[W. Deranged]

Eric,

Your point is a very good one in my opinion. I really don't think there is any reason QQ has to bet here.

BUT!

If he doesn't bet, I think he really needs to do something more before he can fold. If villain bets here with QQ, and gets called or raised, then he's at least done enough to define his and his opponent's hand to fold.

If he checks, though, our hero is going to bet a ton of hands here. Checking and letting him bet doesn't tell us anything about his hand, and folding is much more dangerous.

One particular reason that checking is dangerous is that a lot of the hands a decent, 2+2-type player might consider cold-calling with here are hands that miss that flop: hands like QJs, 88, and so forth. We don't like cold-calling hands with big unsuited cards; most any hand we'd want to play with an A here (excepting maybe like AJs or AQs) we'd be three-betting. KQs and KJs might be in play, but they certainly don't make up a majority of hero's range. (Hero's range I think is like {55-99, JTs-KQs, KJs-AQs, AJs} or something like that).

So the important consideration for villain is to play his hand in a consistent way: if he's going to check the flop, he can't give up on the hand so easily.


My personally preferred way to play villain's hand would be to bet the flop, call a raise (a raise might be from a draw which will check behind the turn). On the turn I'd either bet-fold or check-call the turn and check-fold the river.