Hero UTG ($450): young guy, been chipping up on a mostly weak table for the past 2-3 hrs

Villain MP ($800): built his stack doing nothing out of the ordinary. Values 1-pair hands > optimal but not by much. Typical 40s serious-rec player, doesn't play a ton of hands.

BTN ($200) - weak/tight

Hero is dealt [X Y] and raises to $15. MP calls. BTN calls.

Flop = 2s 3s 9x ($43 pot)

Hero bets $25. Villain raises to $75. BTN folds.

How does hero play -

1) QQ
2) 22, 33, 99
3) AsQs
4) As9s

Is this ever a shove?

1) Call/call/fold river
2) $200/shove blank turns
3) Call/fold turn unimproved
4) Call/fold turn unimproved

1) Why call/call/fold river? I feel like if there is going to be a fold, it should be on the turn. Why would we call turn to fold river?


2) Agreed but I go a bit smaller like 165
3) Dependent on my image and other table dynamics, but 3! flop to 180 jam turn also works here. Villain needs to have a well oiled fold button and I need to have a solid image. (Not a fan of shoving. For some reason, to rec players larger bets look bluffier)
4) Dependent on villains range from session history. Does he have 1010,JJ,QQ? Getting it in here is only wrong vs. sets.

.

To specifically answer your question though, no, it's probably never a shove right here. You're just too deep and shoving will probably get most hands to fold. Obviously everyone has that story where they bet 15x pot and got called by TPNK (b/c, LDO, TPTK) but it's usually not the correct line to be taking here.

too deep to shove flop raise like 174 shove turn is better then just shoving flop

1) QQ

Call. Fold if turn is J/K/A and he is still barreling. Evaluate otherwise.


2) 22, 33, 99.

3 bet smallish ($130) for value and milk it.


3) AsQs
4) As9s

Call both. If he barrels the turn calcuate your drawing odds.

1) Honestly it's pretty close between fold flop, call/fold, and call/call/fold. I think his range on the flop looks like sets, discounted JJ, strong FDs, and a small % of air. On turn blanks sets and discounted JJ fire again, strong FDs fire again sometimes and air shuts down. On river sets bets again, discounted JJ checks back most of the time, and strong FDs usually give up.

3) Since we have NFD that takes out most semibluffs out of his range so his flop raising range is more skewed towards sets and discounted JJ with small % of air. If he has a worse FD or air sometimes it'll get checked down and A high is good. There are less combos of JJ than sets and no one ever folds 2p+ here so 3betting is somewhat spew, especially since we're forced to call off when shoved on.

4) Pretty much same as 3. The fact that we have top pair takes an extra combo of sets out but his range is still skewed heavily towards those and if he does have a worse FD/air he's checking back turn with those a good % of the time. We are getting odds against discounted JJ but most of his range are sets and if he bets a decent amount we aren't getting odds against those so it's probably a fold.

Would agree on c/f those turns and spades obv. Flop might be a fold if we're folding so often on the turn but it's certainly debatable.

In order to correctly answer the question, we must first establish a range for our villain.

If he's a typical serious rec player, then it should be something like: mostly 9x & TT-JJ, sometimes 22, 33, 99, AsXs, rarely if ever QQ-AA.

So, how do we do against that range and what is our optimal line with each?

#1. QQ: Although we are doing pretty decent against that range, we obviously don't want to escalate matters as we will likely fold out the bottom and hang ourselves against the top.

2. 22/33/99: Although we have him crushed, shoving is not nearly optimal here, as we are folding out the majority of his range and thus costing ourselves lots of potential value.

3. AsQs: We're doing OK. We have some drawing equity and potentially a lot of fold equity. Jamming is fine here, as we fold out 9x & TT-JJ like always, and even if called have a ton of equity. Even if we run into 22/33/99 we still have some equity.

4. Basically the same as #3.

I think it basically boils down to your read on villain and how he will play each part of his range. If you think he is capable of raising 9x & TT-JJ then jamming AsQs & As9s is fine. If not, then we should never jam as we have no fold equity. Jamming with QQ/22/33/99 would be criminally bad.

So, 22 =/= QQ? Interesting.

Na because there are more QQ in his range, although discounted, and less sets at that point.

Daniel is right.

If you think 22=QQ, do you think QQ=1010? Same concept.