Three Queen Problem

Here's a situation I occasionally find myself in that I never feel quite sure about and would value any comments. Dealt AA mid position we raise and get one caller in late position. The flop comes KQQ so we c-bet and get called; the flop is another Q, we bet and get raised all-in. Call or fold? In general I am calling here as the villain is pushing with most pairs or a king. Obviously there are all the usual caveats about tourney or cash, what we know of villain and so on, but this seems a situation where we are either a mile ahead or complete toast and there is no way of telling which.

Any thoughts?

We need a lot more information than you have given here.

Number of players dealt into the hand?
Stack sizes?
Positional stats for the opponent?
Previous history with opponent?

Note: I don't think there are many Kx hands or worse pairs that shove for a significant amount here, at least not if your opponent isn't clueless. They would be turning their hand into a bluff. It could be a hand like JT (a [mostly] pure bluff). But, I doubt it's many of those. I expect a Qx hand here most of the time. If you had checked the turn, and an aggressive opponent shoved, then I think there are more Kx and small pairs. Either way, I don't think they should be shoving here. If they have the Q and position, they can continue to let you bet into them. They can always bet the river if you check. If they have a Kx hand or a pair, they should be calling down (not raising) to keep your bluffs in.

For small shoves with aggressive opponents, yeah, you might need to call. For significant sized shoves with opponents that have a clue, I am not calling often.

Tough decision. I think I would call here most of the time. I don't like folding aces and there is really a slim chance he has the queen.

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a lot depends on your rival how much you know him.you don't have the nuts,the rival's payment means that something is in the majority of the time, it wants you to only deliver the largest amount of your chips. it is very difficult to fold pairs of aces, I think you should only have checked on all the streets and at the first attack withdraw

albosaltenio said:

I think you should only have checked on all the streets and at the first attack withdraw

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Come on, you can't play aces like that.

Delfino said:

Tough decision. I think I would call here most of the time. I don't like folding aces and there is really a slim chance he has the queen.

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There is some amount of variation based on how often he calls vs 3bets, but once he calls on the flop, I think there are more queens in his range than you might assume.

If he has a relatively standard preflop calling range, say something like:

[88-22
A9s-A2s, K2s+, Q8s+, J8s+, T7s+, 97s+, 86s+, 75s+, 65s, 54s
ATo-A2o, KTo+, QTo+, JTo]

We can assume that he calls a flop bet with all his Kx and Qx hands. There are 13 combinations of Qx to 48 combos of Kx on this turn. That's more than 20% of the time that he shows up with a Queen. And we have to assume he is betting all his Kx hands (which is terrible). Note that we don't even get 21% equity here, because the Kx hands could hit a King on the river and suck out. So we lose 25% of the time. If we have him calling wider, we add more Qx hands faster than Kx ones. If he never 3bets, he does have AK, but he also has AQ and KK, which means we don't really do much better. In that case, they still have a Q more than 20% of the time, but our equity is lower.

I just mean there are more Qx combos (13-15) than you might expect even in a fairly tight calling range. If this person plays like 40% of their hands they can have like 25 combos or more (still is about a 4:1 ratio of Kx:Qx).

Now, we just need to know more about stakes, table dynamics, and the player. Against the vast majority of players that I am around, they are going to show me a queen the vast majority of the time I call here. If I have seen that they don't understand relative hand value (maybe they reraise all-in with the bottom end of a straight), I will just have to call. But, without that knowledge, I strongly lean towards folding.

Yeah, it sucks that we have AA. From a GTO perspective, we probably call here with AA. We need to be calling with some full houses, to not be overfolding against good players, and this would be the top of the full houses. But, that assumes our opponents are bluffing this turn correctly, and I just don't think that's the case for most lower limits. The only way we are good here is when the person overvalues Kx.

WallaceArg said:

Here's a situation I occasionally find myself in that I never feel quite sure about and would value any comments. Dealt AA mid position we raise and get one caller in late position. The flop comes KQQ so we c-bet and get called; the flop is another Q, we bet and get raised all-in. Call or fold? In general I am calling here as the villain is pushing with most pairs or a king. Obviously there are all the usual caveats about tourney or cash, what we know of villain and so on, but this seems a situation where we are either a mile ahead or complete toast and there is no way of telling which.

Any thoughts?

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simple, games high, high cards, if the guy called and you don't have information, it is a question that he has a pair, and if he moved all in high it is more a question that he got something right .....

I have no problem with three Queens as long as there is only one King

The situation you described is kinda vague but it seems that with AA you didn't push enough to get the weak hands out of the way. When playing AA it's dangerous to slow roll because you give the weaker hands the opportunity to become stronger, be careful.

Assuming you meant turn the second time you used the word flop, there are three of four queens exposed, dramatically reducing the chances one of the villains hole cards is the fourth queen. What I most wonder is what percentage of your stack is already in the pot.

snap call 100% of the time, no hesitation.

if they have a queen, oh well, you got coolered. say 'nice hand' and move on. or they might have kk in this spot for a better boat. again, say 'nice hand' and move on. but you're beating so many k/x boats, smaller pair boats, even maybe some funky open-ended straight draws or complete air if they're being adventurous in this spot that this is such an easy call with aces and you're going to be ahead in most situations.

also, nobody is jamming with quads here and giving their opponent a chance to fold in this spot. they want to go for value with a lock on the hand. does kk jam here on a board with 3 queens when hands like kq or aq is in hero's opening range? possibly, but it would be a silly jam.

I always tell everyone that you have spent a lot of time at the poker table with your opponent and you should know the range of hands they play with, and you should also make notes about how they continue to bet on all the streets. That's what you should be making decisions based on, it's very simple.

vinnie said:

There is some amount of variation based on how often he calls vs 3bets, but once he calls on the flop, I think there are more queens in his range than you might assume.

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I agree with you analysis but for me it's pretty unlikely that he'd go all-in with quads instead of slow-play it on the turn. His raise sounds rather weak - it's like he wants us to fold based on the queens on board which might look scarry.

I like to lose the small pots and win the big pots.

If two queens are on the board, a possible queen could be in someone's hand, so a shove I will not call.

If things are like min raise, I don't mind losing a little bit of money. It can pay me off well later.

Delfino said:

I agree with you analysis but for me it's pretty unlikely that he'd go all-in with quads instead of slow-play it on the turn. His raise sounds rather weak - it's like he wants us to fold based on the queens on board which might look scarry.

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I don't think a good player raises anything here, as described by OP. It just does not make sense to raise as a bluff or for value when you're in position and the player with the initiative shows that they intend to keep betting. Betting AA on the turn is fine, as there are more Kx hands that call than Qx hands. Your opponent, in position, should call and never raise. If you check the river, they can bet there.

But, my gut says, once they have shoved the turn here, they are going to be shoving for value more often than they would for a bluff. I think "blackrain79" said something in his book on the micros about people never folding full houses, or it could have been another poker book. And, it is almost certainly true at the micros and with bad players. We both agree that a player raising this turn isn't playing well. And, that player might be 'hoping' you have a Kx hand and will call their all-in when they hold a Qx. When they hold a Kx hand, they're never going to fold but will probably call down just in case you have a Queen. When they have a Queen, they know that they would never fold a full house and hope you have one that you can't fold.

I would need a history of knowing my opponent spaz-shoves on scary boards to even consider this a call, or stacks where I am just committed. That said, I tried to find a single example of this situation in my database, and I wasn't able to. I just don't see people raising into the bettor when the board hits trips. My database is too small though.

In the end, this situation is so rare that I don't think it matters too much if you fold here or call. My gut says fold, and I am not worried about overfolding in these spots against the types of opponents that I usually face (and the types that would play the turn this poorly). I think the decision is close (at least with stacks at, or below, 100xbb) and infrequent enough that it's hard to make a costly mistake here in the long term. It reminds me of Sklansky (I think) talking about someone who always folds royal flushes and how that error is less costly than pre-flop errors. I do think you'll be shown a Q here more often than you'll be shown some weird bluff.

As an example of why I don't think bad opponents (the type to raise here) will worry about folding our their callers, I can think of a $1/$2 live game I played. There was a raise pre-flop, and 3 callers. Flop was two-tone Kc-Qc-4h (or something like that). It checks through. Turn was Ac. The first player to act moved all-in for at least $200. It folds and he tables Jc-10c. He had a royal flush and just got excited and shoved his whole stack in. There was no thought about how to make the most money with it. Bad players play badly!

That said, with the number of people who absolutely insist that they would call here, I am inclined to think raising with a Qx hand might be +EV. Probably not more +EV than calling and letting my opponent bluff again, but still have more equity than I would think.

Completely, It depends on the situation of the place.

It may be better to fold.

With the information given, I'm losing to the case queen and pocket kings, I call.