Or a Buttons SQUEEZE 3 bet range KK+, AK? That they are advocating folding pre (after we have severely under-repped our hand). If that's the case we are either

1) Seeing monsters in the closet

2) At the worst table in world history and deserve to stack off for sitting at this table in the first place

Backraising is pretty bad IMO bc it kind of turns our hand into a bluff, in the sense that we are gunna fold out worse almost always (Im pretty sure QQ is at the bottom of our back raising range here) and stack off to KK+

baudib1 said:

Problem is this is an aggressive player with position who is representing the top of his range by 3-betting an UTG open and firing into two on a pretty scary flop. If he's capable of bluffing into two, including a shortstack and a solid reg, he's probably capable of firing again if he doesn't have us crushed already.

Not expecting many easy turn/river decisions, we're basically looking to draw to 1/2 an out (A spades, which he probably has half the time here).

Click to expand...

Sure the flop is a sticky spot, but that isn't reason enough for not playing the pot (although yea a general rule of thumb is to avoid these sticky situations the less experience you have).

People aren't taking into considering the (large imo) amount of times villain will shutdown the turn once called here and the pot represents his stack. Most unknowns don't have it in them to barrel air a 2nd all in shell here, and most of them also are checking behind TxTs JxJs type hands for pot control/showdown value on blank turns.... about the only "bluff" i'd expect on the turn from an unknown is AsXx (and there's some debate as to whether he'd take the free card with this holding anyway given the pot and stack sizes and the fact that he may not have much fold equity)

But it is pretty close (hence why i think the turn discussion is the more interesting scenario)

but if you are folding the flop then what was our plan on 9d 7h 3s boards? Or 8s 6s 3s ones?

Again I realize it's a sticky spot post... but thats not reason enough to avoid it when we have the best holding/best draw a majority of the time

I guarantee you playing QQ in this spot vs. a TAG is never going to be profitable. To start with, we should 3-bet this UTG and get it in on good flops and if he has KK+ good for him. But we didn't.

If we had QQ in the BB during this hand it'd be an instant fold IMO. Our range is extremely constricted, yes our hand is under-repped but our range is constricted. We cannot have AK/KK+ and good players will be able to play well against us.

I'd also recommend a database search on hands where you hold 2nd pair/2nd NFD on 3-flush flops and see how profitable they are.

If he can really have JsJ/TsT here that he'll check on the turn, why wouldn't he check it on the flop?

What's our plan on turn if
A. a blank hits and he shoves
B. a spade hits and he shoves or bets half pot

This is a classic RIO scenario where we are only afraid of a few hands but those hands are extremely likely and if he has the hands we want, we're not getting paid off. So yay we lose our stack drawing dead a lot and win a ballsy cbet the rest of the time.

Yea I agree this is a very easy 3 bet / get in post on good boards, we obviously cant control that now though, so I didn't address that.

I also kind of agree that JsJx and TsTx may pot control check the flop, although JxJx TxTx (non spades) may be likely to fire a bet to protect against lower PPs with a spade which may fold for a bet. I think these hands still do bet though simply bc checking behind polarizes their range to a ton of 2nd pair/spade hands where as betting keeps it wide open. Once called though they'd probably opt to pot control the turn with these hands though.

The turn decision is a big problem for us and I'm not saying otherwise. Again though simply avoiding sticky spots isn't a good enough reason to punt the likely best hand/best draw... even if we have 0 implied odds (i kind of disagree bc I do think that Js / Ts will call down river bets after checking the turn) I still think villains shut down often enough and play this ABC that we don't have to worry about being outplayed on blank turns and can safely c/f... i certainly could be wrong though. I just think the hand was played way too nitty to call/call then c/f a flop where we likely have the best hand or best draw a lot (2 hands really worry us) ... although yea it is a potential rev implied odds scenario

Edit: As far as the BB fold QQ line. In a 6 max game I'd auto 4 bet/ship pre, here it'd be close between 4 betting and folding but I'd never flat

Zybomb said:

Yea I agree this is a very easy 3 bet / get in post on good boards, we obviously cant control that now though, so I didn't address that.

I also kind of agree that JsJx and TsTx may pot control check the flop, although JxJx TxTx (non spades) may be likely to fire a bet to protect against lower PPs with a spade which may fold for a bet. I think these hands still do bet though simply bc checking behind polarizes their range to a ton of 2nd pair/spade hands where as betting keeps it wide open. Once called though they'd probably opt to pot control the turn with these hands though.

The turn decision is a big problem for us and I'm not saying otherwise. Again though simply avoiding sticky spots isn't a good enough reason to punt the likely best hand/best draw... even if we have 0 implied odds (i kind of disagree bc I do think that Js / Ts will call down river bets after checking the turn) I still think villains shut down often enough and play this ABC that we don't have to worry about being outplayed on blank turns and can safely c/f... i certainly could be wrong though. I just think the hand was played way too nitty to call/call then c/f a flop where we likely have the best hand or best draw a lot (2 hands really worry us) ... although yea it is a potential rev implied odds scenario

Click to expand...

I'd agree with you if we had a read that BTN was more passive and likely to play his holdings face up. see previous post about "painful lessons."

Edit: As far as the BB fold QQ line. In a 6 max game I'd auto 4 bet/ship pre, here it'd be close between 4 betting and folding but I'd never flat

Click to expand...

yah I'm with you as far as 4-betting > flatting and I'd stack off most of the time but I do not think TAG's who run 9/8 are 3-betting a shortstack UTG nit (who is highly likely to ship pre) is going to have JJ- very often. I don't think he has JJ/TT here very often, either.

this is just a weird hand in that UTG did not 4-bet or fold, I think.