QQ in BB
 

25/50 online. 9 players. extremely aggressive, moderately tight game (Rough generalization- 3 LAGS and 6 TAGS). (the hand in question was very odd in terms of # of preflop limpers and lack of early aggression.)

SB is very aggressive and little bit loose. some observations about him: he may limp on the button with A3o in a 4 handed pot. he may reraise a lone middle position raiser from the BB with AQ. he may bet an A58 flop and subsequently 3 bet with AJ vs. a lone opponent who raised preflop. he does not pure bluff enough for me to have noticed. he will check-raise bluff with 8 and 9 out draws. he may call an MP raise from the BB with Q7o in a 4 handed pot. in general, he is a strong player...and a little bit wild.

the hand:

Hero has Q [img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img]Q [img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] in the BB.

4 limpers. SB completes. Hero CHECKS.

flop: 3 [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] 8 [img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img] 6 [img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] ($150)

SB checks, hero bets, UTG folds, UTG2 calls, MP1 folds, button calls, SB calls

turn: 4 [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] ($250)

hero bets, MP1 calls, button calls, SB raises, hero calls, MP1 folds, button calls.

river: Q [img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img] ($600)

SB bets, hero CALLS, button folds.

final pot: $700

now, there are 2 spots here where i am unsure about my own play. i bet you can guess what they are.

#1 the preflop check. my standard play is to raise here. for reasons i will not go into right now, i chose to check. i would love to hear some discussion about checking vs. raising here.

#2 the river call

thanks

(PS- don't tell me i'm passive. this was a wierd hand both for me and for the game. just examine the hand.)

Re: QQ in BB
 

Ok. Preflop I raise. There are only two hands this is a mistake about, and the action doesn't really look like they're out there.

River I raise. I am only beat by a few unlikely straights...

Re: QQ in BB
 

Sorry but I think this is pretty simple here.

Preflop, you have QQ, raise.

Flop. Is the SB the type of player who would call with 2/5 (a gutshot) here?

Turn, because you didnt raise preflop the range of hands that the SB could have include every 2 pair, straight draw, and made straight. You could rereraise but if you want a cheep showdown just call his raise. No problem here.


River. You put him on EXACTLY 5/7?? He would play 2 pair the exact same way and it is more likely that he has 2 pr than 5/7. You are definitely leaving money on the table by not reraising here (and you know it!) I hate the call.

-steve

Re: QQ in BB
 

I think you picked the two most uninteresting portions of this hand to want to discuss.

preflop- there are two kinds of people in this world ( no, not elvis people and beatles people), those who are from the kinda sklansky-esque school of mathematical pot equity who raise here, and those from the caro no one is gonna fold anyway lets take a look at a flop school. figure out which one your in and act accordingly. i dont think anything about this situation changes the outcome of this age old debate for you. While raising preflop might not have gotten the sb off 25, it will give you more ground to bitch and moan when he fists you, which is something most players seem to prefer to taking down the pot

River- raise. grow up. and if your thinking "doesnt he see i could get the overcall if im ahead, and avoid being 3 bet if im behind" dont worry, i get it. going for the overcall here is hella lame. hella. although its possible your definition of moderately tight differs from mine, in this game with this board top set looks pretty good

check raise the flop. 4 people to act after you, somebody has to bet at this ragged flop to try and take it. at these stakes odds are you have a highly reliable button man in this spot after all its extremely aggressive.

Re: QQ in BB
 

Not raising this preflop and thus immediately giving up 2.5 BB is criminal. If all you were going to do with your "trickery" is bet out on the flop, there's absolutely no excuse for not raising preflop.

Also, did you think about 3-betting the turn?

Frankly, I think every street in this hand was just butchered.

results/comments
 

thanks for replies. i wanted to know if there was any possible value to my passivity on this hand at all or if it was just flat-out wrong. your replies imply that boring value raises would've been better here, and i don't disagree.

my logic for the preflop call:
-my opponents are all very strong-aggressive postflop
-if i build the pot now, i am committing myself (relatively speaking) to what will likely be a tricky hand for me. i will face lots of aggression when i am beat, but i will face enough bluff-aggression when i am ahead to make folding borderline-wrong quite often when it appears to be right. in simplified terms- by raising, i am creating a situation that my opponents will excel at, relative to average players.
-if i check, i will keep the pot smaller-and hence make reading the hand or folding bad boards etc easier, but will still likely face strong aggression when i am ahead (maybe even MORE aggression from hands like top pair lower than king) which will allow me to trim the field and win medium to big pots more often than I should be able to post-flop. Basically, i am creating a situation that my opponents will perform worse at than average opponents.

my plan was to check raise a good flop...but, the flop was so GREAT that i decided i was better off building the pot (while at the same time giving myself a chance to eliminating lone overcards), than risking a check-through just to have the chance at trimming the field in a fairly small pot. i liked the bet-out because it gave me a fairly good chance to face something like a raise and and overcall from hands i am ahead of.

the math of river call was straightforward and uninteresting- my question to you was basically- am i ahead at least 75% of the time? i thought no. (57 was the first thing i thought after the turn check-raise) you indicated yes, and i have to say, looking back, that you are probably right.

SB showed 33 for a set and i won an semi-ugly big pot.

PS- i'd like to hear where you think I was probably wrong with my preflop logic

Re: results/comments
 

[ QUOTE ]

my logic for the preflop call:
-my opponents are all very strong-aggressive postflop
-if i build the pot now, i am committing myself (relatively speaking) to what will likely be a tricky hand for me. i will face lots of aggression when i am beat, but i will face enough bluff-aggression when i am ahead to make folding borderline-wrong quite often when it appears to be right. in simplified terms- by raising, i am creating a situation that my opponents will excel at, relative to average players.
-if i check, i will keep the pot smaller-and hence make reading the hand or folding bad boards etc easier, but will still likely face strong aggression when i am ahead (maybe even MORE aggression from hands like top pair lower than king) which will allow me to trim the field and win medium to big pots more often than I should be able to post-flop. Basically, i am creating a situation that my opponents will perform worse at than average opponents.


[/ QUOTE ]
This is weak-tight-I've-been-drawn-out-on-too-many-times-this-session logic. You have the best hand preflop. Guaranteed. Make them pay right now. After the flop, your strategy is very simple. You keep on betting and raising unless the board is really scary or someone is seriously playing back at you. You don't fold unless you're facing multiple bets cold on one of the expensive streets with a scary board. All of this should be second nature to you.

Re: results/comments
 

Isn't it possible he was trying to lure the player after him to call?

Re: results/comments
 

There is no reason to go for one overcall in this situtation. There would have to be two players to act behind that might overcall for this to be the correct play. Your 3 queens are good and the river better is going to call your river raise.

money was left on the table

Re: results/comments
 

[ QUOTE ]
am i ahead at least 75% of the time? i thought no.

[/ QUOTE ]

You don't need to be ahead 75% of time here. Just 60% to make your raise profitable. It's a simple equation.
2*x-(1-x)*3>0; 2x-3+3x>0; 5x-3>0; x>3/5; x>60%;

And this is not include cases when button cold calls. The reason just to call can be just to force button to call too and protect you call. But it's so obvious that he misses and he added so little EV to your call - so you must defenitely raise as you will be ahead here 90+% of time i quess. 57 is the only one hand that can beat you, but you forget all small sets, all catched on turn 2pairs which extremely often will go this way. As well you can add here some small % of tricky moves with hands like 5h8h or 5h6h or just simple 58o or 56o. Notice that nearly all of these hands are legitimate to complete on SB in such multyway pot. Ok, 58o is close.

I think you play this hand very bad. Though we all play very bad sometimes [img]/images/graemlins/smirk.gif[/img]