General QQ question

[Kaz The Original]

Against players that always 3 bet AA or KK is it best to reraise QQ?

[zaxx19]

A question I would have for you is how much data do you have on said player to know they always 3 bet KK and AA?

Play with KK and AA can be very situational and idiosyncratic....at least my play can be.

[NoWorry]

Perhaps I am misunderstanding the question, because key information is not included: i.e. how do they bet other opening hands? I am assuming that they always open for a 3 bet including AA and KK.

If that is the case, I think you have to reraise with QQ for 3 reasons.

First, the probability of them having AA or KK is tiny compared to all the other hands they could have opened with and by not reraising, you are giving up your edge against all those hands.

Second, if you don't reraise, you do not define your hand and you will have no idea where you stand after the flop.

I think the heart of this question is whether there is a way to get away from taking a beat when your QQ goes up against an AA or KK, and I believe the answer is no in most cases. At least not without giving up a substantial amount of the huge profits QQ will give you in the long run.

[soah]

Defining your hand with lots of money behind shouldn't be something that you are TRYING to do.

[NoWorry]

So the alternative is...?

[Kaz The Original]

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So the alternative is...?

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Defining your hand is never good because it allows your opponents to make fewer mistakes. You want to define their hands.

[NoWorry]

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So the alternative is...?

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Defining your hand is never good because it allows your opponents to make fewer mistakes. You want to define their hands.

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Like Soah, you are picking on just a portion of my response and getting side-tracked from the central question. Okay, you both do not want to define your hand in this situation. (I disagree, because against this player I want to know where I stand before I shove in a lot more chips. And me defining my hand forces him to then respond which defines his hand further.)

However, returning to the central question here, there is no situation in which I would just call with QQ because I can't think of a way to make this profitable in the long run. This approach will minimize my wins when my opponent does not have AA or KK (which will be most of the time). And I will lose far more when he does and I get a raggedy flop and believe my QQ is best.

Besides, I don't play too many players who WON'T just 3-bet an AA or KK. So QQ then becomes a relatively worthless hand for me against any 3-bet. But if I re-raise with it, I force my opponent to then define his hand in response.

Two other important observations here:

1. AA and KK are different hands for my opponent and when he has KK and I re-raise, he has to worry about me having AA which slows him down a bit.

2. Even in the worst case scenario, QQ is still around 18% to win against the higher pair. [I know, because it beat my AA yesterday for a $450 pot [img]/images/graemlins/mad.gif[/img] ]

[AncientPC]

If you do this with other hands beside QQ, yes.

If you don't, no.

I will reraise pre-flop from AK - AJ, AA - 88, even looser in blinds, but it really depends on who's raising to begin with. Against tight players I wouldn't do it with every hand in the above category, but I will steal from them a lot. Just reraise pre-flop and auto-bet the flop. They're so tight-weak and will fold their pockets that tried to hit a set.

[soah]

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This approach will minimize my wins when my opponent does not have AA or KK (which will be most of the time).

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And making your opponent fold preflop is supposed to maximize your wins somehow?

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And I will lose far more when he does and I get a raggedy flop and believe my QQ is best.

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You're going to lose LESS by putting MORE money in preflop??

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Besides, I don't play too many players who WON'T just 3-bet an AA or KK.

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I bet I can find plenty of them.

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So QQ then becomes a relatively worthless hand for me against any 3-bet. But if I re-raise with it, I force my opponent to then define his hand in response.

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So by this plan, you put lots of money preflop, and never even give yourself a chance to see a good flop.

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1. AA and KK are different hands for my opponent and when he has KK and I re-raise, he has to worry about me having AA which slows him down a bit.

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You just told us 10 seconds ago that there aren't many players who aren't threebetting you with KK.

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Even in the worst case scenario, QQ is still around 18% to win against the higher pair. [I know, because it beat my AA yesterday for a $450 pot [img]/images/graemlins/mad.gif[/img] ]

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If you get blown off your hand preflop then your chances of winning are zero.

[NoWorry]

Beginning to sound like an argument instead of a discussion. Let's agree to disagree?