QQ in oversized pot, your move on the flop?

[HighStakesPro]

You have have two clear-cut choices here: smooth call, or all in. Or, you can get cute and raise it to 500, and putting the remaining 450 in no matter what the turn is, in the hope that a poor player would call the 500 with a hand that they would throw away in the face of your full 950 (I've seen it happen, though mostly in tournaments.) Either way, you'll end up all in. Even if the turn is something like the K [img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img].

Let's examine the all-in move. You should get called by T [img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img]T [img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img], 8 [img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img]8 [img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img],4 [img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img]4 [img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img], 5 [img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img]4 [img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img], and A [img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img]X [img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img], or any type of straight flush draw, gutshot or open-ender. These hands either dominate you or are beteen 45-55% (approximate coinflip) against you. The size of the pot dictates that they should call. You might get a call out of pocket jacks or a fish who can't fold top pair, but most good players will fold top pair unless it's AT, but even then if they're confident that your actions strongly suggest an overpair, they could very well fold, having only invested $50. Jacks are tougher to fold, but good players will deduce that your raise means either AK/Q diamonds, in which case they're slight underdogs, or a higher pair/set, in which case they're huge dogs. If there were only one or two other players, making a $200-300 raise here might be good, or just going all in, but because there are so many players I think that the other choice, which is counterintuitive, might be best.

By smooth-calling, nobody will ever guess that you have an overpair. The most logical hands to put you on are overcards or a flush draw. If anybody has a ten or pocket jacks, the action and the size of the pot will often induce them to protect their holding with a large raise, effectively doing your job for you since they have an inferior hand. If there is VERY heavy action behind you, for instance, a big raise and a cold-call or a reraise all in, your smooth call looks even better because you are almost certainly against top two pair or a set and can fold relatively cheaply. But against only one raiser, you have an ideal situation where you can just reraise all in and force him to call with his two-to-five-outer. If the person who raised has a set, there's not a whole lot you can do about it, and the outcome would have been the same had you gone all in on the flop initially, except that there might be slightly more money in the pot from any overcalls between you and him.

Now let's suppose two of the remaining five players call behind you. They are most likely on straight or flush draws, or have a ten in their hand. Anybody with a set should have raised with all of that money in the pot and all of those draws out there, because the draws don't get the right price to call agaist them. If the turn is a ten or a diamond (except the Q [img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img], in which case you check and hope that if somebody bets you're getting at least 4 to 1 to fill up on the river), you're done with the hand, obviously, and you might have saved a lot of money against a flush draw or a ten who may have called you're all in on the flop.If the turn is a brick (8,6,5,4,3,2), you move in. If an A,K,J,9,7 comes, check and call any small bets, and if everyone calls a small bet, you'll need a complete brick to hit on the river to call any decent sized bet, but if just one person calls, your chances are better. If one of these cards hits on the turn and there's heavy action behind you, get out, somebody has a set, straight, or two pair, and you still have most of your stack left. If the Q [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] comes, and the UTG bets, you're all in. If he checks, you can move all in anyway, or go for the checkraise all in, since there are three people behind you and you do have about a 20-25% chance to improve if somebody hit a straight, plus there's a good chance that somebody will bet with a lower set or an otherwise inferior hand like pair + draw.

Hope this insight helped, I'm not an especially experienced no limit cash game player, but the smooth call seems like a decent idea to me because there are so many draws and so many players that in many cases they're getting the right odds to call with a draw, you could be beaten already, and your hand will be easier to read if you must move all in.

Remember what happened during this hand in the future: if that many players are willing to call a 5xBB preflop raise, then make your raises larger to build a bigger pot if they still insist on calling.