Villain ($18)
Hero ($10)

Villain opens to $0.3 in HJ
Cutoff calls
Hero 3 bets to $1.20 on the button with pocket QhQc

Folds to villain who 4 bets to $3.20
Cutoff folds
Hero calls extra $2

Flop ($6.85)
Jd3c8c

Villain shoves all in, $6.80 for hero to call.

What is the most EV line here on the flop? Should I be 5 betting/folding QQ pre?

I would shove pre with no reads 100bb deep in those positions. As played we have to call the non-A/K flop.

Any reads? Guessing this is live

I'd flat pre, an hj cold 4bet is pretty strong considering its size and the size of you 3bet. If you shove you literally get called by better or sometimes are flipping. Given the action so far I think he's very rarely bluffing here.

And I'd fold flop. The only hand he can reqlly have that you have a call against is AcKC, but he might not even 4bet that pre. I thibk this is going to be QQ+ most of the time and only one QQ combo is left. Even JJ beats you now

This is online but with no reads, as I was literally 4 hands into the session. He turned up with KK here and stacked me. Thanks for the input.

Just a cooler imo. Never folding the safe flop once we've put this much in. If we want to make a nitfold it should be to the 4b probably, but I'm not doing that either.

It feels nitty but when opens are from UTG or HJ I play much more cautiously pre, so I actually prefer the flat here. Flop is an annoying spot. It’s not impossible to see villains do weird stuff like spew with AK, but I don’t think a call is +EV.

But that is against some sort of reg. And even if you only have four hands, nothing about him screams fish, even if for bet sizing is massive. Which probably means he’s one of those nitty regs. I’d snap call this against most of the splashy 10nl 48/30 fishies, who play pockets sevens this way.

I think not squeezing here would be a serious mistake. We don't want to play a hand this vulnerable MW. I can see more of a case for flatting if there were no callers, though again I would still 3bet.

I Think shove pre or call flop is unnecessary spew here and not a cooler.

At these stakes, when you 5 bet you are literally only getting called by better or flipping. No one is calling you with AQ or JJ. No one is 4 bet bluffing those hands pre here, the best you can hope for is a flip, that's best case. You're IP here as well, against this action, QQ should be played as a high value set mine. If he checks flop then you're probably also good vs his AK.

Nothing about villain's flop line convinces me that he doesn't have exclusively KK+ here. You guys labelling this a cooler I think you're not factoring population tendencies and the stakes he's playing. Not that we should be results oriented but I was 0% surprised villain had KK here and would have been 100% surprised if he had AKs or AJ.

^^^Why not just fold to the 4bet then? I think it's spew to call the 4bet and fold to a PSB on a flop where our equity has remained pretty static versus villain's range. If we think he has no bluffing range then that would be better imo.

Or do you think he never bluffs this flop? I wouldn't be that surprised to see AK/other bluffs autoshoving due to SPR. It likely gets other AK off a chop and if we're folding QQ we're folding basically everything. Granted I think villain's most likely holdings are AA/KK here but I don't think I'd be as surprised as you to see worse.

I agree with the squeeze, but I’d just proceed with caution. That could possibly mean folding to the four bet in some situations, though not many.

Also though, just thinking out loud so not sure if this is right, but If say a nitty reg does this with AK, kings and aces, and checks all AK on flop (which is a reasonable assumption), then flatting the four bet and folding to flop jam is still fine. Maybe maths proves me wrong though.

I reckon this is pretty much spot on.

I thought ab about folding pre but that is just too nitty. We're IP so good playability and, he could have AK...maybe AQ suited although unlikely, maybe JJ if he's very loose (I realise I said no one is 4b those here, I probably should have said not many villains). And I just don't think the average NL10 guy has many bluffs in this spot. Ax suited would make a great flat. Take that range and narrow it down to hands he'd shove flop with and for me that makes it a fold. I get the SPR argument here but we have invested what $3.20? We being asked to call over double that and I don't think we're committed enough to not be able to make a big lay down.

Looks like a nitfest, lol

Not at all man, just trying to make the right play using tendencies when we don't have any info on villain. I think spots like this, where you are asked to make big decisions with marginal holdings, where the right play may or may not be the 'standard' one are where your edge as a winning player lies.If you're calling, what do you expect villain to show up with when you call and what % of the time?

Okay I think I've managed to clarify my thoughts:

I don't 4bet AK in V's shoes here. If we assume he does 4bet AK (or whatever else, for that matter) here, as well as KK+, then shoving KK+ and x/f the rest of his range OTF doesn't seem like a great strategy so we should assume he shoves with at least something else.

If V doesn't have AK in his 4bet range, then we should probably be folding to the 4bet.

I think realistically, V isn't likely to be thinking about his own range as much as we are thinking about it now and general pool tendencies will lean towards AA/KK here but it seems bad to not bluffcatch with anything.

Squeeze is good and personally i don't really mind to much 3bet folding hands like JJ QQ AK especially in these positions. Because tendencies at these stakes are for villains to call and defend far to wide vs 3bets and have extremely unbalanced 4bet ranges that in these positions is usually just KK+ and the odd sporadic 4bet bluff. I would just err on the side of caution while i'm building up an image of how villain reacts to 3bets.

BQD's line's actually quite the opposite. It's very spewy.

This in particular shows a complete lack of understanding of fundamentals in this spot. It's a regurgitation of things you read all the time and misapply.

This is not why we're 3-betting in either scenario.

Haha... You've totally misunderstood what I mean by playability. I'm not really sure what you think I mean, but the hand does have great playability IP here. I think our decision on the flop is a really easy one to get right. That is great playability.

And RE being spewy, again I get why you'd say that, but you've really just misunderstood the play I suggest, which is based on villains' tendencies at this level and the range I assign him. Sorry if you don't feel you can fold flop after calling pre because of SPR, maybe you have a leak you haven't considered?

And Again, being results oriented can be bad but I fully expected him to show up with KK+ here, and he did. Not sure what you'd expect him to show up with but if it's AKs enough times to make this a profitable call then you're either the world's biggest optimist or your network is very, very different to mine and the one from this hand.

Obviously there are many other reasons why 3betting/squeezing QQ is good but I dont think they all bear repeating ITT.


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Flatting a third of your stack to fold is awful.

Kind of surprised to read some of BDQD's posts itt because he's the guy usually talking about equity realisation. When you have QQ and are getting stacked by AA/KK then you also need to max ev against AK (and potentially other stuff) because by flatting , you now get stacked frequently by KK/AA on favourable boards, but you're never stacking AK - that makes things far worse, not better. That's the fallacy behind the "you're either behind or flipping" line of thought.

I really don't understand talking about playability when you have an SPR of 1 on the flop. You're essentially flatting pre to do what? Decide that he never bluffs and so you have to fold an overpair anyway? Hoping he checks down and QQ gets a good runout?

At 100bb deep, this 4-bet size makes it push or fold.

BS it's awful.

What's awful is flatting 1/3 of your stack and being too excited to be able to find a fold. "OMG OMG OMG 4 bet pot + overpair MUST SHOOOOOVVVVVEEEE!!!" Calm down guys, think through the hand and make the right play. Of course you still have playability. It's really easy to know whether you're ahead or behind here, and feeling pot committed for your last 2/3 because 1/3 of your stack has gone is super, super fishy IMO, it's a cash game for god's sake, you'll have reloaded within 10 seconds. If you're a thinking player you won't get stacked on 'favourable' boards because you're IP and can make an exploitative decision based on villain's actions.

Time and again I say in these posts that this is an exploitative line. He is never just shoving AK here w/o a FD (or AQs if he has that in his range) never. He is literally only shoving QQ+, which basically means KK+ as you block QQ. Against a range of KK+,and AK we have 40%, easily enough to make the call pre, but based on his flop actions we can tell which portion of his range he has, and make the correct play. It doesn't matter if we don't stack him if he checks to us, we shove and win the pot, or yes we can check down and likely win unless he spikes. Again, this is taking poker one stage further than the mathematical 'standard' play and actually thinking about your opponent's likely holdings based on his actions. Was anyone here really surprised he flipped over KK? I would have felt like a complete spewtard if I'd called there, honestly.

So I presume you flat your entire range here and shove if he checks?

No, as a rule I'll GII pre with KK vs any action, so would flat JJ/QQ here. Probably AKs too.

Id shove Jj/QQ when checked to. Not sure about AKs would have to see board texture. Would probably shove too as a bluff while we still have some fold equity. I realise that this is exploitable, but pretty much every play I make is exploitable, as I'm interested in exploiting my opponents, that's how people win at poker. If everyone played GTO then everyone would break even against each other and lose to the rake. Honestly, in this hand with the next bet being a shove and half a stack in the pot already, the general population tendency here is to play fit or fold 99% of the time. This is why I flat pre, it's really easy to know where you're up to in the hand postflop and we have position and good equity even v his very tight range.

Amazing how defensive and condescending you're being.

As Blades said, you're usually a good poster but on this you're just way off the rails.

It's true but what you actually mentioned is negligible in comparison to why we actually should 3-bet.

^^ No more condescending than yourself mate when you're telling him me I dont know what basic poker terms mean. No need to take the moral high ground, I just don't agree with you.

It's interesting how I was able to deviate from GTO principles to correctly narrow villain's range down to one of two specific hands and recommend the correct decision based on that, before the hand was revealed. But it might not have been GTO so I'm way off the rails, standard call, cooler etc.