Hi there.

I wanted to get some opinions on whether to call or fold to this all in situation I faced yesterday.

Context:
This was a live 1/1 game with 2 straddle, the villain is sitting on my direct right and is the best player at the table, I know him to be kind of a semi-professional player winning money on the side to a regular job. He has been playing quite tight but aggressive when he does play hands. Not a player to get massively out of line with no sense bluffs however. He also probably respects my play and sees me as one of the other stronger players at the table. I have been playing in a similar way to villain, quite tight but aggressive when I play. I start the hand with 350 and villain starts with 290.

Pre flop:
I am in the 2 straddle with villain on my right in the big blind. There are 3 limpers before action reaches villain who raises to 17, I look down in the straddle at Q Q and 3 bet to 50.

All limpers fold and it is back on villain who thinks for about 15 seconds and then calls the 50.

Flop:
The flop comes 8 43 villain checks to me and I cbet 40 into a pot of 107. Villain thinks for about 15 seconds and then check raises all in for 240.

Decision:
The bet is 200 more to call, with all things considered, is this a snap call with QQ - what are your thoughts?

Appreciate any feedback and thoughts on this one, I will share my decision and the outcome afterwards.

Thanks

Well I doubt he's going all in with rubbish going off your discription of the player. He must realise there is every chance that you have a big pair.
He's not played the hand like he has KK or AA, but he may have slow played them early I suppose. 88 or a flush draw are possibilities also.

Tough but I think I have to call, not with a lot of confidence though!
From the way the hand played 88 looks his most likely holding.

Tough spot versus a tough player. I would not say that it is a snap-call.

First of all, the stacks are huge. You are playing with 290bb and he is playing with 350bb. Huge stacks call for caution with tp/op hands. You are not quite pot committed yet, IMO.

Second, he is a good player and he perceives you as a good player. I doubt he is spaz-bluffing or overplaying a worse hand.

My guess is that he has a big draw, like AKcc or A5cc, both of which are favored over the queens if played through the river.

In any event, the rule I always try to follow in these overpair situations has to do with the SPR. If it is 5 or less, I'm playing for the whole stack, if the SPR is 10+ I am willing to fold against too much action and I'm trying to avoid pot commitment.

Your SPR is a 2. I think you've got to call.

GL

Thanks rayfox111 and Magnum1111 for your views and explanations.

I will give you my thought process and the outcome.

It was a really tough spot, this is an opponent who very rarely commits his stack and I had him on a pretty narrow range. In my mind villain can absolutely have just called pre flop with KK and AA, as 4 betting given the action and table image may have made his hand face up and he would have wanted to keep me in the pot. I think AKcc is also very possible, he may have decided to commit thinking he has fold equity which may fade if he just calls and misses turn. Then we have JJ and I guess 1010 as well potentially. Importantly I have the Q of clubs which blocks his AQcc which is one of the hands I could be beating. I didn't know whether he would take the line of check jam with JJ and 1010, I thought he would lean more towards check call with those hands and see the action on the turn.

Ultimately I took a long time to think this over and had the clock called on me, before eventually folding. I decided that I could only realistically beat JJ and I'm not sure he would have committed his 240 with that hand when my range is strongly geared towards QQ+. I thought AKcc was also a strong possibility but I didn't want to flip for another 200. I felt his most likely holdings were KK or AA as I did totally believe he was capable of flatting these pre flop.

The opponent actually showed his hand as I had decided to show my fold....turns out he had JJ and I felt a bit stunned in the moment. Looking back though I don't hate my fold at all, I think it's one of those where by the book I'm supposed to call but in the reality of that game I think I am beat more often that normal.

Still keen to hear other people's thought processes and tell me where I am wrong here! The table certainly seemed pretty disgusted by my fold : D

this was spot on, thank you - question - because of the consistent straddle, can we actually shorten the stacks to 145BB and 175BB?

the local place where I play sometimes has lots of straddle options, up to 5x the big blind. It's optional so when there is a straddle, I often adjust the stack sizes, so if someone has 150$ at a 1/3 table, if there is a straddle then they are playing that hand with 15BB

Cool beans, any insight appreciated!

looking at as played I would want to answer these two questions for myself

how deep are we? (huge difference between being ~150BB deep or both 300BB deep
does villian balance here and if so with what?

The entire range for value shoves here is AA-TT, 88, 44, 33.
The equity shove range is something like AKs-9Ts, 97s, 76s, 65

It's a real interesting spot. QQ looks like its getting crushed by the value shove range and something like a coinflip or slightly worse - combined equity I think the super computer says fold -

since it's live I would want to want to take a second to try and read their bet sizing as maybe a tell. It doesn't make sense for them to slow play a monster like AA-QQ or AKs, smash it and then try to push you out/set a trap for only the best part of your range

yeah as played, I like the fold. If you had a time machine and could go back and you call, but going back in time changed their hand and they showed up with 88, or KK - I don't hate the call there either.

I think if you are going to play against this person, I would note that they have a leak of accidentally turning a portion of their value range into bluffs, by accident.

yeah real interesting hand - thanks for sharing!

Ya I think it might be a call,Your getting about 2:1 on a call, need to be good 33% of the time, youre ahead of nut flush draws and 99,TT,JJ. He could also have 88 but only 3 combos and would be odd to jam a set here, so your beating 18 combos of overpairs, all nut flush draws and lets say villain only calls pre with his AA,KK half the time that would mean your losing to 88,AA,KK #9 combos. I think in this scenario your equity is pretty high.

IF you give villain all NFD's, all pairs 88+ we still have 54% equity. I think this is a call. I'm sure it would be easier to make the proper decision at the table based on what you think about villains tendencies and playstyle leading up to the hand

You should probably post this on the live low stakes no limit forum