7 handed $40/80 LO8 hand.

UTG raises (somewhat loose/aggro).

All fold to me in the SB. I have AK92 ( AK92) and elect to just call.

The BB reraises, UTG just calls, I call.

I have a lot of history with the BB, he has yet to raise/reraise this spot without an A2. He doesn't necessarily have to have good sidecards to go with it--if he feels he has the only A2, he will get aggressive with it.

FLOP: Q Q 4

Check, bet, raise

Would you peel? And, maybe more importantly, would you have lead this flop?

I would not peel and would probably not have led because I'm a nit who is scared of monsters, so leading could be correct. If your opponents will let you run over them, lead. If they play back at you a fair amount, check. You probably want to lead if you aren't getting enough action in general, since not leading probably means you're only leading with a Q. So betting without one can help build an image with whom people will be more willing to gamble.

Edit: I suppose leading has the added benefit of encouraging BB to fold, which is important for you if you are confident he has A2, so it has that going for it too.

Why not 3-bet pre?

Because I chose not to. I do that sometimes.

What about the flop?

Aside from your first comment of you being a nit/scared of monsters, your thoughts are pretty sound. Don't be so scared.

Did you take note that I flopped a nut flush draw?

This seems like an obvious spot to 3-bet preflop. As played, I guess I fold. If the BB had just flatted pre, I would be inclined to lead the flop. But I assume at this level, players are going to be aware of the pot odds and pot size, and I think it's gotten too bloated for stabbing here to have any real likelihood of success.

I would definitely lead here. And you should probably 3 bet pre to at least give BB something to think about. Although in this case if the BB truly has a good starting hand he will be calling or capping the bet anyway.

Leading has a few benefits here. For one its a great steal/semibluff spot and any raise gives you an clear indication of what your opponent has.

By checking you essentially took yourself out of the hand by 2 aggressive players.

Someone will chime in on the odds of a call at this point. My gut says you should fold.

I don't buy leading here. You guys are leading into the raiser with trips+ in a 3-bet pot with a LAG closing the action?

Three betting this hand pre is something I absolutely do a good percentage of the time. /

Although a few have mentioned leading, for the ones who don't, no one peels with a back door nut/nut draw.

@ doctavius: yes, by checking, I essentially did take myself right out of the hand. I was prepared to call one bet, didn't dawn on me that it would go bet/raise. I guess doing the math on this one would help. And knowing that neither player was super straightforward, I think I should've contemplated a peel just a bit more. Obviously, by my comments, I folded.

No. I would not "peel." Instead I would fold.

Once the board is paired I don't generally pay to draw for a flush. Your backdoor low draw is poor.

That's a tougher question.

If neither BB nor CO would think you would bet this flop without a queen or better, then leading is appealing.

Your opponents have a total of eight cards between the two of them.

Therefore think in eights.

That is divide the cards in the deck you cannot see into groups of eight. You're looking at 4 (your hand) + 3 (the board) = 7 cards. There are 45 missing cards, enough to make about 5.6 (actually five and 5/8 or 5.625) eight-card hands. Only two of these 5.6 eight-card hands could hold a queen. Thus the odds are about 3.6 to 2 that neither opponent has a missing queen.

Looking at it that way, before you act on the second betting round, it's unlikely either opponent has a queen.

(But of course after they both act as though they might have a queen those 3.6 to 2 odds against lose oomph).

Anyhow, back to the question, "Should you initially bet this
Q Q 4 flop?"

I think it depends on your credibility, on how likely they both are to believe you hold a missing queen (or a pair of fours) for your lead bet.

I have not read the other responses yet.

Buzz

I ran some equity calculations on the hand, and they are causing me to rethink my initial response.

First, against a the sort of premium range of hands that will open UTG and (especially) 3-bet from the BB, you are a clear equity favorite on this flop, with 35-40% equity depending on how tightly you draw the ranges. I think a Q might actually be less likely to be in your opponents' hands (which will be heavy with As and 2s, and to a lesser extent, 3s, 4s, and Ks) than in a random hand, although I am not certain of the numbers. I think this argues for leading. You won't win on the flop very often, but you will by barreling on high card turns, while low card turns give you a lot of additional equity.

Of course, once you have decided to check, the aggressive action by UTG in particular has to be considered. And my immediate impulse was to folds for 2 small bets. But 2 small bets is not really that much considering the pot size, and you still have quite a bit of equity even in the worst case scenario.

If you give the BB A2** and the UTG AQ** (since he probably won't raise just any hand with a Q in it), you still have almost 25% equity! This appears to me to be enough to call both the flop and the turn, unless you think the BB is going to continue to be mindlessly aggressive for some reason. Perhaps this is the sort of nauseated call you have to be willing to make in limit games when the pot gets really bloated.

Okay, if we accept that cold calling the flop is correct, does anybody consider three betting the flop to knock out BB's A2?

Hmm thinking about it some, if we disregard future action, the threat of getting 4 bet, and the possibility that BB calls anyway then three betting only gets us 9/4 bets 9/32 times for a loss of a little under half a bet on average, so probably not especially considering the things we are disregarding are mostly arguments against three betting.

I would estimate that knocking out another A2 only increases your equity in the pot by about 5%. You make a runner-runner low about 1/6 of the time, and win an extra 25% of these circumstances. Plus maybe another 1% or so to account for winning the high when the board comes offsuit 35 or 22.

I'm afraid my credibility is not what I would like it to be for times such as this.. That said, because my bets are not as credible as I think they should be, I often get paid off way too lightly. So, six on one hand half dozen on the other, I suppose.

Obviously, if I did lead, the BB still would've raised me because he did indeed have a Q (AQ2 to be exact) but I would've called the raise and at least got to see a turn(cause I would never just bet/fold in this spot).

As it turned out, I would've grabbed 3/4's when it ran out baby card, baby flush card. UTG called the river and got scooped and I don't know what he held.

At first I thought I was being results oriented but I really felt like I had enough equity in this hand to justify the peel but I just acted too damn fast for my own good.

This is very interesting to me.

I think you're right.

Even if we know one opponent has a queen and the other has us quartered when we make low, I think it's profitable for Hero to continue.

I ran some simulations and did some calculations and my results show Hero averaging a profit by continuing after this flop. He loses more often than he wins, but he wins enough when he does win to more than make up for the losses.

I assumed both opponents would continue to showdown if low became possible, and I assumed one opponent would continue to showdown if no low became possible. I gave one opponent a queen plus an ace plus two blanks and the other A2**. Interestingly, the opponent with the queen fares even better in the simulation without the ace.

But here's the thing: Hero doesn't see the showdown if the turn and river are both unfavorable. That, coupled with the large amount of dead money in the pot from the first betting round raises make drawing for the flush profitable, even though a full house is already possible, and even though Hero should expect to lose to a full house much of the time when he does make a flush (or a Broadway or a wheel). Hero figures to make a flush roughly 36% and a Broadway or wheel roughly another 3% (after we subtract duplications). The other roughly 61%, Hero folds to a bet after the turn.

My normal rule is to not draw for a flush or straight once the board is paired. I think following that principle works pretty well unless there are pre-flop raises. However, after studying your post, I think we're more or less stuck in the pot for at least one more betting round with the pre-flop raises.

Very interesting to me. Thank you, Rush.

Buzz

"The opponent with the Queen fares even better in the sim without the Ace." Is that because, when the Ace hits and the turn/river is a low card, he fills up but there's a greater chance that he loses half the pot to a low? And(or) is it harder for him to fill due to the fact that his Ace is not that live? Probably both reasons...?

Anyway, I'm glad you found it interesting, and next time I will make a more educated decision. So, thank you.

Why aren't we leading the flop?

As someone said before, BB's hand is mostly AA or A2. There are 2 Qs left in the deck, and you have either 47 or 45 unknown cards. Its pretty unlikely that either of them have a Q in their ranges, let alone in their actual hand.

By leading, you get to squeeze BB, and i don't expect to see it 3bet back to me since I'm holding both the Ac and Kc.

I agree. Leading would be better even against good players. And, I'm 100% sure that the BB will not just call here given that he held a Q, but I don't know that he has that card in his hand and despite that, I've always found that taking control of a hand(without being a spewtard of course and with sound reason) gave me better results. I should've known that the middle player had it in his arsenal to raise this kind of flop in this spot.

Buzz, I don't get in your explanations that hero will fold 61% of the time to a turn bet. It seems to me that if he calls on the flop, he should be calling one turn bet on almost any turn. What cards do you think he should fold?

I can't remember what I was thinking.

But whatever it was must have been wrong.

If we give one opponent Q*** and the other opponent A2**, and if we only continue if the turn is a club or a non-club three or five, then there are 27 "bricks" for Hero on the river. But I can't see any way to get 61% on the turn.

Thus 61% must be in error. My apologies. I'm genuinely sorry.

But at any rate, after this flop Hero is drawing. There's already $480 in the pot and if Hero calls the double bet for $80 on the flop, BB just calls UTG's raise, and there's no raising on the turn, then Hero may only have to pay one additional $80 on the turn... and if then he doesn't end up with a club flush, a Broadway, or a wheel, on the river, then he folds to a river bet. Thus Hero's projected cost to see two more cards, the turn and river, is $160 and the pot size on the river will presumably be in the neighborhood of $1000.

Sorry again for my error. I hope the above is helpful to you.

Buzz

Tough to fold, but those are the hands that usually get you in big trouble.
Should be a fold on the flop.

You are in for just one big bet. You are oop and your call on the flop does not close the action. Even if there is no more raising on the flop it's going to cost you at least one more big bet to see the next card which may complete one of your draws that may or may not be any good.

What are you going to do on the turn if the flop aggressor bets it, you call and the bb puts another raise in? What are you going to do on the river if you make the flush but miss the low and it's suddenly two big bets to call and yet you are still not closing the action and could be facing two more big bets? Do you just fold then?

Given your read your low may only be good for a quarter even if you make it.

Just close your eyes and fold on the flop instead.

It's not wrong to not three-bet this hand preflop btw. Otherwise you have to balance your three-betting range out of the blinds with the non A2, A3 hands which is fine heads up, but pretty bad in a full-ring game.

If you hit your low you also make more money from the worse lows since your hand is not so well-defined. If you're only three-betting a premium hand it's very easy for a skilled opponent to either put the breaks on if the flop is low or to jam every street if the flop is high, since one half of your hand is already face up.

At the same time I'm always jamming/capping for value with this hand preflop with four or more opponents in the hand.

If this were true I would agree that this should be a fold. But you seem to have missed that the BB 3-bet preflop. It changes the odds with which you need to continue substantially.

Some sims.

ProPokerTools Omaha Hi/Lo Simulation

600,000 trials (Randomized)

board: q 4 q

Hand	Pot equity	Scoops	Wins Hi	Ties Hi	Wins Lo	Ties Lo
ac kc 9h 2h	16.32%	59,929	76,602	1,816	0	117,078
qa2	45.53%	198,448	246,605	41,971	22,302	117,579
q	38.15%	170,603	234,741	40,360	17,442	2,440

ProPokerTools Omaha Hi/Lo Simulation

600,000 trials (Randomized)

board: q 4 q

Hand	Pot equity	Scoops	Wins Hi	Ties Hi	Wins Lo	Ties Lo
ac kc 9h 2h	20.37%	79,240	105,750	2,242	0	116,730
AA2	12.24%	34,112	41,553	2,682	16,837	116,980
q	67.39%	350,184	449,959	580	12,073	1,220

ProPokerTools Omaha Hi/Lo Simulation

600,000 trials (Randomized)

board: q 4 q 3

Hand	Pot equity	Scoops	Wins Hi	Ties Hi	Wins Lo	Ties Lo
ac kc 9h 2h	21.25%	48,829	82,966	7,672	0	240,167
Aq2	42.13%	132,933	211,993	46,028	22,747	240,661
q	36.61%	133,305	259,013	38,550	16,452	4,270

We have immediate pot odds to continue, but if our opponents both hold Qs, they should be capping the flop and all non-club turns making our call barely +EV on the flop, and -EV on the turn.

Even if we do hit our club on the turn, our equity is only about 38-41%. OOP 3-way, our turn bets will be barely +EV, and we will have either 0% or 10% equity.

Given that you have already given one opponent A2, the chance of both of your opponents holding a Q is REALLY small. Like less than 1%. You really have no reason to put a Q in the BB's range at all at this point in the hand.