$500 eff. I haz QQ in SB. Image: TAG. Villain is in MP, newish to the table, white male 30s, aggro vibe (but that's subjective of course). Seen him c-bet air in position.

Folds to V, V makes it $25, folds to me in SB, I make it $75, BB folds, V calls.

Flop: K93r Pot ~$155 I check, V checks back.
Turn: 7 I bet $80 for value, V calls.
River: T Pot ~$315 I check. V bets $200

You, why and please also critique my play on all previous streets.

Not firing on this flop looks very weak after you 3 bet...I'm leading out for $90 on flop. Believe this would change the dynamics quite a bit so not commenting from then on.

I'm advocating b/f $150 on river though...as played it's a toss up...kind of screwed yourself on how you played this up until then. 50/50 without any physical reads IMO...your image looks weak so could very well try to be stealing from you and there's a lot of possible hands that beat you out there. Could have nearly anything...I fold.

I like checking this flop if your plan is to call V's river bet.

Might even 3b a little bigger oop but it's kinda whatever. Betting the flop is okay too, though you're not going to get a ton of calls from V unless he has you beat. Don't imagine he's peeling worse than TT-JJ and obv any sets and AK

Preflop: I like to go a little bigger because we are OOP (can be difficult to play big pots when we have to act first on every street), so i want more than 3x the openraise. I dont mind going close to 4x in this kind of spots.

Flop: Its a dry K high board and i certainly like a C-bet here wich will take down the pot for us a good portion of the time. A big portion of villains 3 bet callingrange cant stand a healthy C-bet on this board, only a flopped set or a strong K like KQ or AK are going to comfortably continue with the hand at this point wich makes a C-bet huge +EV. Generally i like to have a high C-bet frequenzy after i 3 bet pre, it makes you much much harder to read. If villain knows you are just as likely to hold JJ or QQ here as top set it makes you much harder to play against. That means i am also C betting here if i hold AK or KK.


As played i am folding the river. After the flop check and relatively weak turn bet your hand is pretty much face up as AQ or JJ-QQ- wich are helping villain to comfortably value bet a king or better. The way this hand went down i am not surprised if villain rivered a set with 10-10.

You have middle pair on the flop....you should be happy with taking down the pot with a c-bet. Should not be wanting to play a big pot OOP against V in this hand.

Actually c/f on river is better than my proposed b/f theory after checking flop and bet turn line. Believe a thinking agro player would be able to pick up on weakness and might raise you off your hand with nothing...but if has a pair could be possible to check it down thinking his hand is best. Fold river still though....

Against a thinking opponent that is capable of floating thinking we'd cbet the majority of our range this flop I'm in favor of a 2 barrel. The 7 on the turn only improves a few hands in villains floating range so b/fing the turn. These spots are cliche "trouble with medium hand OOP". C/F river if we're called again. Villain might check back a weak pair he is a habitual bluff catcher.

Against a nit, checking to him. After he checks back flop. Betting turn, B/F river.

Flop ck is good here unless you think he calls with worse than a K

Bet the flop for value.

Not a fan of 3betting pre and then checking a A or K high board.

It doesn't matter that we have 2nd pair on the flop. This is really a question about how we would play our entire range in this spot. This isn't really a good flop for H's perceived range and not because I believe H is beaten frequently. H has so many JJ+, AQs+, AKo combos that it'll be extremely difficult for us to get any value from V. Maybe, V will call a flop bet with TT-JJ, but that's such a small range of hands for us to extract value when we can occasionally check this flop and allow V (whom OP described as having an aggro vibe) to barrel all of his bluffs, some of his 88-JJ combos, A9, T9. This line is only useful if our plan is to call down on the river. C/f seems kinda bad imo. And b/f doesn't seem much better.

And as for the bolded portion... Why are you happy to turn QQ into a bluff? I'm not happy about just taking it down here. I'm still near the top of my range, so why wouldn't I want to maximize my value?

Exactly, i agree on the bolded part.

But we disagree on the conclusion. We are not on the top of our range at the flop anymore, come on. Preflop yes, but on a K high dry flop no. Any K is beating us now like KJ or KQ, as well as a flopped set. If we have AK,AA or KK we are on the top of our range on the flop, but not with QQ anymore. I am C-betting this flop close to 100 percent of the time if i hold AA or KK/AK, so i also want to bet it with hands like AQ or JJ-QQ. In my opinion we can get very transparent with our continuerange postflop if we get into the habit of check with our weak hands after 3 bet and keep betting with only our strong hands: if our villains are just a little bit observant we will loose tons of value when we flop huge and our villains all too easy can put us on a big hand.

I understand that you want to keep villains bluffs in the hand and i really like that argument, but we are OOP and can be facing with some very difficult decisions on the turn/river if we check and villain barrell heavy into us and we have absolutely no clue were we are in the hand= we are navigating blind in thick fog and that is something i really hate to do, especially in a bloated 3 bet pot.

I get what you're saying and, fwiw, I forgot to add in my last post that we should sometimes (not very often) check some of our strongest hands here for balance.

And I don't think we are actually blind in the fog here. My point originally was that checking the flop is okay IF and only IF our plan is to c/c the river. I stand by that because my first response was directly addressing OP's hand as played. Do I think checking the flop is always good? No, but I can rally behind it if our intention is to get V to bet with a weaker range.

If you think he is aggro why not just call pre? If he isn't then u can't 3bet so small, especially if you're out of position, gotta bomb it and really make him pay

Has anyone tried to range this villain yet to see what our options are? What's his 3-bet calling range here? TT-QQ/AK/AQs? Maybe some discounted slowplayed AA/KK, and some discounted weaker hands like KQ/KJs, but a decent player should be folding those 100%, although some people may feel like they are getting 3-bet light they may take a stand with some below average hands.

On the flop every one of his hands turns into a bluffcatcher except AA/KK/AK. Unfortunately AK has to be a huge part of his range here. If we check we are left guessing. If we check, he can decide to either value bet his range that beats us, maybe make some bad value bets with TT-JJ, or turn those hands and his other misses like AQ into a bluff leaving us guessing. He checks back the flop which doesn't narrow his range at all. Then OTT we make a gutless bet which he calls. This call likely means he's got something with showdown value, so maybe take AQ out, although he could potentially be "floating" the turn. He may even think this hand is good since you have shown so much weakness. OTR he makes a polarizing bet. I think his range is now narrowed to AA/KK/AK, and is a clear fold, even though there is a small chance he's bluffing, it would be hard to make it this far with any hand he is now bluffing with.

All that said, I think I still prefer c-betting the flop. It's going to be tough for him to float a 3-bet pot here. He should know that a turn shove is coming a lot, so calling the flop light is going to be a mistake. I know c-betting and giving up is super exploitable, but 3-bet pots are different. Ranges are substantially narrower. C-bet the flop, be happy if he folds, and if he calls, make it the last money you put into the pot. I don't think this line is exploitable or a mistake. They made the mistake by calling your 3-bet with a weak hand. When they call the flop they are beating QQ frequently enough that you should be done with the hand.

I know this line gets interpreted as "turning QQ into a bluff, only worse hands fold, better hands call" but compare that to the alternative. Check the hand down? The result is likely the same as if you c-bet and get a fold, unless he binks the turn or river and bets, leaving you guessing. Check/fold? You will occasionally fold the winner, or let him draw out. Check/call? Welcome to valuetown.

Yeah, if your also advocating to check some percentage of the time here with our monsters like AA or top set- it make more sense to me.

Dont get me wrong: i dont hate your line or reasoning here- infact i pretty regurarly use the line you mention in similar spots, but mostly if i have position and i can control the pot size/action on any street that i want. Being OOP makes that line a lot less optimal, cause what do we do if we face huge bets close to pot size on several streets from villain after we check the flop? Just call down to the river and pray we are good? Call a big turn bet and fold if villain fires again on the river? Villain doesent need to be very skilled to put us on a pretty weak range when we check on a K high board after 3 betting preflop out of the blinds- and can easily put us under more pressure than we can handle.

I mean, that is what i am talking about by navigating in thick fog-we have absolutely no clue if villain is raping us with a set or a good king, or if he is bluffing.

To each his own but I strongly believe you created the initiative by 3 betting pre...now continue the aggression. Betting out with QQ on flop is not a pure bluff. I really don't know how much value you want to be getting out of 2nd pair though at this point against agro villain with position on you. If you feel comfortable calling down 3 streets with this hand as a bluff catcher...kudos to you. Think it's -EV IMO though and as Gilmour put it, "you'll be navigating through a thick fog."

I'm happy taking down a small pot here with only 1 pair (without much of a chance of improving) rather than calling all the way down to river against agro villain...understand mixing up your play but checking is FPS (or we'll say at least a line that should be taken a lower percentage of the time).

Holy crap batman....

This is Not at 3 street board for us its ok to ck flop, bet turn small and rvr small for value.. we are not giving up or losing the initiative etc... Its prob one of the only ways you get value from weaker here and dont blindly value own yourself..

If you have pocket KK on an A hi flop are you just leading out there as well?for the same reasons?

To be honest, I'm still confused. But here are my thoughts.

Those who range his 3-bet-call as AQ+, TT+ are right.

KK on A-high flop is WAWB, right? Then why QQ on K-high wouldn't be? Because it's a 3-bet pot? Still seems to be WAWB imho. If we're WAWB then we should check flop.

Nextly, I bet turn for value because I don't see him checking back AA and any Kx there. I just don't. The check back spoke volumes to me. Few people are sophisticated/tricky enough to check back with the goods there.

Nextly, his call of the turn bet gave me a pause. To be honest I don't know what the hell he called with. The only hand I could think of that'd take that line would be KJ but that's unlikely to be in his 3-bet calling range. Maybe TT-QQ. After his call, I don't want to grow the pot anymore. So I check river.

But he bets into my check. His line now is check-back-flop-call-turn-bet-river. It's a weird line. I really don't see him having AA or Kx with that line. In the unlikely event he had AA/Kx and was trapping OTF, I see those hands making a value raise OTT and that didn't happen. The check back on the flop is brutal. That's what made me call. I called and he showed AQ for a bluff.

Olaff,

I think your line here is pretty good. What I find strange is V taking such an awful line with a hand that could possibly win a showdown. He shouldn't expect you to fold TT-QQ on the river very often, nor should he expect you to call with AJ or worse. He has the nut no-pair in a spot where H has feigned weakness. His river decision was terrible imo.

Your plan as played up to the river almost has to be c/c because c/f is super exploitable by V and b/f seems bad since you rarely get called by worse and he isn't folding a K.

nh OP

nicely played OP, now snap call river and watch as he instamucks

Fwiw, his line would be pretty excellent with Kx because so much of your range is QQ, JJ when you check flop and it looks fos.

Betting flop or checking is fine, we're getting a max of 2 streets of value against sane villains and without a ridiculous dynamic.

You played it perfectly, now snap fold on the river.

Put villain on a range.

When he checks back the K93r flop, I don't think he has air on the flop very often. Then he calls the turn bet on a 7, and that just makes it clearer that he doesn't have air.

So on the turn, he probably has a draw or a pair, something like QJ, QT, JT, T9, 98, etc.

Many of his airy draws contain a T. I doubt he blasts the river as a bluff when he binks a T. I'm not giving him credit for understanding that a T doesn't have show down value here.

I think he will not have many bluffs in his range at all and that he's often value betting here. And his value betting range is beating you soundly with 2-pair+ (i.e. T9, QJ, TT), etc.

Not in his 3-bet-call range.

^Only unlikely TT in his 3-bet-call range.