Would appreciate some feedback on this hand. Really tripped me up. I messed up by not checking the river, after the turn-raise and call.

In the CO, look down on QQ. UTG raises it up to 15, I 3-bet to 45, folds over to UTG and he calls. Flop comes AKx rainbow. He checks and I check my QQ. Turn comes Qc, giving me a set. Two clubs on the board now. He bets 55, I raise it to 145 - he calls. River comes an inconsequential 4, he checks to me, I bet 145. He thinks for a bit and announces all in. I call, to see J10s, giving him the nut straight.

It would help to know the suits of your QQ and the cards on board.

You 3B him pre, and checked back on flop. Why?

When you 3B pre and he flat calls, your range has all the AA, KK, and AK his pre-flop flatting range doesn't have. Heads up, you can c-bet this flop a lot, if not always, for at least 1/3 pot when you're heads up IP.

Why are you raising turn when you just checked back on flop? What are you repping there?

When you raise turn, and he calls, he has a hand. If it was AA or KK, and likely also AK, he'd have 4B pre. He can't have QQ, and it's extremely unlikely he's got AQ. What do you think it is?

He either turned a straight, or he picked up a flush draw and is starting a bluff. Why would you raise him if he's either got you crushed or he's bluffing?

When he checks to you on river, there's almost no worse hand you can target for value. If he was going to bluff with a missed flush draw, he'd have led out, but he's not going to do that when you raised on the turn. He's not calling with a missed flush draw, or a weak ace.

The absolute strongest hand he's likely to have here, that you can also beat, and which might call a bet, is AQ, which you heavily block. It's much more likely he has JT, so you can just check back.

When you bet river, after 3B'ing pre, and checking flop, and raising turn, and he check-raises, you can be nearly 100% certain he's got a nutted hand, and you're beat.

The c-bet in the above example is for value, right?

Also should we consider the possibility of a set of the unnamed "x" card on the flop? That could depend on betting ranges too, since depending on how low the x card is some people won't open that hand.

I don't particularly mind raising the turn, your hand has improved. I would fold to the shove. It's quite unusual for people to shove over bets like this with anything that isn't nutted.

You're asking me if our c-bet with QQ here would be for value? If you're asking because you think every bet is for value, or is a bluff, that's not really how modern poker theorists view it. We bet to build a bigger pot in case we win it, and to prevent our opponent from realizing their equity.

So, c-betting here might be seen as a value bet, because we can get value from V's draws, or as a bluff, because we can credibly rep a hand stronger than the one we have. But we're betting to build a pot we expect to win, and deny V's equity in the pot.

Should we consider V might have bottom set on the flop? Generally, it's never a bad idea, but it wouldn't stop me from c-betting here, when we have both the range and nut advantage.

More specifically, I'd want to know the stack sizes, and whether or not we're deep enough for V to profitably set-mine. It would help to have some reads on V, to have some idea if he's even good enough to understand that concept when he opens UTG and flat calls our 3B.

If the low card on the flop is 8 or under, and he's playing a short stack, I'm not worried about him having a set here. If the low card is a T or J, I'd be more worried about a straight. I'm not worrying about V flopping a set just because he opened UTG and called a 3B pre, and then the board is whatever it is. It's hard to make a pair, much less a set.

We should be c-betting this flop a lot, and slowing down by checking on the turn a lot, even though we've improved, because that's what we'd do with the strongest hands in our range here. If we had AA and flopped top set, that was the nuts on the flop, but the Q on the turn downgrades our hand - it's no longer the nuts. JT is now the nuts, which is why we DON'T raise when V leads out.

If we c-bet flop, V would have more than likely checked to us on turn, and we should check back. When we check flop, and V leads turn, we should just call, and hope the board pairs or V checks to us on the river.

River jam size not an important detail, no need to tell us.