PAHWM: $2/5/10 QQ (1 Viewer)

[Payback]

The hand
Hero has black Qs in the Small Blind.

**The button is talking with the chip runner who is bringing him his 3k in chips so he misses his straddle. This is the only time all night he doesn't.

Preflop:
MP limp, CO makes it $15, button flats, Hero makes it $70 to go, CO folds, Button calls.

Flop ($165):
Hero checks, Button Bets $175, Hero calls.

Turn ($515):
Hero checks, Button bets $325, Hero calls.

River ($1,165):
Hero check, Button bets $600, Hero ???

 

[BGinGA]

Geez, does he have pocket fives?!? Call. Puke optional.

 

[RocAFella1]

Call while announcing "set good."

 

[Frogzilla]

Fold

 

[Trihonda]

Call while announcing "set good."

Call, and announce “ I can beat a bluff...”

 

[Changster]

Standard line would have been to bet flop, bet turn, either bet or check/call the river.

I really have no idea what kind of hand hero is repping by 3betting pre then check calling 2 streets.

Hero 3bet into a CO RFI + a caller on the button, which means your range should be tighter than a standard 3bet against CO RFI in the SB with no callers in between.

A standard SB 3 bet vs CO is:

So with a button caller I’m probably 3betting 88+, taking out all suited gappers and leaving 89+ suited connectors and suited A’s and maybe some suited K’s.

So if you check QQ on the flop what do you bet?

And if you check called twice with draws, all those missed given the run out.

And if you had a set of J/9/8 given your preflop range, do you check call twice with hands like that?

If I were button I know you can’t have sets given the way it was played. I would absolutely overbet shove against you.

 

[colter ripton]

I probably couldnt find a fold here for 600 absent a read on the villian.

He has shown strength on all 3 streets. This bet on the river says value bet to me. I dont think he makes a value bet here with something like AJ. If he is a good/solid player he is definatley going to know that you can easily hold an overpair. Any one pair type hand that you beat should check back the river. If he is putting you on a busted draw there is no reason to bet a made hand with good showdown value.

He is either bluffing with a missed draw, or has been value betting a set or a made straight the whole way.

This is the type of hand that comes down to making a live read and going with your gut.

 

[Rhodeman77]

If Villain is as good as the room thinks, he may well know his 1 pair hand is no good and be turning it into a bluff himself now. This could easily be a leveling war now.

Hero has to make a player read. Villain has shown strength on all 3 streets but didn’t raise preflop when he had 2 chances. His likely winning hands are sets and 89 & J9 two pair type hands. His bluff hands are a lot more IMO. Plus we have to take into account he could be tilting from the last hand still.

Overall I lean towards a call.

 

[MegaTon44]

Villain has JT. Snap it off and win all the monies.

 

[links_slayer]

how fun is this going to be when we learn OP is button, not hero

 

[WedgeRock]

Flop:. pot size+
Turn: 60% pot
River: 50% pot

Seems like scared money, trying to bluff but not wanting to lose the stack he just bought.

 

[Highli99]

If this ends with a fold and not finding out villains hand im going to be life tilted.

 

[BGinGA]

lol, I'd wager big that Bill did not fold. Wouldn't even surprise me if he shoved over the river raise.

 

[DrStrange]

One pair hands need something "extra" to be worthy of risking 100+ bb. Extra might be wild preflop action. Extra might be a solid villain read. Looking at the villain read, it seems reasonable to expect he knows hero's range is over-pairs, the flush draw and rarely a set. Even so, villain keeps betting when checked to.

Yet, here we are with an over pair considering investing 230+bb hoping to win a huge pot. It appears the consensus read is either a) villain was semi-bluffing and now purely bluffing and/or b) we think, villain thinks hero has an over-pair and will fold to pure aggression. I guess we could put villain on top pair/ace kicker? These are not unreasonable things to hope for. A lot of the equity in villain's range was fleeting as all the draws bricked, so it would not be a shock for the river to be a "last chance" bluff.

As for people advocating a raise - - - I ask what you are hoping to happen? Is a hand worse than pocket queens going to call? For example AJ or TT. Or does hero hope to fold out a hand better than pocket queens? For example 98. I think Hero is getting terrible odds for his raise, he will fold out hands that were going to lose and get called by all two pair+ hands.

I do not like how Hero got to the river. But he dodged all the rocks and now is getting almost 3-1 to catch a bluff or over played AJ/TT/JT. The runout is as good as it gets for pocket queens unimproved. Hero might not win even half the time, but he wins enough to make the call worth while.

In short, I hold my nose and call -=- DrStrange

PS Hero should take careful note if he loses this hand. Villain played him like a fiddle and should have earned another level of respect. On the other hand, if villain loses with AJ for example, hero should also take careful note of that as well. Even if this is a casino game with an ever changing cast of villains.

 

[ChaosRock]

Question for those advocating a "call": what are the hands you got to this point with that are part of your check/fold combos? Do you check/call twice with your flush draws and Tx? My point is that QQ is at the bottom of the hands you got here with, or pretty close to it. Maybe TT is worse, maybe that's the line one takes with AKh? Again, what else? If one does have a check/fold range here, I think QQ should be in it.

 

[Kain8]

I'm going to find this immensely hilarious if the button shows up with the two red queens and the pot is chopped.

 

[fieldsy]

As for people advocating a raise - - - I ask what you are hoping to happen? Is a hand worse than pocket queens going to call? For example AJ or TT. Or does hero hope to fold out a hand better than pocket queens? For example 98. I think Hero is getting terrible odds for his raise, he will fold out hands that were going to lose and get called by all two pair+ hands.

I'm not sure anyone has advocated shoving the river, and doing so would seem pretty reckless. Hard to imagine any worse hand would call, and also hard to imagine many better hands folding. It seems that despite some disagreement mostly as to whether to bet the flop, there is pretty much consensus at this point that you have to call the river. You only need to win a bit over 25% of the time for the river call to be a break-even play.

 

[JRReynolds6181]

This has been immensely interesting and helpful. It’s interesting seeing the different points of view - probably live I’d be in exactly the position OP is, check/call flop, check/call turn, check river and I would call and be with you guys at the bar drinking whiskey and complaining about variance.

 

[Chippy McChiperson]

Question for those advocating a "call": what are the hands you got to this point with that are part of your check/fold combos? Do you check/call twice with your flush draws and Tx? My point is that QQ is at the bottom of the hands you got here with, or pretty close to it. Maybe TT is worse, maybe that's the line one takes with AKh? Again, what else? If one does have a check/fold range here, I think QQ should be in it.

Queens with a heart I would consider folding, because you're blocking AQhh and KQhh. I think those hands make up a significant enough part of villain's range here that we have to call.

 

[trever]

Question for those advocating a "call": what are the hands you got to this point with that are part of your check/fold combos? Do you check/call twice with your flush draws and Tx? My point is that QQ is at the bottom of the hands you got here with, or pretty close to it. Maybe TT is worse, maybe that's the line one takes with AKh? Again, what else? If one does have a check/fold range here, I think QQ should be in it.

Given how it was played, Hero's entire range is missed draws and one pair hands. If QQ is a fold, is there a call anywhere?

Villain has a lot of missed draws and missed pair plus hands in his range, why should we assume he won't bet it again especially when our range is so weak?

P.S. I fold to the turn bet, get shown a semi bluff and then feel like an idiot for the next 8 months.

 

[Josh Kifer]

You know it's a good one when the group is so divided....

 

[BGinGA]

Mini-threadjack: How does Hero play the hand differently if he has or instead of ?

 

[fieldsy]

Question for those advocating a "call": what are the hands you got to this point with that are part of your check/fold combos? Do you check/call twice with your flush draws and Tx? My point is that QQ is at the bottom of the hands you got here with, or pretty close to it. Maybe TT is worse, maybe that's the line one takes with AKh? Again, what else? If one does have a check/fold range here, I think QQ should be in it.

Folding TT is fine, folding the missed heart draws is fine (given the "squeeziness" of the preflop action, Hero could plausibly have AKhh, AQhh, KQhh, AThh, even A2-A5hh). That's 14 combos right there, while we have 18 combos of AA-QQ and I don't know what else except AJhh and 3 combos of JJ that we're calling with. Maybe we also try to squeeze and then float the flop with AhTx? If so, that's three more folds. I don't think we need QQ in there. I think all we really care about conceptually is having enough of a check-folding range to give the villain a basis to expect that it's worth bluffing a decent percentage of the time. And especially since we have almost no conceivable check-raising range, there's enough incentive for the button to bluff at it.

But that's a pretty technical approach in a live game. My much less technical view of this hand is that the flop texture favored the Button's calling range much more than the SB's 3-betting range, and as a good player the Button will know that. He can have all the nut hands, and SB can't except for JJ. So a good player is going to put pressure on a hand like QQ, and QQ can't roll over too easily.

 

[DrStrange]

For this hand, AA and KK are weaker than QQ . The queens have extra outs when Hero is behind. The queens also block the straight draw and made straights.

I would be more inclined to fold AA or KK earlier in the hand. By the river it doesn't much matter, I would call all three hands and raise with none of them.

 

[Frogzilla]

Mini-threadjack: How does Hero play the hand differently if he has or instead of ?

Fold those on turn

 

[Jeff]

Will someone PM me when we finally get the result of the hand. Aching to see the reveal and this mental poker masturbation is killing me.

Lol. I see this thread pop up and I furiously read through this dense conversation to find out I still don’t know what the CO dude had. Bill would have sorted out a read on this dude and folded if he was behind. That I know.

 

[Forty4]

Will someone PM me when we finally get the result of the hand. Aching to see the reveal and this mental poker masturbation is killing me.

Lol. I see this thread pop up and I furiously read through this dense conversation to find out I still don’t know what the CO dude had. Bill would have sorted out a read on this dude and folded if he was behind. That I know.

I can’t wait for @Payback to say he folded and has no clue what the other guy had but was just doing this exercise to find holes in his game.

 

[Payback]

Awesome discussion.

Results are in: Hero folded the river

Spoiler

JK! You know I hate folding. Hero grabbed a black and purple chip, tossed them in, and got shown Jc9c for a flopped two pair.



My Analysis

PF - It seems that most of the community agrees with the PF decision. FYI, I'm always raising this in he small blind against a CO open. QQ is just to strong not to. I was surprised when CO folded and the button called.

Flop - This is about the worst flop we could see that doesn't contain an A or a K. Button flat called two raises which is something he seemed like he could do with 88/99. Based upon his PF action I eliminated the top part of his range (AA, KK, QQ, AKs, and even AQs) as he aggressively defended his button. I also don't think he shows up with JJ or TT here. That leaves hands like JT, T9, KQs, AhXh (maybe AhTh or Ah8h that flopped a ton of equity) that he might call PF with and bet the flop that we currently beat.

I did not want to put my stack in on this board texture and chose to check for pot control and to keep any bluffs/semi bluff in his range. If I bet and get raised here it's a really gross spot where I'm playing for stacks on a board that favors his PF flat calling range. If it was for 100bb, no problem, but for 240bbs....yuck.

He leads for more than pot, which was not uncommon for him at this point. Unlike a lot of other players where this bet would polarize their range. Given that I under represented my hand this is a trival call.

Turn - One of the better turn cards in the deck as only 67 is completed. If he has that here and bet that flop, God bless. Again, a check is reasonable given the flop line and now he leads for about 2/3 pot. I was expecting 100%, so I paused a bit in game on this one. It felt like value, but if he's bluffing he needs to keep betting here to a) build a bigger pot if he hits and b) allow himself the opportunity to bluff the river if he misses. Having QQ vs. AA here is better as it elimates a lot of combinations of the nuts. Plus I could also hit my gutter ball or a Qd on the river (Qh seems poisonous).

River - This is either the best or worst runout for us depending on what villain holds. He leads for 50% pot. I figured here Villan knows that I'm probably sitting on an overpair here and am planning on calling a blank river so when he fired only 50% pot I was pretty thankful. 100% pot bet would be reasonable in his spot. There are lots of villains when they make the 3rd bet my cards would be instantly in the muck. However this villain showed he was capable of sticking a large amount of money in the pot without the nuts. Between that and the description I'd been given and the way he'd been playing I figured he was capable of unloading 3 clips.

As my hand is face up I need to construct a calling range so I'm not overfolding and having two black Qs felt like the perfect hand to call with. If I hand the Qh in this spot I would've folded as it weights his range a little bit more towards value hands.

 

[WedgeRock]

 

[Riomaa]

He plays it like a scared over pair or broken draw. Check raise on turn would've given you a lot of information and possibly stops him from betting river. Although you've eliminated the nuts from your range with your preflop bet. He blocks jacks too. I think min reraise on turn and save $300 is only thing you could do besides flat calling all the way down.