Please help me with this QQ hand

[wslee00]

I think the consensus is that you DON'T get away from this hand. c/r all-in on the turn and hope for the best

[Laomedon]

In this particular instance I advocated getting Hero's money on the turn because I thought it was unlikely that the Villain was holding the few hands that the Hero was behind.

I certainly agree that a minraise by no means universally indicates strength, however, as you mentioned there are absolutely instances in which a minraise is used to induce a reraise. Does this mean that in every instance that one encounters a minraise it indicates strenght and that they should automatically fold, no.

At the same time, in situations such as this one, it could very well be a situation where Villain hit his trips and is hoping to induce a reraise from the Hero. It could also mean that the Villain has 1010 or even AK or something and is simply trying to move the Hero off the hand while expending the least amount of $$$.

In any case, what I meant to say originally is that it is obviously ENTIRELY read dependent, just as you cannot assume strength from a minraise every time, you also cannot assume weakness everytime, it is conditional on the particular situation.

[ajmargarine]

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With this flop, you should be prepared to get your whole stack in, sooner rather than later. Reraise him to about $25, and push the rest on the turn if he calls you.


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Reraise $25 would be kind of silly considering he had a stack of ~$40 going into the hand. I think either push his minraise or call and get it in on the turn either by betting out or c/r raising all-in.

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If he makes it $25 to go, Hero still has $17.45 behind. It's a balancing act. He might fold which is sorta OK. He may call or push, which is really OK. But, a push here by hero may intimidate villian so much he folds, whereas he would have called the smaller reraise. That's what you don't want. You're going all in, just doing it in stage 1 and stage 2. After all, how many times have you seen a villian call the reraise and then fold when you push on the turn? Too many times to count at this level.

[Laomedon]

From the tone in your posts it sounds like you lost this hand... As I mentioned in my most recent reply, you have to have a dead-on read to find a fold in this hand because Villain's flop raise could mean so many different hands, many of which you are way ahead of. I don't think you can fold here, it's too bad it didn't work out.

[NickPoker]

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I used to play this type of hand that way you played it. But now I don't. I no longer like to re-raise QQ OOP because then it is very hard to control the size of the pot. You end up having a marginal hand, but having to come out blasting on the flop into a pot which was already bloated preflop. And you really don't want to get 3-bet preflop, but some people will also trap with AA/KK preflop so you can't feel too confident when you don't get 3-bet. So I just call, c/c flop, c/c turn, bet river if he checked turn, usually. Or else just call all three streets if he bets the turn. Or sometimes bet river after calling turn. Depends on board, opponent, stacks, etc. But I prefer to try to control the size of the pot, starting with preflop, when I'm in this spot with QQ/JJ these days and think it is much better.

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I like this line, except I would consider check raising a non A or K flop.

[Laomedon]

Why wouldn't a flop call followed by a c/r on the turn be +EV when compared with a reraise on the flop that pot commits you and will serve to fold out most hands that you beat anyway?

It would seem that $25 is almost equivalent to a push in terms of intended effect.

[NickPoker]

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At the same time, I would think Villain's minraise indicates considerable strength......

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If you purge this from your poker mind, your profits will increase. A miniraise is 2x your bet. Considerable strength is shown when you are raised 2.5x or 3x your bet. That is when you should be really concerned.

At these levels, the miniraise can be used:

--because the miniraiser doesn't believe you have a hand, and is using the minimal amount of money he can to try and push you off yours.
--because the miniraiser has TPGK and thinks that that is better than the junk that all the other fish at the table are playing, and forgets that you aren't a fish.
--because he is trying to get information from you. Are you making a continuation bet, or are you bluffing like all the other donkeys at the table? Miniraising is his default action to get info from you.
--because he is a fish
--because he is a donkey.
--because he is a maniac.

and last but not least:

--because he has a monster hand and is showing considerable strength.

I'm sure there are a few more that others can add; but, if miniraisers scare you and make you shut down and/or fold too much, that is -EV.

When good players miniraise, it's a cause for hesitation because they may be taking advantage of this miniraising epidemic at our levels, to get more money in the pot, when they have the best of it. I dislike miniraising, but do it from time to time when I want that automatic call that usually comes. When the bad to OK players miniraise, fear not.

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I agree with you to a point, but I think more and more people are miniraising monsters. I have found that in a lot of the games I have played recently my opponents are more scared of a miniraise than a bigger raise. I personally don't miniraise often, when I do it is one of 3 things: monster or I don't believe you or on a occassion a 3rd which is just to slow you down if I think I am best, but not real confident. To re-state though, as of late mini-raises I have ran into have meant monsters better than half the time.

[ajmargarine]

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It would seem that $25 is almost equivalent to a push in terms of intended effect.

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From our perspective yes, it's as if we are pushing, because we know we are getting all in on the turn. SS villians aren't always aware of this, and would rather fold than showdown a weak all in hand, so they may call on the flop, and then fold the turn if they didn't improve.

As far as EV for the flop reraise. Our intention is to get all of our stack in the middle and to have him come along for the ride. Any type of big raise out of proportion to the pot size may scare him into folding. If we get all in 1/2 our stack on the flop, 1/2 on the turn, we are much more apt to be called for both bets, and sometimes just for the first bet and the fold to the 2nd, which is really good for us.

[TheWorstPlayer]

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I used to play this type of hand that way you played it. But now I don't. I no longer like to re-raise QQ OOP because then it is very hard to control the size of the pot. You end up having a marginal hand, but having to come out blasting on the flop into a pot which was already bloated preflop. And you really don't want to get 3-bet preflop, but some people will also trap with AA/KK preflop so you can't feel too confident when you don't get 3-bet. So I just call, c/c flop, c/c turn, bet river if he checked turn, usually. Or else just call all three streets if he bets the turn. Or sometimes bet river after calling turn. Depends on board, opponent, stacks, etc. But I prefer to try to control the size of the pot, starting with preflop, when I'm in this spot with QQ/JJ these days and think it is much better.

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I like this line, except I would consider check raising a non A or K flop.

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That defeats the purpose of not re-raising preflop. You are WA/WB. What possible gain can you get from a flop c/r? Protecting against what is at worst case a 6 outer and much more likely to be a 2 or 3 outer? Any further turn betting you get from JJ/TT by just c/c on the flop more than compensates for that. As well as saving money when you are actually behind AA/KK by not c/r the flop. The whole point of my line preflop is pot control. C/r is completely counter to what we are trying to accomplish.

[ajmargarine]

If you see the miniraise on the turn or river, yes, chances are greater you are up against a monster hand trying to get as much $ from you as he can.

But, the flop miniraise (I guess I didn't say that in my miniraise manifesto [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] )....the miniraise on the flop, usually means all those things I said. 22 or 6x should call behind and then pop you on the turn or river. Hero's read was no AA or KK. So, he was probably just trying to scare Hero. (which seemed to work by the way [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img] )