[Closed] NL2 - QQ x 10

Hi,

All those hands are QQ hands, but they're not really related in the sense that all villains are different, there are no image considerations or any history between you, so they're better off being posted 1 per thread even if you end up with 10 threads of QQ. Also it's really depressing for everyone to open up a thread and see 10 hands, so you're less likely to get feedback.

As for the hands:

#1

Kinda ugly, mostly because he's likely bad enough to fail at hand-reading and raise JT there whereas he looks too passive to take that line with just AJ. With a bunch of 6x hands in the mix as well I think it's closer to a fold, but when it really does feel like JT and/or it's possible villain overplays Jx I'll just shove.

#2

I'd love to know if this 3x raise over the limper is standard for him, because if it's not, small isolation raise + small 4-bet looks a lot stronger than normal isolation raise + small 4-bet.

I think it's an easy 3bet/jam at nl20+ and maybe at nl10 these days against a normal isoraise, here it might still be better to fold it at nl2 if you haven't seen CO be aggressive at all preflop.

#3

I'm definitely betting the river since villain's most likely hand for calling flop/turn is Jx and he'll call a river bet as well even with the K overcard out there.

When he jams on us however I don't really think he's ever kidding unless he's really spastic. If looks like we have QJ+ and villain can't really get to the river with hands that need to bluff over our bet. The only way we're ahead is if he's bad enough to turn something like 7x/JT into a bluff-raise unknowingly (possible but unlikely people mostly call or fold with those), or good enough to do it knowingly (extremely unlikely at microstakes).

So I'd fold regardless of us getting good pot odds. Pot odds are worthless on their own, they're only useful when compared to villain's range, and here I just don't think we're ahead enough to warrant calling.

#4

I'm more the type to give credit to people cold4betting with a decent sizing when I don't know much about them. If they were aggro enough to do that with wide ranges, I'd probably know it already. If he's not out of line, we're up against AK/QQ+ at best, with a big emphasis on the KK+ part. So mostly I'm just folding until I know better, gambling 100bb on the fact that some unknown might be crazy in a spot where he showed extreme strength just isn't how I approach the game.

#5

No idea. It's always the same deal, you might be ahead sometimes and you're getting a good price, but you have no idea what villain is doing and you're out of position. So either you call and check/guess later streets with no reads whatsoever, or you cut your losses right there. Either way it sucks but that's how it is, pick your poison.

#6

Certainly a viable option. When he raises you really don't have a choice unless you think he's capable of bluffing there with stuff like AJ, which is pretty unlikely considering it's a committing raise and most people would just call. Even if he's actually semibluffing, he still has like 5 outs against your hand for 20% equity, whereas if you're behind you're 2-outing, so overall I just don't think he's bluffing enough to make up for the times he'll simply show you exactly what he's representing.

If you know villain a little better, mostly you know what you expect him to do with stuff like AQ/AJ/JJ on one hand and TT/AK/KK+ on the other hand when you check the flop, you can actually check it to him.

#7

Usually I'll either 3bet way smaller to like $0.32 and fold to a 4bet, or just call and make sure I get to play the pot in position.

As played you're probably getting close to the right odds to call it off if he's ever doing that with worse than KK+.

#8

I'd bet the turn and call it off without reads since he could have TT-JJ.

As played on the river it's a bit gross, against most tags it's just a fold. If villain is insane enough to just pot stuff like 9x/TT-JJ there for no reason you can call but you should be read to get shown a floated AQ/AK or a set quite often.

#9

Again without reads on SB when he makes a huge squeeze and he doesn't even have a full stack, it's usually way more likely he just picked up a huge hand and it's usually not worth committing the remaining 96bb of our stack to make sure he's telling truth.

#10

I'll usually raise bigger on the flop because I just don't think he's bet/folding any made hand that I want to get more value. That said it wouldn't have changed much on that particular turn card, we all know what he has and there is nothing to do except folding. Just take pride in the fact that you can play turns perfectly against him and be happy you folded a hand that was drawing dead, next time he won't turn a straight.

In general I'll say two things:

- first, QQ is in my opinion way overplayed at microstakes against fullstacked unknowns. Regs don't go broke nearly as wide there as they do at like nl25/50 and they make up half the player pool. The other half is like, split between 80% of loose passive dudes and 20% of aggro monkeys, with the monkeys being quite easy to spot after only a few orbits. So if you don't yet know he's a monkey, chances are he's not, and these are the only players you can comfortably felt QQ against.

- second, poker is all about adapting to your opponents. If we say you should go broke with QQ, because overall that's the way poker is played across the globe, it doesn't mean it would be optimal for your particular poker environment. Maybe people on your poker site are particularly nitty, or maybe they're all insane. Only you know. So if you realize after analysis that you're losing money with QQ the way you're playing it, just change your game plan for that hand!

Hope it helps.

Thanks MaestroOfZerg!

It's really helpful, and I'll split the hands up the next time I do something like this.