PokerStars - $0.02 NL - Holdem - 9 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

BTN: 126.5 BB (VPIP: 19.75, PFR: 11.11, 3Bet Preflop: 6.67, Hands: 83)
Hero (SB): 128.5 BB
BB: 100 BB
UTG: 100 BB (VPIP: 15.21, PFR: 11.19, 3Bet Preflop: 2.61, Hands: 704)
UTG+1: 83 BB (VPIP: 19.46, PFR: 10.18, 3Bet Preflop: 5.26, Hands: 447)
MP: 100 BB (VPIP: 52.38, PFR: 14.29, 3Bet Preflop: 11.11, Hands: 22)
MP+1: 104 BB (VPIP: 26.92, PFR: 15.38, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 27)
MP+2: 96.5 BB (VPIP: 87.50, PFR: 37.50, 3Bet Preflop: 30.00, Hands: 16)
CO: 102.5 BB (VPIP: 7.78, PFR: 6.67, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 92)

Hero posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) Hero has Q Q

fold, fold, fold, MP+1 raises to 3 BB, MP+2 calls 3 BB, fold, BTN raises to 17 BB, Hero raises to 128.5 BB and is all-in, fold, fold, fold, BTN calls 109.5 BB and is all-in

Flop: (260 BB, 2 players) 9 6 9

Turn: (260 BB, 2 players) K

River: (260 BB, 2 players) 9



Should I raise to like 55BB and fold if he 5bets?
Can I just flat here?
Or is this fine?

5X 3bet from the BTN should give you pause. I like your thinking of a smaller 4bet but I think I'd just call here and look to play the flop.

Fold or jam are your only options here. Given that you're a little deep and they made a monster raise sizing (in my experience this is far more weighted to nutty hands) I'd lean towards a fold. For 100bbs I'd rip it pre everyday of the week.

Wouldn't mind some more opinions on these spots.

I think there's enough money in the pot to jam 4bet here.
We should be ahaid of villain's 3bet range and we don't mind him folding since we pick up a nice pot.

We hate getting called here though, but I don't think we get called often enough to make this a bad spot to jam?

Ran into this spot 3x yesterday and it totally ruined my day ...

Pretty tough spot.

The villain's bet 3bet bet sizing is weird. Unless villain has shown previously to 3bet this large, I'm already thinking about playing cautiously.

So let's look at the possible different plays:

Fold to villain's initial 3bet - Seems a bit nitty. Unless we know for sure that their 17BB raise = AA/KK, folding just feels like we're losing a load of value.

Shoving over villains's 3bet - my problem with 3bet shoving here is that I feel like we lose value from hands we're ahead of. So if villain has any AQ/JJ-TT in their range, they may fold these.

4betting to around 55 - I sorta like this play. If Villain's has weaker hands in his range such as AQ/AK/JJ-TT we get some value from them calling. If Villain shoves over the top then we're in a bit of trouble. Calling is negative EV if villain's 5bet shove only includes AA/KK. But if villain's shove includes AKs, maybe some QQ's, calling his shove, after we 4bet, is actually about break even EV.

Basically I think we probably get more value out of 4betting rather than shoving, as we keep some of his weaker hands in (if he has any).

Calling his 3bet - not sure if I'm a fan of this. We're out of position in a 3bet pot. A lot of the time we're gonna see aggression from villain whether he has hit it or not. All his AA/KK/QQ cbet, and his AK combos probably still cbet. Either way, we're struggling to call as we don't know where we stand.

Summary - I prefer 4betting to a smaller amount such as 55. This is way better than calling as we take the aggression and we then get value out of all of his worse hands (AK, and then some AQ, JJ's). If he 5bet's I probably call off his shove because villain probably has some AK/QQ's in his range.

If we figure that villain only has AA/KK in his range, just fold to villain's 3bet.

I don't think we mind having all the hands like AK, AQ, AJ (any other?) fold here since we're picking up the 24.5BB in the pot, which is already a decent amount.
And they do have some equity against us.

We might even get KK to fold here ocasionally, but probably only against huge nits.

I don't think anyone really ever folds KK's unless it's a super special situation.

And yeah we don't mind them folding "AK, AQ, AJ", but I'm just saying that by 4betting to 55 rather than shoving, we might get them to call rather than just fold.

Them calling us with 2nd best hands = more value for us.