Playing in an inexpensive Turbo it is the fifth round. Blinds are at 400/800 with 800 big blind ante. The table has been aggressive from the start. I'm UTG +2 (8 handed) and it goes fold to me. I should be perceived as a nit as I have played far fewer hands than anybody at the table. I have about the starting stack (15000) with pocket Queens and bet 3000. Fold and a raise to 8000.

It is folded around to me. How do you rate my three options (fold, call, shove)

Your preflop raise is far too large. Off a 19bb stack you should really only have one sizing, 2x or 2.1x or 2.25x. With this sizing, you've created a situation where your opponent doesn't have many hands that you dominate in their range, perhaps JJ and AQ are in there depending on the player and their position, but even against a range of QQ+ AK you're going to have to go with your hand here. If you can somehow exclude AK it becomes a fold as you are a big dog against QQ+ or KK+.

Raise smaller and keep your opponents' ranges wider.

First of all I wouldn't raise preflop close to 4x ever and with 19 blinds I would always raise to 2.1x or 1700 here. Since it is an inexpensive turbo it isn't clear if your opponent would understand that you are heavily favored to have JJ then QQ/TT then AK when you raise so high. Unless of course all of your raises are close to 4x.

Normally it would matter the position of the 3-bet Villain. If he was in the SB it would be amazingly awful sizing (though when you say it folded around to you it means villain wasn't likely in a blind). . Even anywhere else it should be 9000. Unless of course Villain has less than 25 blinds at which point villain should have shoved. It could also be that villain has AA/KK and is trying to induce a call or shove. But really it makes no difference. This is a turbo and I would never fold QQ in a turbo to a single raise and probably not to two raises. I would also never call here with QQ out of position. If villain has AK then villain can avoid paying you off if no A or K hits the board. And worse if a K hits and villain shoves aren't we calling anyway in case villain has AQ or JJ?

In any case its a turbo we have 19 blinds and I would be 4-bet shoving all the time, especially so we don't have to play OOP. I'm guessing villain had AA/KK/AK and you could have avoided the disaster by calling pre and folding on the flop. With deep stacks we could set mine or see if and A or K hits the flop. But here with 9 blinds left in a turbo if we fold on the flop its like we are almost never going to cash anyway.

Thanks for the responses so far. As for my sizing I agree that it is large. I will say, however, that this was perhaps the most aggressive table of the 5 or so times I have played this event and a 4x raise was not particularly out of line.

I should have mentioned raiser's stack size. He was one of the table chip leaders and, while I don't know his actual stack, he had four or five times my stack and could gamble and lose without being too adversely affected and with plenty of time to recover the loss.

Since there was no way I was just going to call (I wouldn't have enough chips to survive another round or two) and would be shoving the flop (probably even if an Ace or King appeared), I decided to shove.

Didn't work out well as he had AA and I didn't get lucky.

To change the scenario a little .......

Assume I had raised to 2000 and had been re-raised to 5000. What would be my best option then?

Thanks agains to everybody

With 19 bb's and QQ in a turbo I am basically always 4 bet shoving OOP. I have had people with KK tank and call. I've had people with AK tank call.

Don't let the table's standard raise size change your game. Opening to 4x here, if you were doing it correctly, would make your range super tight. Much better to do as the other posters suggested and min raise, maybe a little over.

With 19BBs, it would take an extreme read to raise/fold here. You mentioned the word aggressive; that is not the read we'd be looking for to fold here.

QQ is supposed to go broke to AA, even with bigger stacks.

Open to 1600 on a 15k stack. Shove. QQ is basically the nuts <30bb. If he has kk/aa, gg bad luck. If he has Ak or aq and wins, gg we lost a flip or to one over in a spot we can’t pass up.


Only spot I would change this thought process is with icm. Say we are on the stone money bubble- one player has to be eliminated to be ITM. I might just fold if buyin is somewhat meaningful. If it’s a small buy in and we are playing for the win or top 3- easy stack off even on stone bubble.

Just to add some perspective, I don't fold QQ in tournaments with less than 100 BBs. Honestly I don't even fold it in cash with less than 100 BBs. I can think of some exceptions but they'd occur less than 1% of the time.

I try to stay away from giving advice that sounds harsh, but you are going to have a very hard time making deep runs in tournaments if you talk yourself into folding the premium pairs.

I am guessing you play much more online poker than live. Folding QQ can be routine there. I can't ever recall putting in more than 50BB with QQ and being good.

Interesting. I do play online a lot, but this rule also applies in FL live poker, where people are very loose and aggressive. My principle may not hold in other places.

Less than 20bb never folding QQ