Villain in SB is 29/17/3.3 after 100 hands. This is only the fourth hand played by the passenger in the BB, but I'm presuming they are bad because they posted in the CO for their first hand -- folded to them, they limped, SB called, BB raised, they folded.

Merge - $0.25/$0.50 (6 max) - Holdem - 6 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 3

MP: $14.83
CO: $22.78
BTN: $17.64
SB: $18.06
BB: $5.75
Hero (UTG): $4.61

SB posts SB $0.10, BB posts BB $0.25

Pre Flop: ($0.35) Hero has K Q

(Should I be capping here, with a presumed bad passenger along for the ride?)

Hero raises to $0.50, fold, fold, fold, SB raises to $0.75, BB calls $0.50, Hero calls $0.25

(I capped here because the passenger was along for the ride on a fairly juicy board. Anyone just call the 3-bet?)

Flop: ($2.25, 3 players) 5 Q J
SB bets $0.25, BB calls $0.25, Hero raises to $0.50, SB raises to $0.75, BB calls $0.50, Hero raises to $1.00, SB calls $0.25, BB calls $0.25

Turn: ($5.25, 3 players) 3
SB checks, BB checks, Hero bets $0.50, SB calls $0.50, fold

River: ($6.25, 2 players) 8
SB checks, Hero bets $0.50, SB calls $0.50

My default play with KQ on this board against a pre-flop 3-bettor (even an aggressive one like your SB) is to call the 3-bet on the flop. It just doesn't look like we are ahead of much-- QT maybe, but would he 3-bet that here? Would he 3-bet AJ out of position? KJ? KT? T9? AdKd? I guess all of those are POSSIBLE 3-bets, but they don't seem to me to be LIKELY ones. Meanwhile, AA-JJ, AQ, KQ, and QJ are all 3-betting this flop with the BB fish in tow.

As played, once you decide to cap the flop and get rid of BB on the turn, you might consider a MUBSy check behind on the river for the same reason.

But you're a live player (a better one than I am) and you know that this is just SO read dependent. If you think this guy is overaggressive and has a lot of hands that KQ beats in his range, then your cap and bet-down might be correct. But I'd really want a more specific read than a 3.3 AF before I made that play.

I just call the 3 bet. What exactly in his flop 3! range are we ahead of?

You have to put all KJ, AJ and flush draws in SB's range to give you more than 33% equity, even with BB there. Cap is overdoing it a bit.

*G*

No, I do not cap pf.

I like the flop up until the cap. Tag-along could have air and I still wouldn't like the cap 'cause I think we're crushed by villain's range as of his 3bet.

Best case scenarios: he's overplaying AK w/ bdfd (not uncommon occurrence in my experience with gutter/bdfd/overs). 2nd best: Chop with other KQ. 3rd best: He's juicing pot with AJ/AT/AK(KJ???) suited in 's (small fav against us with any of these). Everything else that is reasonably in his range (AQ, JJ+) leaves us in the dust.
Slow way down, imo.

*g*

Cap pre

flop is fine

rest is standard

Why?


What range are you putting him on as of his 3bet?

If we want to get another raise in after SB's flop 3-bet, there's a compelling case to be made that it's better to wait and make that raise on a good (non-diamond, non-jack, maybe non-T as well) turn card. Not that that's what I'm recommending. But it's something to consider if we think that Villain's aggro stats and BB's continued presence in the pot justify another raise.

Interestingly, the flop cap and river value bet, while on the surface very consistent plays, do have different sets of arguments in their favor. On the river, BB is no longer padding the pot and adding value to our aggressive actions, so that motivation is gone, but at the same time we now know that hands like KdJd and AdJd didn't get there. And we also can be pretty confident by this point that SB does not have JJ or the case QQ. (We had to consider those hands at the time we capped the flop. But we can pretty much rule them out by the time we've reached the river.)

Still, it's not too hard to imagine that we may have bullied AQ or maybe even KK/AA into calling down.

.

This, combined with answer to 2nd question, makes me wonder what kind of range you're putting him on when he 3bets pf, actually.

I realize stats haven't converged in 100 hands, but it's the best info we've been provided to go on. And PFR of 17% isn't exactly extreme (in fact, it's kind of an ABC tag or weak-tag stat for 6M).
Note also the relatively large (12%) gap between vpip and pfr. This indicates to me that either A) this guy raises/re-raises somewhat near (abctag)optimal, but limps a few too many speculative hands in addition to that; or B) he limps or cc's in a lot of spots he should be raising or iso re-raising (respectively) and normally has a lowish pfr......but has simply hit a few nice starters in this sample to pull his pfr% as high as 17%.

Either way it's kinda bad news bears for us when he 3bets oop when facing an UTG raise.
I think about as liberal as I'd want to estimate for his pf range is around: ATs+, AJo+, KJs+, KQo+, 66/77+. Some of the hands you mentioned for his flop 3bet (like KT) I've already eliminated as of the pf action.

So if I'm even close we're like a 3:2 dog to his range. Slip a range that's fairly wide/weak for BB (but not too insane, he is calling two cold, and OP just said he seems kinda bad, but not atc bad), it's still not a great picture for us:

equity win tie pots won pots tied
Hand 0: 31.975% 29.62% 02.35% 6744644 535447.83 { KcQc }
Hand 1: 26.995% 25.90% 01.10% 5896711 249490.33 { TT-22, AQs-A2s, K9s+, Q9s+, J8s+, T8s+, 97s+, 86s+, 76s, 65s, 54s, AQo-A2o, KTo+, QTo+, JTo, T9o, 98o }
Hand 2: 41.030% 38.48% 02.55% 8760901 581059.83 { 66+, ATs+, KJs+, AJo+, KQo }

It's debatable, but far from "super-standard". Maybe position/initiative make up the diff, but that's tenuous when we don't even have ace-high.

On to flop:
When he 3bets the flop, sure there could be some combos of AJ or similar in there, but they ought to be discounted imo (assuming he'll 3bet AJ 100% is nothing short of delusional).
Even with a considerable number of weak 3bets in there, and leaving BB with 100% of his pf range (which obviously isn't accurate, since he cc'ed once and then took two more to the face....our equity is likely to be significantly worse than below, but I'll leave it just to illustrate a point):

Board: Qd 5d Js
Dead:

equity win tie pots won pots tied
Hand 0: 28.601% 21.46% 07.14% 2099722 698607.17 { KcQc }
Hand 1: 15.608% 15.01% 00.59% 1468867 58192.17 { TT-22, AQs-A2s, K9s+, Q9s+, J8s+, T8s+, 97s+, 86s+, 76s, 65s, 54s, AQo-A2o, KTo+, QTo+, JTo, T9o, 98o }
Hand 2: 55.791% 48.68% 07.11% 4763237 695379.67 { JJ+, AdKd, AsKs, AQs, AdJd, AdTd, KQs, AdKh, AdKs, AQo, AcJd, AdJc, AdJh, AhJd, AsJd, KQo }

I just don't see the sense in capping here.