$25 NL HE Full Ring: QQ Cold 4bet

[Station_Master]

Game

Hold'em

Game Format

No Limit

Stakes

$.10/$.25

Table Format

Full (8-10 seats)

VP$IP

16

PFR

12

AF

3

Currency

$

Villain Stats (VPIP/PFR/AF): 16/12/3
Villain 1 UTG 105bb (good reg) opens 3bb
Villain 2 UTG+1 122bb (also good reg, 5% 3bet) 3bets to 9.16bb
Hero UTG+2 116bb has QQ - I cold 4bet to 20bb

It folds round to villain 1 who goes all-in. Villain 2 folds. Should I call or fold? (I will reveal later)

Also thoughts on the cold 4bet, is this the best play or call or fold. And sizing, I went small which I think is the best play

 

[hobojim1247]

If I ever 4 bet cold, I have already decided to play for all my chips and the only reason for 4 betting is to entice a shove.
I would only do this only with AA unless I had a solid read on the first villian and knew they would call with hands inferior to KK and QQ.

 

[Station_Master]

So if you had KK you open fold? Seems very nitty, but it is a very tight configuration and JJ and AK go straight in the bin

 

[Jarud]

I think Villian 1 is showing extreme strength, not only does he 5bet shove your cold 4bet, villian 2 who originally 3bet is still in the pot , villian 2 could have folded a hand as good as jacks or AK, we unblock AA and KK also, I would personally fold as I don’t think villian is doing this often enough with bluffs to justify calling it off.

 

[Station_Master]

Yes I did fold. I had planned ahead to fold if I got shoved on, given 2 strong ranges reacting to me saying I have a really good hand. I dont really like 4bet folding but I'm not sure I can bring myself to open fold Queens (maybe I should!?) And cold calling just turns my hand face up and I potentially lose even more v AA and KK

 

[300HPGOD]

A lot to reiterate here. We are playing full ring against what you describe as two villains that are solid players. In front of us we have an UTG open (again, this is full ring so this raise means something) and UTG +1 3 betting. UTG is 16/12 and they are opening from UTG so they are very frequenty very strong here. Then UTG+1 which is 5% 3 bettor (which is little low probably and definitely not wide) 3 betting from again, UTG+1 of all places full ring. That is two pretty strong hands there so I am not partying when I have QQ in this spot. Im also not looking to get out of the hand either. My preferred play here which sounds a little weak would be to just call pre and essentially set mining knowing if we get this set we are getting it all because whatever villains we face will never expect us to be just flatting with QQ. I dont love 4 betting since we are going against two strong narrow ranges, we would need to know what we are doing before we bet if we should face a 5 bet which I would personally be folding as you did, and then when we do 4 bet we are probably folding out the hands we dont want to fold out like JJ and 1010. All those reasons lean me to me to call here and treat the hand the same as if we had 99.

As far as 4 bet sizing goes I think your sizing is actually good even though it is not that large. Again, I wouldnt 4 bet here but we should have planned before we 4 bet that if 5 bet we are out of here and we also dont want hands worse than ours to fold so we wouldnt want to go big here with a 4 bet. I dont want JJ to fold and going to something like low 30's BBs for a raise makes JJ fold and also makes it more expensive to fold to a 5 bet. The thought process behind 4 betting to 20 or so is that we might get UTG to fold which I am not sure how likely that is since they are 16/12 opening from UTG. If UTG had been a full ring 30/25 player then the 4 bet makes more sense to get the hand heads up as it would more often be the case but with this tight a player opening UTG I dont think we can expect them to fold often and also UTG+1 who already 3 bet probably is going nowhere either.

 

[Station_Master]

Thanks for the detailed response. Maybe flatting is the play, but we can still get squeezed out or forced to play a big pot if UTG 4bets, which he will be incentivised to do so and likely with a wider range than v the cold 4bet. I know you say they wont be expecting QQ, but my thought process was the exact opposite that by floating I announce I have JJ or QQ! Maybe AK or TT.

Even with TAG stats UTG would probably be opening ATs, 99, KQs, AQo etc which would fold out (though having two queens means we have bad blockers). I also think UTG +1 will be slightly wider than only premiums as he wont have a flatting range in that spot for fear of getting squeezed so would likely also be 3betting TT, AQs etc.

The more I think about it a better cold 4bet would be AK (and AA and KK) given it has better blockers. Perhaps a better strategy would be cold call QQ and AKs, 4bet AA, KK and say half the AKo combos and fold everything else, only calling off AA to shove. I'm actually undecided if KK should actually just be a flat too.

Anyway the spot will probably not come up again, but it's good to think things through and discuss!

 

[LemonadeJooe]

Hello,
good fold.
From that position with 16/12/3 stats which is not even a TAG. but a NIT. and your read on them being good opp. I would expect my opp.
to have KK+ 90% of the time with that shove. Maybe sometimes AKs.
Your 4-bet was a bit of a rushed decision.

Anyway the spot will probably not come up again, but it's good to think things through and discuss!

HA!
You will be in this spot a lot!
But next time you will be more experienced.

 

[Styrofoam]

I am of the opinion personally, that is should be a flat preflop. By flatting you do open yourself up to being squeezed, but you're also keeping in UTG+1's 3 bet bluff range in, and you price the worst hands that UTG is making an open raise with in the hand to the flop.

I agree that with QQ in this spot, you have implied odds to make a set and make money there, but cold 4-betting either wins the pot there, or very likely ends in a 5-bet shove like it did.

Open folding seems very weak, and 4-betting seems only slightly better. Call here, and plan on folding non-sets, or any over cards.

 

[Vallet]

The size of your re-raise gave me the idea that you reserved the right to fold if the villains raise again on the preflop. There are definitely both good and bad sides to this. I would like to ask you.
Given the information and the small range of hands, did you want to pick up the pot on the preflop? And from what hands of villains do you expect to receive a call in a similar situation to continue ? After all, any ace or any king is a scary card and will make you fold the cards in a big pot on the flop.

 

[gustav197poker]

It's a good move when you can induce villain to bluff. But due to the opening position and the sequence played, we really don't expect many bluffs in a 5-bet range. Maybe I'm wrong, but if your assessment of ranges is correct, the only real hand you're beating is AK, which would indicate that villain thinks you have a very wide range. The rest of the hands that go all in will always beat you from UTG. I personally would choose to fold in this situation.
Greetings.

 

[kostja007]

The question is do you think Villain will shove AK? If you can answer the question with a yes, it is a clearly call. Versus a range of AA, KK, and AK you have about 40% equity.

Potsize (about): 105 + 9 + 20 = 134
You need to put 85 BB more to call. That means in pott odds 1:1,58, So you need 38% to be breakeven, but you have 40%. If you fold you are loosing 20BB.

 

[Bnobob]

you got a hero CaLl if it was big tournaments you probably wouldn't get a CaLl. making a big pot before the flop is always a great play and this would happen if you had called flop to see the flop

 

[Station_Master]

The size of your re-raise gave me the idea that you reserved the right to fold if the villains raise again on the preflop. There are definitely both good and bad sides to this. I would like to ask you.
Given the information and the small range of hands, did you want to pick up the pot on the preflop? And from what hands of villains do you expect to receive a call in a similar situation to continue ? After all, any ace or any king is a scary card and will make you fold the cards in a big pot on the flop.

Either take it down or get a call from something like AK, JJ, TT or AQs, happy to play post flop IP and likely folding to aggression on A high boards.

I'm not expecting AK to shove given the action sequence, hence I think it's an easy fold pre, which was my plan when opening. Even if he shoves half his AK and all AA and KK we are not getting the pot odds