QQ in Big Blind

everyone is saying shove, which I tend to lean toward also, but your own read on the CO suggests he is a tight solid player. range of hands then would be, AA-JJ, AK, AQ. I think, due to the size of the raise as pointed out by Frankster (not necessarily too HUGE of a raise,but big enough where AA or KK would possibly scare action away), i would put him on AK and push.

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The raise looks too big for me to be AA or KK

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The raise is a perfectly standard pot-sized raise. And it reveals absolutely nothing about this player's holding. He has something as he doesn't steal with trash hands.

People seem to be advocating a push !
Why would you overbet the pot and push in 5200 to win 1000 ?
This hand was discussed at length later, and the only options considered were to either call or raise a pot-sized amount.

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Because reraising pot commits you where your only remaining bet after the flop is all-in. You're most likely ahead here. When you're in that position and likely to be a favorite you're best to just push it in and put villain to the tough choice. QQ isn't a hand I like to play too slowly before the flop since flopped overcards can make you put the breaks on, incorrectly in many cases and you're allowing AK to escape with chips on a flop that misses him.

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Because reraising pot commits you

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I don’t think reraising pot-commits you.
Suppose you make it 2000. You then have 3350 left which is still about half the average stack. If your opponent chooses to reraise all-in (which would be a courageous raise without AA, KK or AK), then you have a decision to make. But you can still get away from the hand if you wish.
Whether you raise to 2000 or push, your opponent will probably fold all hands less than QQ. So you win the same amount of chips either way.

If you push, then you are just hoping that your opponent does not have AA or KK. You have left yourself no escape route.

You mention that your only remaining bet after the flop is all-in. That is certainly the case IF your 2000 bet is called, AND you choose to bet. But maybe your opponent will fold to your raise pre-flop, or maybe he will reraise all-in. Needless to say, I think a push in this position is a poor play.

I should have mentioned that this was a live tournament, so the play is not as wild as it would be playing on the net.

By the way, the big discussion afterwards was about the BB’s pre-flop play. He just called the CO’s raise. Some people said it was ok to do that. I said he should have raised 2000 or so.

[schwza]

i don't think you want to let the CO off that easy. i'd make it 1700.

At last, something other than a push recommended.
This hand was played by a friend of mine who is quite a good player.
He choose to call.
What do you think of that ?

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I don’t think reraising pot-commits you.
Suppose you make it 2000. You then have 3350 left which is still about half the average stack. If your opponent chooses to reraise all-in (which would be a courageous raise without AA, KK or AK), then you have a decision to make. But you can still get away from the hand if you wish.

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Why would you want to give villain the opportunity to put you to a tough decision like this? You have a premium hand that's only dominated by 2 other hands and a favorite against every other holding. If he does push preflop you're now being given great odds to call and the only hands you could justify a fold against are exactly AA and KK. Unless you are fairly certain he has one of those hands I think you're making the wrong move by just re-raising here.

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Whether you raise to 2000 or push, your opponent will probably fold all hands less than QQ. So you win the same amount of chips either way.

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A raise to 2000 only makes it 1350 more for him to call into a pot of 2875. With 2:1 odds he has proper odds to call with a lot of holdings.

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If you push, then you are just hoping that your opponent does not have AA or KK. You have left yourself no escape route.

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Or you've left him an escape route where you could have gotten him to commit nearly his whole stack and lose it to you.

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You mention that your only remaining bet after the flop is all-in. That is certainly the case IF your 2000 bet is called, AND you choose to bet. But maybe your opponent will fold to your raise pre-flop, or maybe he will reraise all-in. Needless to say, I think a push in this position is a poor play.

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I already said he has 2:1 odds to call, so it's not all that likely he's going to fold here for a measly 1350.

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I should have mentioned that this was a live tournament, so the play is not as wild as it would be playing on the net.

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I play plenty of live MTTs and there are tons of donkeys and retirees in them. I don't find a huge difference. If anything, people push harder in live games because you don't have as many hands dealt in the same timeframe and smaller live MTT structures usually push action with fast rising blinds.

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By the way, the big discussion afterwards was about the BB’s pre-flop play. He just called the CO’s raise. Some people said it was ok to do that. I said he should have raised 2000 or so.

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Yeah you could alternate between calling and re-raising here. I don't like to play Queens too slowly before the flop but some players would opt for this line and hope for a low ragged flop and let the villain lead out the flop, then apply the pressure.

Since you're in the blinds and you know you'll be first to act after the flop, another option here is a stop-n-go where you just smooth call and expect to jam any flop. This play has a much higher variance to it, but will win you the pot in a lot of cases.

I still like my default play of pushing over all other choices. A good player should definitely vary their play somewhat between all of these options so he isn't too predictable.

[schwza]

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At last, something other than a push recommended.
This hand was played by a friend of mine who is quite a good player.
He choose to call.
What do you think of that ?

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i don't hate it, but i prefer a raise. i think that it's going to be hard to get more than one bet out of villain if he does not flop a pair, and you're going to be hating life if an A/K flops.

[JC_Saves]

(blind response)

This is a situation where you should just call with your QQ. I think too many people are too aggressive with this hand and get run over by AA, KK.

What if you go all-in and the limper insta-calls with his AA, or KK or the original raiser for that matter. There is no reason to go crazy with this hand.

Call and hope that the limper folds and you get to see the flop cheap. What would you do on a flop of AK rag? You certainly would throw your hand away to a big bet so why go all in pre-flop to someone that can bust you.

[ZootMurph]

First, let me say I'm usually against seemingly useless allins. In this case, you are pushing 5k chips to win 875. Seems unreasonable to me. I personally prefer to outplay my opponents on the flop, where possible. It is possible and even likely here.

So, in this situation sometimes I call and sometimes I raise. I call sometimes because I am hoping to get more chips from him on a good flop for both of us. What can be better than seeing a J73 flop with him holding AJ? If you push all in, he probably will call only with a hand that beats yours or is a coin toss, with an ocassional call with a smaller pocket pair. Do you really want to fold out hands that you can make more money off of?

In this case, however, I'd make a raise. I'd make it a small raise, to 1500. If he's trying to buy here, he folds and would probably have folded most flops anyway. If he calls, the pot will be big enough for you to push on anything and take down that additional 850 from him. If he calls, you are ahead often enough that it more than pays. The difference is you may not have gotten all his money in with a preflop allin, where as now you gave him odds to call preflop and made the pot big enough to almost force him to call with any decent hand on the flop allin, improving your chances of getting most of his stack.

By the way, if the flop is REALLY unfavorable for you, you still have enough chips left in your stack to get away from the hand. Although, even if the flop is K63r, I'd think you still need to push here. If the flop is AK6, then I'd feel good about letting it go and being able to continue playing in the tournament.

I agree.
However I hate it more than you because an A or K is going to flop over 40% of the time. What are you going to do then, check fold ?
And as you say, the times where you have an overpair, you will be doing well to get any more money from the villain.
I don’t get QQ too often, and when I do, I try and make some money from it.

What do you think of the people who advocate a push pre-flop ( see CybrPunk’s posts) ?

By the way, the flop came JJ7.
Check - check.
Turn 6.
BB bet 1000, CO raised 2000 more.
BB raised all-in. CO called.
River was a K.
CO had AJ.