QQ 3-bet by an incredibly passive player

[Harv72b]

To set this one up: Party 3/6 full table is about to break up, as the absolutely beautiful atm that had been bankrolling everyone just left. I'm UTG & playing out my orbit before cutting loose. UTG+1 boasts stats of 7/0 (yes, zero)/3 over 70 hands in this session. Keep in mind that the maniac (88/39/1.5) had been seated directly to my right, so UTG+1 had plenty of opportunities to isolate and took none of them.

Despite the maniac on my right for so long, my table image was very tight; I wasn't backing off from isolating, I was just getting some really lousy cards.

Anyway, Hero is UTG and finds Q/images/graemlins/club.gif, Q/images/graemlins/diamond.gif. Hero (obviously) raises, and is instantaneously 3-bet by UTG+1. What's our course of action for the rest of the hand?

[Paxosmotic]

The pundits will massacre me for this, but call and fold UI on the flop. If you hadn't already called I'd advocate folding, yes, folding. I had this exact scenario happen to me when I found QQ on the button once. An EP player raised and an 11/0/.5 who I had 400+ hands on 3-bet from MP. Folded that one preflop. 99.7% of the time, he has exactly what you think here.

[W. Deranged]

The fact that hero only has 70 hands to base the decision on is a little troublesome. The pre-flop passivity might well be exaggerated.

I'd probably plan on leading the flop if I flop an overpair, and maybe simply folding to a flop raise. If an A or K hits the flop, I think you have a pretty easy check-fold here, as anyone with that kind of profile is probably not playing anything worse than QQ or AK. It's a tough situation, but villain's three-bet will likely get the pot heads-up. Since the pot will be pretty small, I'm not going to feel bad about giving up pretty weakly on the flop.

If other players come along this could get really tough. In that case I'm more inclined to get to the river if the flop comes low.

[W. Deranged]

Pax--

I don't like a pre-flop fold because you're going to get paid handsomely if you flop a set.

I prefer a bet-fold on the flop to a check-fold. Villain's 3 post-flop aggro number suggests he's going to make it clear on later streets where we're at. Check-folding a flop with an A or K on it is quite clear. I doubt a flop check-fold will be that bad, though.

[shant]

The fact that the maniac was in that spot for most or all of those 70 hands makes this read meaningless to me. Some players don't like the "high variance" of playing with maniacs, so maybe he was avoiding the action.

I say see the flop and play poker. I don't think you should fold an undercard flop here.

[Paxosmotic]

[ QUOTE ]
Pax--

I don't like a pre-flop fold because you're going to get paid handsomely if you flop a set.

I prefer a bet-fold on the flop to a check-fold. Villain's 3 post-flop aggro number suggests he's going to make it clear on later streets where we're at. Check-folding a flop with an A or K on it is quite clear. I doubt a flop check-fold will be that bad, though.

[/ QUOTE ]
I can't fold this one preflop if I've already invested money, that's the Metagame Special and it's just not happening on my watch. I'm okay with folding outright though. It also depends on the opponent. In my example, the villain was tight postflop as well, so signifigant aggression on my part would probably scare him back into his shell. In Harv's post, his villain was aggressive postflop. I think you could make up the ground there. So again it would depend very much on the villain's postflop tendencies.

I was very surprised to see that our equity is not as bad as I thought, here.

equity (%) win (%) tie (%)
Hand 1: 39.8574 % 39.64% 00.22% { QQ }
Hand 2: 60.1426 % 59.92% 00.22% { KK+, AKs, AKo }

[meep_42]

No one likes WA/WB on an undercard flop?

If there's no A/K, i'm probably seeing a showdown here -- 70-hands, where he could have seen most of them 2 bets to him already pf, isn't a whole lot of a read. Lots of people don't isolate.

All in all, it really depends on the flop.

-d

[W. Deranged]

Pax,

At what point are you advocating "folding outright"? I'm confused.

[W. Deranged]

I think WA/WB might be okay.

If we hypothetically assume that villain's stats ARE over enough hands to be completely telling, I think it is quite clear that WA/WB is not the best course of action because such a villain will give us very clear and obvious information about his hand on the flop that we should be able to fold the hand with confidence if behind much earlier. Going WA/WB against such an opponent I think would end up being spewing.

[Paxosmotic]

[ QUOTE ]
Pax,

At what point are you advocating "folding outright"? I'm confused.

[/ QUOTE ]
If we act after villain. Since we've already voluntarily put money into the pot on this street, we can't fold it. There may only be 2 people at the table who notice us fold to a raise, but we don't want to give those people excuses to take a shot at us.

I'm also afraid I misread Harv's original post, I thought the order to act was hero -> villain -> maniac. Now that I know villain had position on the maniac, I don't know if I'm so confident in my read. I think WA/WB could be the best plan.

[Michael Davis]

You're probably drawing too much from the fact that he failed to isolate ever. Like somebody else said, he might not like playing against maniacs. Also, since it is a maniac and tons of pots are getting raised, if he is colddecked his VPIP is going to be very low. I think you're reading too much into this with not much to go on.

I'd cap and go from there. You have QQ.

-Michael

[mikeyvegas]

[ QUOTE ]
I'd cap and go from there. You have QQ.

[/ QUOTE ]
What he said. 70 hands just isn't enough.

[Entity]

[ QUOTE ]
You're probably drawing too much from the fact that he failed to isolate ever. Like somebody else said, he might not like playing against maniacs. Also, since it is a maniac and tons of pots are getting raised, if he is colddecked his VPIP is going to be very low. I think you're reading too much into this with not much to go on.

I'd cap and go from there. You have QQ.

-Michael

[/ QUOTE ]

Glad you posted it, because I was about to. Verbatim what I was going to say. That means I'm learning. /images/graemlins/smile.gif

Rob

[Harv72b]

[ QUOTE ]
If we act after villain. Since we've already voluntarily put money into the pot on this street, we can't fold it. There may only be 2 people at the table who notice us fold to a raise, but we don't want to give those people excuses to take a shot at us.

[/ QUOTE ]

This was my last hand at the table no matter what happened; it was a TAGfest now that the maniac had left. Yes, it's possible that if someone sees me raise UTG & fold preflop to a 3-bet they'll make a note of it, but I think anyone who takes the game seriously enough to note a play like that will also have noted the same things I had about UTG+1.

Not arguing your point, just clarifying a little about the situation.

[LImitPlayer]

You've only got 70 hands here, this doesn't really say a whole hell of a lot. He could be getting bad cards.

He's got a VPIP of 10% and if he's getting cold decked with a maniac to his right that would explain his low VPIP.

If he's passive he's not going to Isolate a maniac unless he has a huge hand pf.

But I would still be cautious

[Harv72b]

Okay, here's the way it went down:

UTG+1 3-bet, and it was folded back around to me. I called, because I'm not folding for 1 SB after putting in 2 preflop even if he shows me AA.

At this point I was pretty damn sure that I was behind, though. The thing is, I also had that little "it's only 70 hands, and you do have QQ" going in the back of my head. I check/called all the way to showdown on a 9-high board and lost to KK.

The reason I posted this thread up is because I absolutely hated the way I played that hand. If I was so convinced I was behind that I would check/call every street with an overpair, then I should have check/folded the flop UI. Otherwise, I should absolutely have played back at some point in the hand. I seriously doubt he's folding KK on that board HU no matter how I play it, but I just don't think I should try to have it both ways in cases like this.

[Derek in NYC]

Rocks sometimes tilt. One helpful read is whether the rock on the previous/recent hand suffered a heinous suckout.