1/3
Hero $300
TAG

V $275
Solid player I have encountered before. Knows what he is doing. reasonably tight and aggressive.


Hero UTG+1 KQ Opens to 13

folds to Villain in late position, Raises to 45

folds to Hero who calls.

Against some players I easily fold here as a large portion of this player pool will only be 3 betting hands better than KQ suited however I believe this player will have a wider 3 bet range.

pot 90
Flop Q82

H checks
V bets 50
H calls

pot 190
Turn 6

H checks
V All in 180

Hero?

The question is simple. Would the villain 3bet pf and stack off with QJ or worse? If yes, you call. If not, you fold.

You say he is reasonably tight and aggressive. With that read, the 3b and being OPP, I most likely fold pre.

AP I guess you have to call but your seeing AQ, KK, AA a ton of the time.

You can fold pre if V is only 3betting AQ+,TT+. If V is mixing in weaker broadways the call is fine.

Call river.

I think you can fold pre, as you'll be calling with a good portion of your EP open range. 99+, AK, AQ, maybe AJs.

I just limp in KQs in EP (like any hand I'm playing) and evaluate, but that's me. It's also at the very bottom of playing range in EP (I'm a nit), and at tougher / extremely big raisey tables I'll just fold it.

Facing the 3bet, do we think playing HU OOP to a solid competent player for 1/6th of our stack with a possibly dominated hand is going to be profitable? I don't, so I fold. The fact that he has a wider 3betting range than most (and whether he really does in this configuration against a TAG EP opener is probably debatable) isn't very important. We're going to miss the majority of the time (pots that he'll likely win regardless of what he has), and even when we hit we're going to have a tough time in in the battle of IO versus RIO OOP to this guy.

SPR is 2.5 and we've flopped TP. Do we consider ourselves committed? Board is drawy and there is a random Ace overcard that could come. If we just check/call, we'll only have a PSB left. Are we willing to take the risk of him checking back the turn to get to the river to realize his equity? Or should we check/raise commit now, although that will allow him to play perfectly? Again, part of the problem of playing OOP here.

The preflop call to setup this lol small SPR ensured we would be facing a commitment decision with TP early in the hand. So stoopid turn spot shouldn't be a surprise.

Gsetupbetterspotspreflop,imoG

GG said it well, I'll say it faster. You fold pre because this is a perfect example of OOP losing initiative, being forced into a fit or fold mentality, and even when you fit, there's a good chance you're still going to lose a big pot if not your whole stack.

You got a very good flop for you and even then you don't know what to do. If you are calling with that hand hoping to flop something better than TPGK, you're going to be disappointed about 96% of the time. If you add OESD and FD to the hoped for mix, you should be playing for stacks better than 20X the 3!

fold pre

That might be a tough task when our opponent is all-in on the turn..

I fold pre. He's making it 15BB with a 90BB stack so we're not even getting a good price to call.

He's playing the hand exactly like a tight aggressive player small stakes player would play AA/KK. If that's the only information I have about him, I fold pre and as played on the turn. We need to be good roughly 1/3 of the time and I don't see him play that line with a weaker hand for value at all. So the question is if he's bluffing often enough with a hand like AK or not. AQ is obviously possible too but if he 3bets that, especially off suited, he might have a wider range pre than I initially assumed.

Now that we're here, I'm guessing a turn call is ~okish. Villain could easily be protecting a worse hand that he feels is best on a drawy board (such as JJ-), or pushing a big draw himself (flopped AKdd/AJdd/ATdd or similar hands in spades that he cbet the flop with and then picked up the turn draw).

GcluelessNLnoobG

As played, I'm calling the jam. I don't expect we're good, but we made our bed with our pre-flop play and now we have to sleep in it.

As others have already stated, this is the problem playing this type of hand OOP vs a competent player. You fold when you miss and seldom ever know where you're at when facing post-flop aggression. This forces you to commit a stack vs. an opponent's extremely strong line.

Vs stooges and stations who will check the flop and turn more often when they miss, you can make the case for calling pre. But against this type of opponent even with the wide 3-bet range (how wide we talking here?), we're just praying for an A-high flush draw.

This seems like an incredibly marginal spot so I think it all comes down to your reads. I would revisit what I've seen from this guy to determine if he is 3bet-happy. I wouldn't just assume that because he is aggressive/good. If he is 3-betting too much, folding KQs seems like a leak to me. If he is an otherwise aggressive player who 3bets at a normal frequency I fold because KQ is dominated by a standard 3bet range, especially when he could have just called in position, which polarizes his range IMO.

It looks like on the turn he's either at the top end of his range with AQ/KK+ or bottom with some kind of A hi flush draw - maybe Ad2d, so if you think he bluffs this a third of the time you can call I suppose.

In general, against players I know can put me in tough spots I tend to err on the side of caution without a strong read, which would mean folding preflop/folding turn here.

If you think his 3bets are that wide, then 4 bet pre, otherwise fold. I hate flatting, what are we trying to do? Flop a FD, flop top pair (when AQ is well within his range), just as we can see how this hand ended up is why I don't flat with these hands from OOP heads up.

As played fold the turn easily.

Depending on the player I fold pre sometimes and 4-bet sometimes, I wouldn't call too much. I like a call-lead if we're calling pre and hit the Q. Set the price. 30 into 90 and fold if raised. If he calls and turn blanks I check and either x/rallin weak sizing or fold to a large size. AP call turn and pray unless he really is so ABC he cannot have a worse Q or JJ in which case fold.

with these stacks sizes you should be 4bet or fold pre, clearly you are priced in now, that is the problem with calling pre in the first place. as played snap

This is a classic example of why Doyle Brunson (and many others far better than I am) considered KQ a "trouble hand." Fold pre, as others have said. As played, are you ahead one in three times? Likely not, unless he would play TT, JJ, AK, AKdd this way. Your description of him suggests he wouldn't, other than possibly AKdd. That's one combo, and he's likely jamming many more than 2 combos for value. Fold.

Many thanks for all the quality replies.
I ended up folding.
I cant see him doing this with a hand that I am ahead of.
To everyone saying fold pre, are you opening and folding to the raise or are you not even opening KQsuited from early position?
I guess the answer is a bit dependent on the table dynamics at the time.

Hi buddy great hand, I like a fold preflop vs 1-3 player base , also your hand is easily dominated and stacks are way too shallow , there is not much maneurvability here , if your calling $45 pre cuz he "could be wide" you should never be considering folding for the same reason , that with the fact stacks are very shallow , I never fold here vs villian likely , but I likely never call oop with shallow stacks here , likely a limp here is fine in your game as your not seeing 3bets very much

Totally villain/read dependent spot. If V is good player than this is a fine flat pre.

You can have QQ/88 here yourself but with two flushdraws out there this is a close call. If we think he is a capable player that has double barrell bluffs we call here but we lose a good amount.