$50 NLHE MTT Turbo: Top set against draw-heavy board

Hey everyone, I have a scenario that I'd like your thoughts on what you would do.

I just sat down to blinds 100/200 (3rd level with 20min blinds) being 9-handed, starting with 40k chips. I'm BB, there are 4 limpers (incl. SB). I have QdQs, and raise to 1,200. 3 people call, SB folds.
Flop comes Q8J (straight potential) with 2 clubs. I lead out with 4,000 and get 2 callers.
The turn is the 6 of clubs (flush potential). I check, everyone else checks.
The river is a blank (3 of spades or something similar). I bet 8,000. One person folds, but the other raises me to 16,500 (they have about 10-15k behind them after that bet). What would you do? Any insight to your reasoning would be greatly appreciated. I'll let you know what happened after I have an idea as to how others would have approached it.

Just call. You are getting way too good of pot odds to fold here.

You very well might be beat, although it’s weird he didn’t beat the turn since you will likely give him your stack regardless of the street. There’s a ton of stuff he’s trying to push you off this pot with here, AJ, missed straights, etc. Plus AQ, KQ, are probably raising for value here since you backed off on the turn and they think they have you. 9T might be in his range, don’t know enough about the player.

Don’t see a reason to shove. If he’s slow playing the straight or flush just tip your cap and move on to shove/fold mode. Let’s not lose our whole stack here when we’ve already got a massive pot.

I am not that pro level expert, but running insight such hand - the same questions arise to me, hmmm.

Few minutes ago, I faced limper holding AA at 0.25$ Spin & Go - that's right
And he just call my bets until the river - where another A arrived on the board

I think the answer to your question is hiding in the readings of your opponents :top:

Im folding river (as played). imo

But i do not like hero line overall with effective 200BB. imo

Hero are inflating the pot on preflop where people get good odds to continue with their entire limping range. imo Im going to raise at least t2.4k (12BB 6% of my entire stack) preflop OP. And according to this the whole hand might played out differently.

So what now? As played hero inflated the pot preflop and play multiway pot OP with vulnerable strong made hand on flop, really wet board. There is no point to inflate the pot again. imo
But hero decided to do it, why not, we have taught to bet when we are ahead, right? Look at this on villains perspective for a second, hero basically says them, man hey i have made nuts fold your hand please! It might gonna happen vs 1 or 2 opponents but there is 4 villains remaining, someone of those villains will continue with draw most of time since there is implied odds so great to do it. imo

Well now we see turn multiway, as expected (as played), hero got 2 remaining villains who decided to continue with their holdings. Why hero stop now betting? Villains ranges are so polarized and hero is confused, well by that time i am going to turn my hand into bluf to make them to believe i have still nuts. If it does not work i am going to make crying fold when some of the villains come over the top and 3 bet me big enough to get negatives odds to continue. imo All those terrible acts would not even happened when hero would check the flop and stop inflating pot second time.

River:So whats up now (as played), hero has gave away pot control and now turning made flop nuts into bluf, well at that point villains range contains more holdings that we are behind (how it played out) and because of that i take my losses and i make cry fold and muck my ladies into darkness. imo But i would never inflate the pot third time. I might go for check/call or make a small sweetener bet on river. imo

I agree with nml. Just call it. If it was me I would have shoved on the flop. That normally shuts it down considering your qq hits for 3 on the flop.

To me the action as played by hero seems fine and I would call off the river for what I can see is pot odds of 1:5.4~

Curious to see how it played out.

You guys call i do not blame, but it is early stage and chips are much more worth then you think (for me it is a cry fold on river), catch a bluf if it is your desire. imo As played it is not wise and i am strongly against any bet on flop as played preflop. It is just terrible that deep to jam it in on flop as some of us think. Poker is not dead, that is good to know. I sometimes play 50 dollar plus games and those are tougher than you think! imo I am pretty happy with your decisions

This river decision is truly beautiful where your hand is not good enough to shove and good enough to just call. wp villain!

On middle level i am thinking on checking along with limper being OP with top 3 % of hand preflop, but i prefer to go and 3bet large enough to get at least 2 folds, since my hand is still very strong preflop hand. There is not many situations where i am willing to do it.

I would probably find a fold on the river, with a multi way pot like that getting odds on such a draw heavy board I like the large bet on the flop, I would however size the river bet to something a little more toward the 1/3rd 1/4th pot size, when they are beat they are much more likely to call and when you are beat you get off for much less.

Just call

Preflop raise is fine, could have been slightly bigger, like 1500, but 1200 works too.

So on the flop, pot is around 5000 right? In that case I like your bet. Board is very wet and you have a clear three street value bet.

Turn check is fine I guess, it's unpleasant, but that is the downside of playing out of position.

Now on the river we have a clear value bet and once villain raise it is just a call. Villain's raise is very small, you practically should fold only your bluffs to this raise.

Overall I like how you played your hand. Don't listen to Ambur, his last tournament win was in 2013.

I appreciate all of the insight! I've only been playing for a few months, so I'm open to all of the criticisms offered.

To finish off the hand, after his re-raise, I thought about it for a while and opted to painstakingly fold. The guy flipped one card over, and it was a club.

One of the guys asked if I had kings (with the tone of voice that it was the right fold). When I told them I had queens, the whole table were shocked that I folded top set (adamant that I shouldn't have folded). I put the question to them, that regardless of whether I had KK or QQQ, what was raising me on that board? It's either a bluff or a flush, so whether I had an over pair or top set, they both should lead to the same conclusion. Only one guy at the table agreed with me.

But cheers everyone for the thoughts!

If he flipped only one card over and it was a club - i have come to find most rec / amateur players will do this to try and establish a table image or reinsure that they had it in that spot - usually its a bluff.

He knew if you were a good player you could likely fold almost anything but a flopped straight or another flush - check on the turn showed weakness and he took advantage of it. Im barreling the turn too, i know its a scare card but more likely than not - my hand is still good going to the turn roughly 65% of the time - so for the 1/3 chance he draws and hits his flush - i'll bet the turn and evaluate. If he calls again, then you have a choice - check call the river, barrell the river and see what he does, check and fold on the river.

I feel like if he has one club and a straight draw here he peels, takes a free card - then realizes he cant win the pot aside from bluffing and he goes for it, not putting you on the straight or flush...if i had a read like that on you its exactly what i would do.

This smells exactly like the nut flush as played.

But I agree with one of the other posters that we should be sizing bigger. Probably on every street. (I'm not saying to just open jam flop, but raising bigger pre so that we don't go 4 ways definitely seems like a good start.)

I'm not saying I actually get away on river as played, getting such a crazy price, but we created that situation by playing it how we did.

Preflop: fine. I might make it even bigger like 1,500 but 1,200 is fine

Flop: fine. I would probably bet 80-90% of pot. You bet 105% that’s close enough that it likely doesn’t change the calling ranges much either way.

Turn yes Check with the intention of calling a reasonable bet size and hope for a Board pair.

River: I’m not sure i like leading. I think I’d check call with the option to check fold if one player raises the other. If I elect to bet this river I’d bet an amount that can be called by 2nd pair. So.....like 4,500....something like that.

As played you’re getting a great price but I don’t think you can beat much. Folding can’t be wrong here as he almost always has a flush...but I suppose calling isn’t the worst just in case he is bluffing or over valuing a hand like 2 pair. You only have to win 17% of the time for this to be a good river call. It’s honestly close. You’ll probably lose more than that. People don’t bluff enough in these spots.

I think that pre should be a bigger sized bet, If you are facing so many limpers, it is very likely you have the best hand, but it plays kinda bad into 4 or 5 people.
Therefore, slightly bigger bet to reduce the number of players to the flop (I'd say about 9-10BB).

Flop is played fine, if I calculated correctly, the pot is about 5k so 4k bet is pretty good. Regardless of making it a few BBs bigger it wouldn't change too much, I guess the same number of players would call you and stay there until the turn.

Turn is good as well, checking, I would be in a check-call mode on the turn.

River: personally would never lead here, for this precise reason that happened to you. What to do if I get raised? Like, how often is villain bluffing here? Is villain really raising for value with 2P or a mid-low set? The way you played it you have to just call, and never fold and never shove. If you shove, you are beat if you get called, while bluffs are folding folding. You can't really fold either, because you may become subject to aggressiveness on later streets by other players in other hands, making you fold way too many hands to re-raises.
That is why I would check the river and just call a river bet, it would probably save you some chips.

it sucks to be wrong in that spot, he could have a flush easily but with top set, i guess you have to call, especially that there's no straight up there. even if you are beat, there are not many hands that he could have. A high most probably, or a small flush. he could also have a set or two pair. so it's a clear call,imo. you could have played it better thinking more about it.

On the flop no one folds their FD since they called your squeeze.
Turn is a card where you should slow you down I little bit I guess, you also don't have any FD blocker . I don't know your villain but most likely I would check my made flush IP here.

On river I check call here every time , because the worst outcome for you is what just happened , he raised your lead.

His raise here smells pure value , he doesn't leave you space for an easy fold. Since you raised it pre flop your range is something very clear for him.