QQ Flopped Top Set

1/3 No limit Hold em

Hero ($1100) Mid late 30’s NHL Hooded Sweatshirt. White male, looks younger. Playing TAG. He might seem a little LAG since the deck has been hitting him in the face and plays more hands when table drops from 9 to 6 players though out the night.

Villain 1 ($550) Mid Forties looking Black male. Originally from the area, Moved to Atlanta. Back in town for the NFL game the next day. He and his buddy, also at the table, came from the high roller Black Jack table that they crushed for profit. Both in the game for $600 - $900 but don’t care because they “are playing with house money”. Plays in a home game in Atlanta. Both of he and his friend are playing too many pots. Mostly calling and playing very passive trying to “get” Hero and Villain 2. Villain 1 and his friend are both more interested in beating Hero and Villain 2 for a huge pot than worrying about “house money” lost. Villain 1 very rarely raises. Only re raised once in four hours.

Example of this - I had raised a hand in late position with a trouble hand, Villain 1 limp re raised, I folded, said “I guess you got Aces” Villain 1 showed KK.

Villain 2 ($1300) Married white male, Playing TAG. Around 30 years old. Has stated to me “you are the only player at the table I do not want to be in a hand with at this table”. I feel that he has the same plan as me. I am staying for the two black jack players’ money and any other money along the way but I don’t want to risk what I am up in a huge hand without the nuts against the other big stack (villain 2) since the other money is so easy. We never discussed this but I have a strong feeling he is has the same plan.


Let’s play this one out street by street.


Villain 1 Limps,

Hero looks down at QQ in middle position and raises to $20.

Villain 2 calls $20 with the button,

Blinds fold, Villain 1 calls $20.

FLOP Qs Jc 5s Pot $64

Villain 1 bets $25, Hero?

Looks good so far. We are nice and deep, and there are tons of draws out there. Your two splashy vs wont fold a draw. Lets go $125.

His range is almost never top pair here, as we block so many combos.
So, it's primarily sets and draws. Both of these will call a good sized raise.
So, $110-$120 looks good here.
He will be calling $85 into $200. Not the right DO for any but the strongest draws, but sets us up to get stacks in by the river with a $275 on the turn and $600 on the river if we choose.

If he comes back over the top, we should flat and shove all turn cards. He should never 3bet a draws here on the flop except maybe KTss, AKss, and T9ss and we don't really want to give him a reason to fold 55 on the flop.

Being this deep and the board being very drawy, I wouldn't screw around here. I would offer poor 2:1 odds for draws while building a big pot, so I'd raise to $140.

GcluelessNLnoobG

My feeling was that the standard line on this flop was to raise the $25 bet to somewhere around $100 more.

I was leaning towards not doing this. This was my thinking was as follows…

Villain 1 has to have some sort of part of the flop, he would probably just call with a flush or straight draw.

At this point I have no idea what Villain 2 has. But I do know that he does not want to play for stacks with me. If I just call V1’s bet I can disguise the strength of my hand and pick up more information on V2. Two pair or better he will re raise. One pair or draw he will call.

Here are my questions.

I am not going anywhere on this flop, If V1 is never going to go away and V2 knows that. Is there any amount that I could bet to push V2 of a huge draw? Is it worth betting that much since it could push out V1?

Is it better to call, pick up more information on V2’s hand, hope for draws to miss, and start getting money in on the turn?

If draw hits we can try to keep the pot small for a redraw or just move on to the next hand.

Obviously if I call and V2 Re raises the flop I will raise again when action is back on me.

In this hand I feel I have a very good read on both opponents. Should I play the players or should I just stick to the standard re raise?

What are the flaws in this line of thinking?

We don't really want to push anyone off a draw, we just want to charge them for it. Note that we ourselves also have an awesome draw (to a fullhouse).

With monsters (which top set on a non-flush/non-straight board is), I think we just want to shovel money into the pot as fast as possible and go from there. If the draws don't come in, or we improve to a fullhouse, we want to play for stacks by the river, and this will be difficult to do by slowplaying early streets.

GcluelessNLnoobG

Gobbledygeek -If i remember correctly you are a weekend recreational player with a separate bankroll for poker. Am I correct?

I am a once at week player, on a weekend night if I am lucky. I have a separate roll for poker. I am over rolled for the 1/3 game I play in and don't play 2/5 because there is usually one table in my area and it stinks. I am 1/2 way to being rolled for 5/10 but that game does not exist in my area.

This is my question for you. As a weekend player who is not playing for a living. You are up 3 buy ins, You have four buy ins in front of you. opponent has you covered. You have second nuts, a fullhouse. Are you comfortable getting all four buyins in this spot? or just maybe 1/2 your stack?

BTW, I know what the correct Math answer is.

Yup, just a once-a-week rec player. I don't really make any distinction between life roll / poker roll because I don't have to.

Pretty sure I've never been put in a spot where I'm played for $1200 stacks, but I know if I ever am that I'm playing pretty nitty, and I'm assuming most reg opponents are too. *Might* be opponent / action dependent.

Gbutmyspecialtyisnitfolding,soIcouldseemyself*perh aps*foldingtopfullhouseG

I don't have to keep separate rolls. I just like to keep them separate. My opinion is that it makes it easier when you are married.

Back to playing for $1200 stacks. If you are in control of the hand. If you are building the pot. Are you building towards a $1200 pot or a smaller sized pot if you don't have the absolute nuts? second nut full house.

Replaying river action in my head made me realize I had V2 in wrong position


Villain 1 Limps,

Hero looks down at QQ in middle position and raises to $20.

Villain 2 calls $20 from the small blind.

Folds to Villain 1 who calls $20.

FLOP Qs Jc 5s Pot $63

Villain 2 checks, Villain 1 bets $25, Hero?
Hero is paying very scared/nitty since V2 is in the hand and doesn’t want to play for stacks with him.
Hero just calls $25 even though he knows he should raise to $125. V2 calls $25

Turn Jd (Pot $138)

Villain 2 checks, Villain 1 bets $55,

Well, we currently have the nuts, and there's a decent chance we'll still have the absolute nuts on the river, so yeah, I'm attempting to play towards $1200 stacks. Obviously turn/river cards/action will inform me whether I should deviate from that plan.

As played, I would have raised the flop.

I think it gets more interesting moving forward now on the turn. Obviously the 1 combo of JJ is possible, but so is the 6 combos of QJ/66 (I'm assuming Q6/J6 are not in Villains range). Is V1 willing to play for 400bb stacks with 66? Probably not. Is he willing to play for 400bb stacks with QJ? Probably to maybe? Course Villain could also very realistically have AA/KK, but again I'm assuming they will never play for 400bb stacks with those hands.

FWIW, I suck at deepstack, and maybe that's why I think we're in a non-trivial spot on the turn. We also still have V2 in the hand, and are fine with him coming along for the ride.

Ginterestingspot,imoG

V2 could be Phil Ivey and Tom Dwan's love child, if I flop the nuts I'm playing for stacks.

The turn changes things because they are both drawing dead 99% of the time. The only question is whether either V will put more money in this pot on the draw. The $55 is an annoying bet because it's too big to raise and still make them feel like they are getting a good price, but less than what I would have bet.

I think now we have to flat again as a raise will get two folds pretty often.

Villain 1 Limps,

Hero looks down at QQ in middle position and raises to $20.

Villain 2 calls $20 from the small blind.

Folds to Villain 1 who calls $20.

FLOP Qs Jc 5s Pot $63

Villain 2 checks, Villain 1 bets $25, Hero?

Hero is paying very scared/nitty since V2 is in the hand and doesn’t want to play for stacks with him.

Hero just calls $25 even though he knows he should raise to $125. V2 calls $25

Turn Jd (Pot $138)

Villain 2 checks, Villain 1 bets $55,

My thinking is exactly what Koss says above ^

If checked to me I probably would have raised $85 or so...

So i just flat for $55. Villain 2 Flats for $55.

Hoping the River flush or straight gets there... River 7s
Flush gets there. Pot $303

Villain 2 takes two minutes counting out chips, Longest pause to think for him all night

Villain 2 Bets $100, Villain 1 Snap calls $100, Hero...?

Enough ****ing around. All in now.

Koss, is it really that easy?

Villain 2 made it clear to us that he does not want to play for stacks. Villain 1 will probably come along no matter what we bet because he is trying to "get" us. Shouldn't we be focusing on extracting the max amount from V2? What does he have to have to call an all in? What will amounts will he call with a J or a Flush?

Or is it really that easy and we just shove.

Yes, but he pronounces and spells his name differently...

This is what happens when you don't raise the flop. You can't raise all in on the river because it's a massive over bet. You raise the flop, that is no longer an issue.

so much scared money in the thread. flop is a clear raise but raising to $125+ too often gets folds. i'd raise to $90. this gives villain one ~3:1 odds. he will feel priced in with draws while not getting correct odds and he may make a crying call with AQ, KQ. fish also feel committed the more money they commit so lets keep him in while pricing him out so we can get turn value. if flush gets there and he blasts turn, we fold unless we have the right implied odds. also they have HUGE RIO if board pairs and they hit their draw so we want to keep them in even more so.

$90 should be enough to get V2 to fold. if he flats, esp since there's only one Q left, we know his range is draw heavy and can avoid paying him off.

Now if we've actually seen evidence that either villain will call much bigger bets with draws, then by all means raise to $125 or $140.

if we had a hand like AA, KK or a FD, then of course we want to raise to ~$125 if we raise at all, since we actually either want to protect our hand from draws (or hope for them to make a terrible call) or we want tons of fold equity.

Raise flop to 110. As played raise turn to 150 & jam vs V1 on river.
Vs V2's river donk make it 300. Do we think V2 would 3bet jam QJ here 550bbs deep?

(Looking at river, AP up until that point)

River should be played to extract the highest dollar value from V1 + V2. This doesn't always mean that it has to be from both, though. Many of the combinations of this optimization look like the following: When you raise, you'll receive 0 from Villain 2 + Your raise size from Villain 1. If we know that the villain behind us is likely to call because, as you said, he's 'trying to get us', and since we don't know what raise amount will actually get called by Villain 2 and Villain 1 (exactly by both) we should be raising large here in the attempt to extract the most value possible. Sometimes, you might even get both to call, but I really think that we should be going for big value against Villain 1.

Pot is 304 on the river, and now V1 and V2 have put in 100 each, bringing us to 504. We should be raising to 425+ in this spot with our hand. No FH is folding to us.

If quads, then it's quads. If you're not willing to get stacks in during spots like this, then you shouldn't continue playing with the amount of chips you have on the table. Bank the win for the night earlier than this decision and start again next session.

Flop - Raise to the highest amount you think V1 calls. Id say around $85-$95.

Turn - As played i would probably flat for deception and since we have position.

River - As played, V2 pretty much always has a flush, possibly nut flush as he flatted $20, and V1 doesnt have much behind is almost always calling any bet that puts him all in. We have disguised the strength of our hand, though V2 'doesnt want to get into a big pot with us' and would at least be aware there is full house possibilities. I raise to about $400.

This is what happens when you don't raise the flop. You can't raise all in on the river because it's a massive over bet. You raise the flop, that is no longer an issue.

I am fully aware of what the standard correct play with a flopped set is. I know we normally want to bet all three streets. I know we want to build the pot to a point where we can get called all in on the river. I flopped a set with QQ my second hand of the night, this same night and played it this way with no reads on the table. That is how my stack grew from ~$300 to ~$600. But now I have very good reads on the table. Now I have almost four full buy ins sitting in front of me.

so much scared money in the thread.

You are correct. But that was one of the things that I found very interesting about this hand. There are two players playing with scared money in this hand. But both of these players are only afraid of each other and are in no way scared of the third player who is giving money away. I feel I have a slight edge over the other four buy in stack. He has already told me he is scared to play for stacks with me. I never told him I was scared to play with him. Maybe he figured it out, maybe he didn’t. His story adds up, the entire night we have never played against each other, just collecting dead money from the rest of the table.

This is my gut feeling on the other big stack… He will only play for stacks with me if he has the stone cold nuts. There is a very small chance he will play for stacks with less. So if I am correct, most of the time I play for stacks with this player he shows up with JJ if we get all 4 buy ins in. The other player will get it all in with much less. So why try to build the pot big enough to the other big stack in? Maybe you chase the other player away doing this. What if he is only getting it all in if he has JJ? Why not just focus on getting the ~$500 all in?

Wow, I don't even know where to begin. If you are scared to lose the $1,200 to the point that you are scared of quads, just leave when you are up that much so you can never be in this situation.

If V1 is getting his stack in no matter what, get it and get V2's also. If you are scared of V2, just check/call or call/call all the way down (never raise) -- there is no other option.

You have to boat. There is no way around this. Just get it all in.