Deepstacked (25k starting) 144 player live tournament $20 entry.

Hero (QQ) (39,000)
Villain (SB) (65,000)
Blinds 300/600 no ante

Hero has QQ in the Highjack seat, it folds around to hero. Hero mistakenly think the blinds are at 200/400 and so he accidentally just min-raises to 1200. SB calls me and BB folds. (SB seems to be a solid LAG, haven't seen him bluff yet but one of the most aggressive post-flop at the table)

Pot=3000 [Hero 37800] [Villain 63800]

Flop: 3h4h6d

Villain leads out for 3,000 and hero min-raise to 6,000, Villain calls.
Pot=15,000 [Hero 31800] [Villain 57800]

Turn: 3h4h6dAh

Villain bets 7,000 - hero tanks for a while and calls.
Pot=29,000 [Hero 24,800] [Villain 50800]

River: 3h4h6dAh9d

Villain shoves. Hero?

Please provide discussion/thoughts/opinions about the entire hand, not just the river decision. Then I will post my decision and what Villain had.

1. Nothing wrong with the minraise pre even tho it was unintentional.

2. You are pricing in all of villains draws on the flop with your minraise on a wet board for a bb defense after a minraise. i prob 3x.

3. Fold turn. many draws arrived. A5 hit. His range is too wide and you will be a tough spot on the river when a brick hits (as you ended up being in)

4. Fold river unless you are soul reading.

Thanks Doibluff:

You pretty much nailed it, good job. Villain's cards were Ad4c and I made a horrible hero call to bust out.

I started getting into this whole thinking of "he's definitely on a draw, it's either a flush or str8 draw, possibly both" ... then when the ace of hearts hit I threw caution to the wind and started thinking "he had the straight draw but I've shown weakness with that min-raise, surely he's put me on 99-KK. I got fancy play syndrome. The ace of hearts was the last card in the deck I wanted to see and I knew it, I just didn't have the heart to fold after having gone down about 10k in the last hour of play.

In terms of the flop move, I agree, I totally priced him in for everything. I walked away from the table thinking "that idiot did not have the right odds to call with middle pair and an ace overcard." Then I started thinking over the math, considering the fact that I gave him all of my chips, considering implied odds I gave him a situation where he called 3,000 for a potential upside of 12,000 in the pot AND my 31,800 back. 3,000:43,800 or about 14:1 with his range likely being anywhere from (5 outs needing about 9:1 to see one card; 8 outs needing about 5:1 odds to see card, and everything like flush/str8 draws with overcards needing less than 4:1 odds to be a correct call.) So agreed, given his range of hands I should have made a flop raise of about 3x-4x (something likely to give him a good looking spot to shove over the top with a drawie hand).

So that was bad, but even worse was the remainder of the hand. I did not have enough history with this player to be making wild theories like that and should have made a sensible laydown when the ace hit - it was totally reasonable for him to play it like he did, same as a flush draw could have been played that way.

The problem in my head (and this is where I think some excellent discussion can take place) is where do you draw the line in terms of being "pot-committed" with a big preflop hand like QQ - when I min-raised the flop I was worrying about him having a set, so I slimmed down my raise to just 2x what his bet was, so I could feel out the rest of the hand. I feared if I went too big he could shove over the top and I would have to either be up against a set with only 2 outs, or a very drawwy hand which still isn't ideal. So given the chip stack I had, I really felt like a 3x-4x raise on the flop would have meant I am committed - which I think it would have. If he had a set in that spot I would have had to pay him off the remainder of the streets. Sad thing is, he didn't have a set, gin came, and I paid him off anyway.

So the big question for the day is: When you have a big hand like QQ, and no king or ace comes on the flop, how many effective big blinds (or what SPR) should you be willing to part with if he has hit a set (ie. if I had 100 BBs back, should I be getting it all-in over the streets of play). Right now I'm thinking you need to throw caution to the wind when it comes to deep stacks and being up against a set with such a drawwy board, but on a drier board smaller raises are okay, and making a hero-fold later in the hand more likely since his range would only be sets and air with a dry board.

So yes, the correct move would have been a larger 3x-4x raise on the flop, with a plan to fold if a heart hits and villain bets out.

10k flop, and get it in.