Playing in a 1-2 game with prolly 250-325 effective stacks. I’ve been playing pretty tight for the most part but have shown down 1 successful bluff over 2 hrs of play.

Hand we have qq in the bb at an 8 handed table. Ep semi laggy tag older gentleman opens for 11, button flats and small blind flats. I’m in bb with QdQh and I 3 bet to 53. I’m trying to build pot here and create a low spr situation for when I have an overpair to board. Only the button calls. The button has been away from the table for 1 hr and didn’t have much play with him but he came back after winning from roulette and says his friend is on a heater (wanted to comment on how one should stay out of the pit but didn’t ha). He seemed kinda splashy from 10 min I’ve seen him play and more on lag side.


Flop is Kc2c7x . I think for a bit and lead for 68, villian insta calls and says call when I put the chips in. Turn is an 8x? I check after 20 seconds of thought and he leads for 100. I think and fold. He had 40 behind. Do i have to just go with it here? I feel kinda goofy looking back bc he seemed like a played to make a move in a spot like this. He said this was his last hand before this hand to play and he left after the hand. Also he just flatter the initial raise so I knew he prolly wasn’t too strong.

Meh is my fold terrible? I felt he would have a lot of K’s in his range and calling his turn bet is basically an allin bc he was on 140 behind prior to turn bef. I couldn’t really see him doing this without a k or set but idk. Should I consider checking the flop and not cbetting?

Did not read the spoiler.

I’d go $60-$65 pre-flop with so much dead $ in and playing oop.

Flop – I’d likely check most of my 3-b range heads-up. As played, $68 seems large, so what hands are you hoping to get value from? If betting, maybe 1/3 pot or so.

Turn – C/F isn’t bad, though it seems his quick flop call might be with a draw, in this case, clubs. You don’t block those. There are numerous AXcc combos in his range, including A7cc, a combo pair/draw.

If you won’t steam losing ~130 bbs to this type of opponent, C/C all the way.

A good guideline for 3-bet sizing is 3x + 1x per caller in position, 4x +1x oop. So with a raise and 2 calls, that's $66. You can even size up a bit more at low stakes because people tend to call 3-bets too lightly.

The flop bet sizing is a bit on the large size if you're going to bet it. This is a pretty dry board overall, so you'll want to keep your bet sizes towards the small size in order to get value from weaker hands. This is a good spot to downsize from your 3-bet size. I'd maybe go $40 here.

People like to think the fast call means draw, but in my experience this is a very weak tell. I don't put much stock in it from an unknown, and even if I see someone call fast with a draw, I am still a bit skeptical the next time.

One thing that I think is a bit of a tell, is the only leaving a small amount behind on a bet. There are just no hands on this board where that bet makes sense for value. If he has a true value hand like a set or 2-pair, I expect a shove. These weird "almost a shove" bets tilt towards bluffs trying to leave a bit behind in case it doesn't work. I've been guilty of it myself before. Maybe it's a recency bias, as I just watched a live at the bike hand where someone did this when bluffing, but it feels bluffy.

As played I think I would just raise him his last $40. If he had shoved, I would lean more towards fold.

Thanks for the analysis here. I feel I should check back flop next time in a situation like this since I have showdown value etc. I feel if I check I can call turn bet and re eval on river since I feel most live players don’t have the stones to bluff most of the time.

As played I tend to Cbet often to get people to fold and pick up money from 3 bet and flatters that folded. I def need to re eval how often I Cbet. I think one leak I have in 40 hrs of cash is cbetting way too often and in some bad spots like this. Next time I would go up with pre sizing. I feel 53 was a lot and will not be called often in most 1-2 games I play.

Three bet is actually too small. With a raise to 11 and 2 callers, I'd make is 11*6 = 66. Probably 70 so the dealer doesn't need to make change.

Post flop is a disaster. Why did you bet over half pot on the flop? Your default cbet sizings in 3 bet pots need work; you don't need to bet that big when you have AK/AA/KK and want to get all the money in.

And when it comes to hand selection, this is the worst. QQ is WA/WB in this spot. If behind, it has 2 outs. If ahead, your opponent has like 2-5 outs the majority of the time. Just check and make a decision.

Turn, I'm not sure what to tell you, but you really should've checked the flop to begin with. Personally, you're getting almost 3:1 effective, and I think you'll win over 26% of the time here.

I tend to bet half pot or more in majority of my Cbet pots whether it be a bluff or value unless I have the nuts..... if I have a nutted hand I tend to check and try to trap if opponent can’t catch up (ex k8 on a k88 flop.)

Any advice on Cbet sizing I should stick to like in this spot? I agree c betting here is very bad. I tend to c bet too much as I’m a former mtt player. I def need to work on what boards I Cbet etc. I’m kinda clueless as to when to check and when to Cbet my made hands. Thanks for input.

Sure.

In the case of this hand, after your 3 bet is called, there's 126 in the middle and 208 behind. So knowing this, why would you need to bet big with value? If you bet 40, there's less than a pot left.

So in this case, small bets still put us in a position to win his entire stack when we have it, while risking less when we missed with AQ or AJs no FD. So really, when we cbet, we'd like to do it as the smallest size possible where he won't just peel us with trash. I use approx 1/3rd pot for this.

From there we need to think of what hands benefit from a bet. If our range is TT+, AK, AQs-AJs, then it's clear what hands benefit the most:

AQs, AJs: generating folds from better
AK+: generating calls from worse

So we'd primarily want to be betting these hands, maybe check folding A hi misses sometimes and check raising top set or an A hi flush draw sometimes. But these will be primarily bets.

From there, we only have 18 more combos of QQ-TT. Given preflop, these are basically the same hand against his range. However, QQ is hurt far less by giving a free card than TT (the only overcard left for QQ is an A, while TT has to worry about an A, Q or J). Moreover, these hands don't have 3 street value: they have to be checked at some point or else we risk overplaying our hand, even at these stack depths. So why not check the flop to a certain point? And QQ is our best flop check candidate

Also think of it this way. There's 126+68 = 194 in the middle after you make this flop bet. If villain moves all in for 208, he turns a profit even before considering fold equity if you fold 208/(194+208) = 51.74% of the time. Now let's look at TT+/AK/AQs-AJs

You have a few clear calls if you bet your whole range in KK (3), AA (6), AK (12), A hi FD (2). That's 23 combos. You have a bunch of clear folds (6 other A hi's). If you bet fold QQ-TT, you're folding 51%. If villain has any semblance of equity, he can move in and own you if you're bet folding queens. So you need to construct your range to where he can't make exploitative jams constantly.

Also, the K high board in 3 bet pot, contrary to what people believe, is actually BAD for the PFR. Look at your range above: over half of your combos are weakened by this board. So this is a good spot to check, and check quite a bit. Like if you have KK, you have nothing to worry about besides the club draw and can induce bluffs, and still get a bet turn shove river in if he checks.

If stacks were deeper (like SPR of 5+), then cbetting more is good, since you need to in order to threaten his stack when you don't have it, or get his stack when you do. But at 1.65, it just takes two streets.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

K high dry is like the nut best board for a 3bet range. Second only to like 222.

The rest of your analysis is spot on tho, with the exception that u can prob get away with betting TT-QQ because u don’t want your check range to be so face up mine as well just not have one. (If u do this u could just bet 1/4 pot with ur whole range.)