KQ vs UTG in 3bet-Pot

3betting seems already a loose move here against a random player on NL2. I would normal just call and her-evaluate the flop. As played I would defiantly value bet the turn with top pair. Off course you represent at least top pair, but most villains on NL2 don’t think in ranges and he can still call with some pairs here. The river seems fine as played. If you raise you overplaying you hand and then you get only action of 2 pair+ hands.

Cheers,
SDK1987

Ok thanks, yeah maybe it isn't a 3bet, especially vs UTG; but since I try to establish some GTO'ish ranges I do 3bet KQ sometimes. Since I know this is more or less a clear bluff 3bet I am not willing to play for big pots with this, unless I hit some very good boards. Would be nice to know if I'm plus or minus with this hand, is there any tool that doesn't cost anything and collect my handhistory to show with which hands I'm winner and with which hands I'm loser so far? PT4 and HM2 I cannot use, because I already tested the trial. Maybe CREV, right? I will do a search, later on. But I guess it isn't the most important "leak" in my gameplay.

But back to the spot: do you say, you would have bet turn AND river? Or just the turn and x/c or maybe even x/f river?

Not sure how is at NL2, but at higher limits it's definitelly a 3bet. People are calling with alot of worse hands and are capable of 4bet bluffing. I don't think it should be a mistake to 3bet this hand at NL2 too. I would definitelly c-bet the flop. He could have JJ-99 and we don't want to see K, J and a club OTT because either it could help his range or it could kill the action. As played, K is not good for us, ofcourse, so we can check back with a stable showdown value (we have to call then some rivers if he bets, I believe), but I think we can still bet like half a pot for thin value / protection. As played, we probably have to call the river. I would personally bet flop 1/2, bet turn 1/3 - 1/2 and check back river.

I guess you try to balance your ranges with betting twice in this particular spot? But yeah, I can understand this - we both set villain on a pretty similar and narrow range here, so I can see why we want to bet twice, for maximizing fold equity. You need some balls for this line, I guess

At 2NL I would 3bet for sure.
Isolate your opponent.
If you call pre you either get a squeeze or end up in a multi way pot.
I would c-bet flop when villain checks and see from there.

Without seeing the spoiler. Looks like a bluff

Seeing spoiler. Ah.. thin value bet

Originally posted by Alleen86
Not sure how is at NL2, but at higher limits it's definitelly a 3bet. People are calling with alot of worse hands and are capable of 4bet bluffing. I don't think it should be a mistake to 3bet this hand at NL2 too. I would definitelly c-bet the flop. He could have JJ-99 and we don't want to see K, J and a club OTT because either it could help his range or it could kill the action. As played, K is not good for us, ofcourse, so we can check back with a stable showdown value (we have to call then some rivers if he bets, I believe), but I think we can still bet like half a pot for thin value / protection. As played, we probably have to call the river. I would personally bet flop 1/2, bet turn 1/3 - 1/2 and check back river.

I dont agree that KQo is at higher limit definitely 3bet especially CO against UTG. I would more prefer AQo and A5s,A4s. Because UTG range is still very tight. And you will be often dominated by AQ,AK and QQ. But if you have +EV with 3bet KQo in this spot then its absolutely fine.
OTF: We havent enough fold equity to profitable cbet here and we can often get a raise. I think we should play the simplest as possible. This flop hits his range more than us. So I dont see many reasons to cbet flop.
OTT: I would bet twice for thin value from 2rd,3rd pairs.
OTR: Snap call, we cant raise or fold here

Cool, that's a clear and easy to understand way to go. I like this point of view. So 1 more value bet.

Which betsizes would you choose here? 50-60%? Or even smaller?

OTT you can use bigger sizing sth like 70-75% because of draws
OTR 33-40% (at NL2 can be also bigger, for example half pot) would be fine for thin value from 8x hands and also from 99-QQ and sometimes from busted Ax flashdraws.

Sorry, I totally missread the hand, I somehow thought we had QQ. Please ignore my previous post.

With KQo, I would sometimes just fold CO vs UTG and sometimes 3bet as a bluff.

Then I expect it will depends per player what you would do, but that kind of information we miss here.

I agree with a 3bet preflop. It is in my default range so against an unknown or a regular, I would 3bet as a bluff. Checking flop is fine by me. I personally have better hands in my range to Cbet with. Here you have just a weak backdoor flush draw and K high. I dont think there is much in his range you can force to fold on the flop. OTT some of his range hits but you and the T card block a lot of KK and AK combos. If we put him on TT+ and AK, you have 52% equity on the turn. And I think that the range of most players on NL2 might be even wider but even against the tightest range you are still ahead. So my plan would be to bet T 1/2 pot and xback river. I think his whole range will call one bet. Reason being that you will set the price yourself and will not face a difficult decision on the river if he bets big. After betting OTT I check river or fold to a donk or turn raise.

River raise is and overplay imho and turning your top pair into a bluff.

I don‘t like to 3bet pre, because you have to fold vs 4bet regardless of sizing.

So flatting is just fine.

Rest of hand is played fine

@Talisker74: what do you mean that you dont like 3 bet because you have to fold to 4bet? That seems like you dont have any 3bet bluff range and you 3bet only for value with a plan to go allin.

Thanks for the kind words and many thoroughly thought and different answers!

@Talisker: I am not sure what kind of 4bet range you have - and you shouldn't mention it here I guess - but on NL2 there are hardly any players who have a 4bet range-gameplan; that means, only a few players have bluff 4bets, so I guess bluff 3bets work fine. KQ blocks the value 4bet range so it is pretty sure a profitable 3bet preflop.

edit: hmm ok I don't want to be incorrect - maybe KQ doesn't block UTG's VALUE 4bet-range, I'm not sure if you can call Queens a value 4bet, for instance; Kings anyhow could be very well a value 4bet. I guess it somehow depends on the limit and population.

I would 3bet here. For me it is quite standard. You don't have to do that if you feel uncomfortable, but it should be just fine to 3bet. In the end, whether you do 3bet or not doesn't make that big of a difference. I don't see it as a problem that we would have to fold vs 4bets. 4bets at NL2 are super often just QQ+,AK so we can easily fold exploitatively. I rarely see 4bet bluffs at this limit. And yea of course we do block UTG's value 4bet range with KQo. Our hand reduces 30% of the all possible QQ+,AK combos.

OTF I don't necessarily see the point in cbetting with just 2 overcards and a non nutted BDFD. It could be fine in some cases but now we are playing with narrow ranges and I assume we don't have that much FE against UTG here.
OTT I would probably bet to get value from some pocket pairs and possible draws. And the plan would be most often to check behind OTR. So the bet OTT would be kinda value/protection and when we do bet, we often prevent villain from firing a big bluff OTR.
As played I would call the river. Raising would be overplay.

Originally posted by clovenhoofsdoom
Thanks for the kind words and many thoroughly thought and different answers!

@Talisker: I am not sure what kind of 4bet range you have - and you shouldn't mention it here I guess - but on NL2 there are hardly any players who have a 4bet range-gameplan; that means, only a few players have bluff 4bets, so I guess bluff 3bets work fine. KQ blocks the value 4bet range so it is pretty sure a profitable 3bet preflop.

edit: hmm ok I don't want to be incorrect - maybe KQ doesn't block UTG's VALUE 4bet-range, I'm not sure if you can call Queens a value 4bet, for instance; Kings anyhow could be very well a value 4bet. I guess it somehow depends on the limit and population.

I just meant that hand is to weak to call a 4bet isn’t it?
You are blocking some of his value combos (AK AQ Kk and QQ)
But not AA or A2-A5s which some REgs Bluff 4bet

@Talisker. Yeah KQo is too weak to call a 4bet. But it is good enough to use it for a 3bet bluff. Exactly because you block significant number of villains value combos and you expect it to be a +EV move right away. If he 4bets you can easily fold because on micros 4bets are super often just value (as la55i said above).