Hey guys I'm relatively new. Been getting serious about becoming better at poker.

Today I sat at a table and this hand came up. I think there was only one person at the table that was paying attention, besides me.

HJ was a young man that had no idea what he was doing. He had previously bet out with AQo and no pair, and actually thought his hand would be good at showdown.

CO is an older man that gets pissed at poor play, and talks about how all his hands are so unlucky to not hit. He plays relatively good hands though, he just doesn't extract value and is super passive.

BTN is a woman that doesn't raise, but if she has top pair she will call it down and slowplays way too much.

1/2NL, I have a little under 100BB, HJ has 25BB, CO has 50BB, BTN has 125BB.

9-handed, everyone folds to HJ, who limps. CO limps. BTN limps. SB folds. I look down at Qh7c and check my option.

Board comes Td, 9d, Qs.

$7 in the pot, $1 for the rake and $1 for jackpot rake. HJ checks, CO bets $20, BTN calls $20.

What to do in this spot?

This is a clear and obvious fold. The pot is only $7, and someone's willing to throw $20 at it risking running into a better two-pair or a straight, etc. certainly risking a lot on a bluff, or a weaker pair. Definitely wait.

Do you put them on a range or is it obvious what they have?

Simple fold. CO is a nit, I wouldn't have even called his bet. Btn calling makes it a slam dunk fold.

Snap fold. CO is called a player who plays strong hands and "doesn't extract value and is super passive," yet he bet. At the very least he has a better TP than you and is afraid of the draws. Often he has better than that, like pair +draw, two pair, or even the flopped straight. As he's described, he is never semi-bluffing with a bare draw, or even a combo.

Then BTN calls. She has some draws in her range, but also everything that is in CO's range. This does not make us any happier with a weak TP on a board that is wetter than a fisherman's raincoat during a gale. Fold foldy fold.

The problem with this hand is that you don't solidly beat anything. Better queens crush you, but against worse queens you are extremely likely to chop. You are barely a favorite against something like JT. Meanwhile, there are several hands that people could plausibly have (QT, Q9, KJ, J8) where you draw essentially dead.

We don't really need to construct a range in this instance because CO is tight passive and there are no hands that a tight player would bet on this flop that we aren't either flipping against or crushed by. To give an idea of how not-close this is, if it had checked to CO and he had bet the pot of $7 instead of $20 and BTN had folded, I would still fold without needing to think about it.

Probably the important general lesson here is that the value of top-pair hands goes down sharply on coordinated boards. Not to say that Q7 is always a check/fold on this board, but it needs to be treated cautiously and dumped against players showing strength.

ah ok I understand now.

For what it was worth, I folded, but got to see their hands because they went all the way. It was just a weird spot and wanted to make sure I was doing this right.

I would've won the hand :/

You are correct, that was the read I had at the time of the hand. This is why its such a weird spot, because he changed his pattern for this one hand.

Meh, even nits spazz occasionally. Or maybe your read was off. But whatever the case, you need to go with the read you had at the time. Meanwhile, you got away from what would usually be a bad spot for only the $2 you had to put in as the BB. Count your blessings.

It was still a good fold. It'd still be a good fold after tipping the valet $10.