First Hand:

V1 is older lady, very weak calling station. Any touch, any draw, for any amount. Exceptionally spewy. Impossible to overstate. Truly atrocious player.

V2 is middle-aged guy who seems otherwise pretty solid, but looks to hit in big pots without correct prices. He recently flatted a big-ish 3 bet from V3 (60-70?) with 89 and like $250 behind. Flopped trips and took down a decent pot on a 599T board (ended on turn). V3 didn't show down, but claimed he had overcards, which is plausible and I believe him.

V1 has ~$275, V2 has ~$350, V3 has ~$900, I have ~$600

EP raises to $10, V2 calls from MP, V3 calls from the button, I 3-bet to $50 (sizing?) from the SB with AK, V1 cold-calls from the BB, EP folds, and V2 and V3 call.

(Pot $210) Flop comes K42. I c-bet for $140 (sizing?), V1 snap shoves for her last $225, V2 does a deep sigh, mutters about needing to go home, and shoves for $297. V3 hates to fold, but does. V2's speech is really bad for me, I think, and its the only thing that gave me pause, but getting ($872 pot) 6-1 I have to call, right?

Hand 2 is about 90 minutes later, V4 has ~ $400, V5 has ~$450, ~V3 has $900, I cover.

Straddled by V3 to $4, I pick up QQ UTG. Open to $20, get called by a nit UTG+1 (V4), and another unknown (V5). V3 flings out 4 greens to make it $104.

V3 is younger guy, very aggressive player. We have a little bit of history, I've picked him off on the river with bluffcatchers a few times now (not today), so he seems to have slowed down a little against me specifically, but runs over the rest of the table usually with big 2nd and 3rd barrels against scared money nits. Definitely a winner in the game.

V4 is super nitty, and after I tank for like 15 seconds both he and V5 look done with the hand.

I'm not sure what to do here. Folding seems out of the question, I'm pretty sure I'm ahead of his range here but if I call, I'll be guessing on any board with overcards. So I think a 4-bet seems right, but not sure of the amount, or a plan for rest of hand...

Hand one is fine if you called. Sizing looks OK (it helps if you put the pot total in the hand as it goes along so we don't have to do the math -- no matter how easy it is).

Hand two I re-raise him to ~$300 (I like on the smaller side. I want him to call with worse and not get the right odds). I don't want to see an A or K on the flop and I don't want the other players coming along for the ride. Also, we are oop. Winning this pot now looks pretty good to me! If he 5bets, it's really ugly and you probably have to fold. If this particular player picked up AA or KK on his straddle when you have QQ, more power to him. If he calls, play poker.

This pretty much makes sense if the straddle came from late position/button. OP said we are UTG, but doesn't locate where the straddle is.

Sorry, my bad. Straddle is UTG, but we act first. We are immediately on his left.

Call

Call

Don't think either is close

Looks like you won the first hand since you cover 900 in the second.

I think Hand 1 is a call, though I think it's closer than other posters are giving credit for.

These are cool, good post,both tough and interesting.

My raise sizing pre w AK would probably be $70 or a flat in the small blind.

My main concern is defending our stack against the Vil who covers. The old lady seems likely to call the $50 which often brings on the waterfall. Then we get the exact scenario we faced where we kinda have to bet big and then want to fold. If we can get the $70 in there (or take down the 40 pre which is also fine) we set ourselves up w 1 and 2 SPR roughly against the short stacks and big stack respectively. Idk about getting the money in vs the first two villains in this scenario. The big stacks should have to have us crushed to jam over the top ever, so we can bet fold against him on a lot of flops banking on the fact that he probably never raises unless we're behind.

As played the call seems trivial now, but I can't see how we're ahead of the second Vil, which has sucks. Once again though we stacked off w TPTK for roughly a 1 SPR because of the calls. That's never really that bad, and there's a flush draw out so we just have to hope that things go well.

Hand 2 I flat and evaluate. I don't like that he can 5 bet us off the hand if we 4 bet. 3 cards can change a lot if we're behind, and we have position w a 3 SPR. That puts a ton of pressure on him to slow down on lots of boards even if he has KK+. There can also be bluff opportunities as we theoretically call this raise lighter than QQ. Let's float a street or 2 and make him make some more difficult decision vs our range.

Hand 1: you have to pay attention to stack sizes. Pretty obvious you lost track because all have sweet odds and you are basically committed after that large bet.

Hand 2: I mean if you are not confident enough postflop against V then 4b is probably the cheapest option.

These both seem like pretty easy calls, frankly.

Hand 1: I'd prefer a larger 3b given that we're OOP, but once we get three calls and see that flop, we should be stacking off 100% of the time against V1 and V2. We're doing fine against V1's range even after she ships, and V2 has plenty of TPGK and heart draws in his range. Folding here getting ~6:1 would be ludicrous.

Hand 2: What do we think Villain's 3b range looks like here? My guess is that it's polarized, and if so, 4betting QQ is a waste of QQ. Against a Villain bad enough to call a 4b OOP here pretty often, 4b/f would be fine, and against a total maniac, 4b/c would be fine. This guy seems like neither. However, we're likely ahead of his range and in position, and he's capable of barreling with air...

If we just call the 3bet, are we committed on a flop with no A or K? Are we folding to a bet on a flop with an A or K?

Not necessarily in either case. My plan would be to float or slow down on dry boards and be more inclined to hammer wet boards especially when checked to.

If he goes bet/all in on something like a 44 7 T or an A 77 8 board then I'm getting out on the turn. But we're still making him leverage his whole stack against only about half of ours. We're not losing that much more in that case then if we had 4! Pre and we got to see 80 of the cards and really force him to show up w what he's repping after we called pre and otf.

I think if we're playing higher this is on the leaky side but at these stakes all but the most aggressive players are going to chicken out often if they don't have the goods facing our resistence.

To clarify further, I'd be more excited about flops w two flushes or that contained two or more cards 8-J unpaired and be looking to make some moves later on these. This is all obviously outside of just doing it the old fashion way hitting a Q somewhere along the line.

Results:

Hand 1 I called, V1 had J6, V2 had K6. With the speech it just seemed so strong that I considered folding. Then added up the pot, said f*** it, there's like exactly 6 combinations that can plausibly be beating me, if he's got one then whatever, and called. Shocked at what he turned over.

Hand 2 I made it $300 and he tank-folded. Showed AQs.

Thanks everyone for the feedback. I have to agree with BigSlick that stacks were awkward because of my sizing in the first hand. If I had it back I'd have gone to 70 pre and then shoved flop.