I'm seeing this play more and more. Maybe it's good. It's not how I play it. The hero in this hand is a solid Winning TAG. Do you make this play? What is the logic behind it? I presume the hero thinks his hand might still be good but doesn't want to pay full price to see a showdown. I saw this three times in similar situations yesterday all decent players. Maybe I didn't get the memo.

Two loose Passives limp ep, hero raises QQ on button, TAG calls in BB the two ep players call.

AhJh3c....Hero bets, BB CR, folded to MP who calls, hero 3 bets, BB and MP call. Turn is 7s. All check to button who checks.

How would you play this if you were the button from the flop onward?

I'm guessing the people who do this aren't as good as you think.

looks pretty bad to me. i would guess this player makes a lot of free card plays ip with draws and is "balancing" with made hands. pretty much just balancing one bad play with another.

... about Vegas and the ****ing Mirage, I'm guessing.

These guys have been solid winners for many years. This is why I posted this because I have seen some uncharacteristic plays by them lately.

You don't have to be a very good player to beat a particular game for years; there just have to be enough players who are worse than you to make it worth your while.

How do you know they win over the years? They keep honest financial records and share them with you?

Well, I think twoplustwo also has a propensity for labelling things as "bad" without necessarily going into detail of:
1. How bad is it
2. Why it's bad

My thoughts:
How bad is it?
I think it runs anywhere from exploitatively perfect to perfectly exploitable (if that makes sense...)

Against opponents who only raise this flop with draws, slowplay monsters and c/c down with Ax no kicker, 3betting the flop is +EV. But against these players, we should also bet the turn. However, with the presence of a 3rd player in the hand, maybe we check the turn when we realize neither opponent is folding.

Also, by 3betting the flop and checking the turn, opponents may opt to check more rivers hoping to induce (since they realize we're folding all missed draws on the river) on blanks, while ALSO checking rivers on flush-completing cards for fear of us completing draws.

As others have mentioned, we do balance our drawing range with some made hands; otherwise, when b/3b and check innocuous turns, we have a very weak calling range on blank rivers.

Why is it bad?
An opponent that watches you and realizes that your 3bet is becoming polarized to draws and weakly made hands is going to adjust by capping and barrelling off with all of their continuing range. Now you just put in multiple bets with the weaker parts of your range.

(Obviously, this is simplified, just giving my 2c on how I understand the problem).

Good post Chocolatemoo!

If your a winning player it's obvious who the other winning players are. I will say it's not so obvious who the big winning players are on this forum, especially since most of the expert players don't post here anymore. I remember when there used to be at least 30 really good posters. Now there are maybe 5 posters that seem to know there stuff.

I think the answer to the OP is equally obvious.

i've done something like this before against the right set of opponents, but i raised the turn instead of 3 bet the flop.

i posted the hand and got universally bashed on this forum, despite the fact that I got a better hand to fold and a worse hand to call on the turn.

what is the river and the action to me .. since IM on the button and checked the turn.

Seems inconsistent to me.

+1

no one's answered yet. definitely you saw such a sitation hundreds of times....but what's the plan after cr and call? or we shouldnt conbet?

I agree with op that hero thinks he might still be good. It's the only way that justifies his actions. I also would not play it this way.

But I would consider playing it that way if I flopped the strong middle-pair type hand with 5 outs to improve instead of 2.

I would rather check flop, or bet/fold flop, than take this line. I don't think your game would be any worse if you *never* tried to 3bet the flop with an underpair for a cheap showdown. I particularly would not do it when the flop is 3 ways.