Two Plus Two Older Archives - Between a Rock and a Hard Place?

You called 1/3 of your stack preflop

My preflop call was for 21.5% of my stack. (I had 2750 left and called 600)

Since you called 800 preflop, what sort of flop were you expecting to see?

<shrug> I "expected" to see 3 cards. But, I get your points. I've already said the same things to myself.

Short of flopping trips or better, this is about the best you can ask for

Meh. Make the A on the flop a Q and I'm marginally happier.

You called 1/3 of your stack preflop and just made top pair, queen kicker. I think at this point you have an easy call.

And therein lies the crux of the problem. I'm ahead of SB most of the time, but UTG almost always folds when beaten, but is almost always ahead when he calls.

I think the other posters have discussed the mistake preflop on this hand.

Clearly I created my own problem. In retrospect I think I made an improper assumption based on the table playing tight. Yes, almost all preflop raises took down the blinds, but that doesn't say anything about the raising range. If anything, if my opponents are not idiots (and nothing they did prior to this hand suggested they were), I should think that the range of hands UTG was raising might not be real small, thus pushing preflop makes more sense. SB's not going to fold after that call, but after his flat call, I was relatively sure he didn't have me dominated, so I should've tried to get UTG to fold preflop.