I think history/dynamic is extremely relevant to the main hand, so bear with me as I describe the situation in some detail.

Hero, ~$1600, CO: In general, our image is young, active, thinking player, capable of lots of stuff, but generally TAG-ish at 100bb stacks... as we get deeper, we get more creative, and this table has already seen me open preflop with J8hh (made a standard-ish hero-call and was right) and KTo (checked K-high at showdown and was right) while iso-ing fish.

Hero moved to this table from a broken game about 30 minutes ago, with a $560 stack at the time. Our 3rd hand here, I gii with AK on AT8ss after opening $20 pre (2 calls), cbetting $40 (1 call in between), and getting c/r to $240. At the time I thought it was a pretty close spot, but I've seen that specific Villain spazz before with TPGK sometimes (not to mention obvious potential semibluffing hands here), so I decided to go with it; predictably got shown the A8dd, couldn't catch up, and reloaded for $1000.

Maybe 20 min later, in the immediately prior hand to the main hand, we're on the button and flat a sLAG reg open with A8s, flat his flop cbet on AA4cc, bet 2/3 pot on the 8s turn, and bet $400 into $440 on the river Kh, with the reg calling after tanking ~30s (probably could have tried overbet jamming for $~750, but figured he might hero me with QQ/JJ on the river to my actual sizing).

In the very next hand...

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V1, ~$1000, MP: same exact Villain from previous AA48K hand, just reloaded.

V2, ~$1000, BTN: talkative splashy fish, Turkish guy who owns some small businesses (gathered from conversation), seems to like to gamble. Has a habit of showing me his cards when I fold and he's in a hand, and I've seen him c/c large bets from OOP with bare flush draws, and take bet/bet/bet lines w/ reasonably large sizing w/ premium hands.

V1 opens to $15 from MP (his standard for opening pots with no limpers), I flat from CO w/ T8cc while still stacking chips from last hand (meaning I look pretty distracted), and V2 on the button 3bets to $65. Another fish in the SB calls, V1 calls, and I call.

Flop: QTTr, pot: $260.

SB checks, V1 checks, I check, and V2 hollywoods for maybe 15s, before throwing in a single $25 green chip. SB cautiously calls, as does V1, and I c/r to $200. I figure it looks like a cheap bluff attempt ($200 to win $335? what a bargain), and I plan on a bet-bet line vs V2.

V2 tanks for quite a while (20-30s), counts out the call, then goes back to his stack and slides out 3 stacks of reds. Tanks for a bit more, then raises me $300 more, with ~$400 behind. Folds back to me.

And hence the question in the thread title... does he have a range here, or is it only ever QQ? What was with the single $25 chip bet?

FWIW, this Villain is definitely a recreational amateur and definitely NOT doing anything overly sophisticated here. He almost certainly recognizes that I rep Tx here, but it's impossible to say whether he believes me or not. If he doesn't believe me, I have no idea which option makes the most sense to him (just flatting KK/AA vs reraising), or whether he understands how bad reraising QQ here is.

I don't think balance or top-of-our-range is at all a consideration here. No one (and esp. not this guy) is trying to exploit us here, and no one has to know we're folding Tx to a reraise on this flop (if we are...), etc. Either he has a range here (which we crush, so we gii), or he doesn't and we should fold. I tried to give all the relevant information that I had at the time, so cheers.

hand 1 is probably more interesting than hand 2.

Hand 2 is a fold pre to the 3 bet.

Also don't understand why you are ranging a fish like that OTF. It sounds like V should also have plenty of other Tx that are crushing you. It sounds like he'll see the flop with a wide range.

Question is would he ever do this with Qx or a draw. If not, then fold.

I didn't mention what I thought of his 3bet tendencies, but for a generally passive preflop/gamble-y postflop fish (come on, you know the type...), I think 3betting is extraordinarily rare, and I think he only does it with TT+/AQ+ish. Remember he's been showing me his hands when I fold, and judging from that (not going super detail), I'm pretty confident he's not 3betting wide at all. So I think it's verrrryyyyy unlikely he has any Tx after the 3bet preflop.

I never said the other hands were interesting or not, I just presented them as evidence of what my perceived image might be like. Am I just playing my rush with my flop raise? Do I seem tilty? I don't know what these people think of me, but that's the evidence.

Also never folding preflop, come on...

you're getting 20:1 implied odds with a suited one gapper that doesn't really play super well in a 4 way pot. It's a fold pre, bud. Especially if you really range him to TT+/AQ/AK

Getting in 1/13th of your starting stack pre with T8 suited is a bad play.

I think you underestimate the value of getting into pots with deep-stacked fish (or having position on a tilty reg who you just won a big pot off of). I mean if 20:1 isn't good enough, what is? 30:1? 40:1?

I agree in principle that flatting 3bets with suited one-gappers in multiway pots is not a generally advisable thing to do. I just don't think it's some huge flaw to call here, closing the preflop action with 2 deepstacked fish in the hand and relative position on 3 out 4 players.

This kind of generalization is meaningless. "3betting with KJo preflop is a bad play." See, I can do it too. Except it's worthless advice that doesn't account for any situational variance (e.g. your opponents fold-to-3bet stats, your position, etc.).

I don't like calling the 3bet pre here, but after multiple calls and being last to act, I probably see this flop also.

After that, I like the flop play but I'm folding to the reraise. The hollywood "Oh my, what should I do here?" act followed by a bet means he hit the flop, the trivial small bet means he hit it well and doesn't want anybody to fold. When he reraises your raise, his range is almost entirely QQ, with some chance of AA/KK/ATs. With a better read on villain that says he flats QQ here to try and keep hero in, I might shove over top but otherwise I'm bailing to what villain thinks is the nuts.

Following a generalization of "never call with suited semiconnectors for 7% of your preflop stack" would improve the winrate of 99% of players.

The problem is you just aren't deep enough to call the 3 bet. I didn't hate on the original call for a reason, I hated on calling the 3 bet because you miss too often for this to be +EV

This is a spot where your position, knowledge of their hand range, etc. is being given up by how shallow the stacks are. I find it extremely difficult to believe you are ever turning a profit postflop with T8 suited if you are seeing flops with an SPR of about 3.5.

Also almost no one thinks you are bluffing when you raise that flop given the lineup, stacks, and the fact that it pounds your call/call pre range. It's a semi bluff at worst

I feel like we're getting off-track here, and I think you're being pretty reasonable overall, but I guess I have a methodological quibble over using the SPR of ~3.5 here (and the 1/13-th of your stack stuff), in a 4-way pot. Surely a large percentage of the time when we do flop well, we can expect to get some extra dead money into the pot (not everytime obv, but significant enough that I think just quoting the 3.5 number or 7% of stack is disingenuous).

If it's any consolation, you have convinced me to reconsider my flatting range vs non-fish in similar spots.

Vs non-tilty, thinking robot players such as yourself, this is true.

haha.

I think the raise is good vs a V who can't fold that easily, the real question is, is he ever bluffing here?

QQ probably flats the flop c/r hoping the other players come along since there is only one bad turn card. I'm not folding here and probably getting it in on the flop.

All we really have to go by is your read, and if V is not doing anything sophisticated here, V can beat 8T.

Im going to agree w this. The raise on yr part looks really full of ****, and I just can't see v2 as described c betting 1/10, then 3 betting the rest while absolutely butted. Im calling and then doing the obvious on turn/river. (Bluffing/valuebet range on his part would be jj+ and that's a ****tload of combos. And yes I mean the part of his range that's not the nuts doesn't know whether its for value or bluffing).

See, to me, I gave this the greatest weight in my analysis at the table (compared to my other considerations like, is he ranging me, is he turning hands into bluffs, is he just spazzing, etc.). Why the fack would anyone reraise QQ here... either let me bluff it off on the turn, or let me value-town myself with Tx. Even fishy amateurs should be able to realize this much, right?

Balanced against this is the notion that when pots get huge, and fish keep raising into someone who's shown (obvious) strength, they generally have "it", whatever "it" may be. We don't have any direct history, he probably has no special reason to believe that I'm bluffing him specifically, nor does he have any special reason to think I'd fold Tx here. I mean, if it weren't for his preflop 3bet that is convincing me to eliminate all the other Tx hands from this guy's range, I don't think I'd hesitate much about folding on the flop to a reraise. But I literally think he can only have QQ-AA here.

Results:

It is read dependent, and as I wrote, based on your read, this is a fold Ranging is almost unnecessary -- I just could not put this guy on a hand (based on your read and his betting) that didn't beat 8T. I hate putting a player on one hand, and I thought some fish might show up with AT here, but I thought for sure you were beat just by your description of him, of you, and of the table.

Of course, I still probably would have lost my monies.

Can't he have AT T9 QT JT? I don't really think you're ever good here

He can, but he three-bet pre, so it's not as likely -- the main reason it's tough to fold here.