Just a general statement: I think I'm having trouble with QQ on king high boards heads up...for some reason I find myself in this spot SO often and I think I'm getting outplayed too often. My currently strategy is to check with this hand on the flop.

Reads: Mid 30s or so white guy who is pretty TAG...he's been tight pre flop but looser post flop. Really dont have much...just about 1 hour of observation. My image is fine.

He open limps UTG. Folds to me in the CO and I make it 25 with QQ. He calls. 55 in the pot with about 500 effective.

Flop: K107. Check/check.

Turn: K1074. He bets 45 and I flat.

River: K1074J. He bets 95, leaving about 350 behind. Hero? Note that this might be bluff shove candidate since I block AQ and Q9 so well.

I'm cbetting this flop heads up. Fold turn. As played, def fold river.

Grunch

As played, I think you have to call the river bet. He may have flopped second pair or he may have picked up FD on the turn and be bluffing river. He also may have qj, flopped straight draw, and rivered pair. Getting 2.5 to 1, you're ahead just enough to justify calling, I think.
But I think the big problem here is that you have to cbet the flop w QQ here. you're usually ahead and your check emboldens your opponent to contest this pot on the turn. I often repeat my preflop bet in these situations and just bet 25 which should pick up this pot otf most of the time.

Why not cbet here? Especially considering you're heads up. Keep it standard just like you would Cbet AA, KK or AK for value. More than likely you have the best hand, might as well get some money in on it.

If he calls you can re-evaluate the River, but as Dutch said, not cbetting the flop puts you in that weird spot where villain gets bold and you level yourself because you may have underrepped your hand a bit.

The best way to get information from villain is to bet.

It's hard playing your hand when you play it faceup.
If you have a tag image your range is QQ/JJ/JT/QT/AT/T9 so of course he puts pressure on you. His range could still be very strong so raising is not that great imo, esp since you rep only JJ/some JT when you raise...

Dunno, if he's very weak I guess you get him to fold some Kxs. I don't think its very great unless you pick up some kind of physical/bet sizing tell.

I'd rather bet flop than check since checking back pretty much eliminates air in your range to a TAG. Bluff raise river is ok if you think he can fold strong hands (JT, KT, KJ) but I probably wouldn't do it since you don't rep AQ all that well. This board also makes it hard for him to have complete air so he would have to be good enough to recognize 3rd pair/4th pair/ect. is probably not good here and be able to turn hands with some SDV into a bluff (unlikely).

Sorry but folding the turn to a single bet in a HU pot is just giving your money away. Might as well just set mine.

I wouldn't mind the check back on like K32 type boards, but KT7 is gonna hit a lot of a limp/call range. Sure he will show up with like KJ+ here but he's also likely calling a bet with any two broadway cards as they all flopped a pair or a draw.

River is probably a fold. Most of the hands he was bluffing with OTT either got there or just made 2nd pair and I would think villains are more likely to ch/c with worse hands (with showdown value) rather than bet.

edit - I don't really like bluff raising here. Most of villains value range here is 2 pair+ (AK/KQ the lone exceptions) and at LLSNL it's really hard to ever expect most villains to fold 2 pair on most boards.

I'll post the very interesting results soon.

Regarding the flop c-bet, I think SirRawrs made a great point that the K10 7 flop would be better to c-bet than something like king rag rag. I think checking back QQ is okay too though.

Another question to ask is how would we play AQ on this flop and turn? I honestly believe I'd check back a lot of the time but sometimes bet.

On the turn, I'm basically always calling with AQ after checking back flop since we have showdown value and the draw.

So if we're getting to the river with AQ taking this line, we can and should bluff as well.

With QQ, on the one hand, it's got showdown value and you'd prefer a hand with less showdown value to bluff. On the other hand, you prefer hands that block AQ or Q9 to bluff, and QQ is literally the PERFECT blocking hand. He's half as likely to have AQ or Q9, which may make up the bulk of his river shove calling range.

If he's got a set of 7s or 10s, or worse, can he really call a river shove? I know many or most 2+2ers, if they post the same hand from villains POV with a set, will fold to a river shove.

Like everyone else said, have to cbet. check back turn because you should be checking back medium strength Ks also.


Ummm, I completely disagree. Your calling a 9/11 pot sized bet with a gutterball and 1 over? Sure, you have the nut no pair hand, but he's gonna have way more K, T and 7s in his range. I don't buy that being a legit play a descent player would do. More so, I don't see someone in game seeing a raise pre/check cbet option/flat big bet/shove river as a line that is associated with many hands. Honestly, that's a fishy line and I call that with a set of 10s or 7s

not all Kxx flops are created equal, and you shouldn't have a static strategy of checking QQ on every Kxx flop

consider that on this particular flop, basically every combination of two cards greater than or equal to 6 that are even remotely connected (most of the ones that people generally vpip are) has some equity in the form of gutshot/oesd/p+bdsd. it is pretty valuable to us to shut out all of that equity or charge him for it, so absent specific reads that suggest otherwise, i would make betting my default in this spot

as played, fold river.

Am never in a thousand years folding a K OTR here to an aggressive villain, you never rep AQ or Q9 because any aggressive villain cbets those, a flop check IP by a tag is always a middle pair or a massive monster that can't be outdrawn. In this case your only value hands are JJ and 50% of the combos of JT, because you really overplay JT if yiu spazz shove OTR with it here.

If you bluffed and he folded it's simply because he was unwilling to play a big pot with his hand, not because it's a great bluff BUT that does not make it bad, putting people into rough decision with ATC is a great skill and if you picked up on something on the hand that makes you think he is bet/folding, it's a nice play.