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Queens with an ace on the flop facing a lead, no limit cash
Game type: 5/10 NL Cash on Poker Stars
Your image: Tight and aggressive.
Opponent’s image: Steady winner
Your hand: Q♥Q♦
This hand took place between Bill “billyjex” Vosti and a 5/10 NL Cash winning regular on Poker Stars. Bill is the author of of Skilled Online Poker’s “How to Beat No-Limit Hold ‘Em 6-max Cash Games” e-book.
The setup: The game is 6-handed and has you, a solid TAG, and four other winning aggressive players and one big fish. Unfortunately, the big fish folds the hand, leaving you heads-up against the BB, who is a tight, yet aggressive player capable of making moves. He knows you are a good, aggressive player who likes to open-raise when folded to you.
In this hand, you open-raise QQ under-the-gun + 1 to $40, and the BB 3-bets you to $120. You call the 3-bet.
The flop has an ugly ace on it:
4♠A♠3♣
Your opponent bets $180. What’s your play?
Loading …2.28.08 / 12am
I’m afraid the staff opinion is a little “result-oriented”. Very often the BB will show an ace and put 180$ just to hope he’ll check on the turn and not outdraw us in the next cards sounds a little silly to me. If I had to put another 180$ in the pot it was better to re-reraise before the flop. Now it’s time to fold and live another day.
2.28.08 / 3am
mmmm - is the BB’s play the reason he is the smallest stack at the table ?
2.28.08 / 4am
I like the raise, his 3bet range basically includes any A, and our raise gets him worried about a bad kicker. If he repops again, we can let the hand go easily.
2.28.08 / 5am
why no 4bet preflop ?
2.28.08 / 5am
How many chips will we have left when we let the hand go easily after we have re-raised post-flop ?
If an nothing is going to put us off post flop (if not an Ace, what ?) why aren’t we moving in pre-flop
2.28.08 / 6am
I kinda agree with piquetb, the preflop flat call is to continue if the flop is favourable right? If he feels that your range is wide and he’ll do this with AQ, AJ, AT why would we wanna let him catch up. calling isn’t necessarily bad but I think the preflop 4-bet is better
2.28.08 / 8am
with a 1bet open you are doomed to get re-raised and that extends his range even further, circumstance dictates you fold because you didnt setup the bets properly. Its tough for you to rep the ace with a 1bet. Plus 180 on 245 appears to be closing draws.
2.28.08 / 4pm
As played, calling the $180 on the flop was a good play. But like the other posters, I feel a 4-bet pre-flop is the best play. If you think he has a wide range, make him call a 4-bet with a hand inferior to yours. By doing that you find out where hes really at.
2.28.08 / 10pm
I also would have 4-bet the flop. Given the current situation, I call and hope to show down cheaply.
2.29.08 / 11pm
Hey Guys,
4-betting preflop is fine (it might be confusing but BB had $1,000 or so to start the hand) but given the dynamic of these games, I don’t 4-bet very much and 4-betting gives away the strength of my hand and these players will very easily get away from every hand except their very best.
By just calling, I am trapping my opponent and keeping in some worse hands of his that can give me action. I am underrepresenting my hand, as I will often call here with hands worse than QQ, so that my opponent can never say “He never has QQ, KK or AA to call here.”
I often will just call KK and AA to the 3-bet in this spot as well.
3.18.08 / 5am
I agree with Bill 
3.19.08 / 8pm
Go Bill !!
…. touch me …
2.23.08 / 12pm
Bill says: The correct play is to call, hoping that our opponent will check to us on the turn and river so we can see a showdown.
The ace-high flop was a bad one, no doubt. It makes it impossible for us to stack our opponent where as a flop with low cards would allow us to stack hands like JJ and TT. Also, it means that a few of his hands he is 3-betting us with – AK, AQ and AJ (it’s also possible he 3-bet smaller suited aces) are now ahead.
However, given the aggressive nature of the 5/10 NL games, and the fact that both you and your opponent are aware of how each other plays, your opponent can reraise you preflop with a wide range of hands that you still beat, like some pairs lower than QQ, some suited connectors, and some big broadway cards like KQ. So I think you’re ahead about half the time on this flop, and given the pot odds, you can call.
Of course, you have to consider the possibility that your opponent can either bluff you off the hand later or can outdraw you with a hand like KQ or JJ. Well, that’s possible, but here’s a big reason why I am comfortable calling QQ on this flop to try to get to showdown without putting another dollar in the pot:
Your opponents will almost universally never put in big bluffs on ace-high boards in 3-bet pots. It is something I’ve noticed over hundreds of thousands of hands, that in a spot, where you call a 3-bet, and the flop is ace-high, and you call a flop bet, your opponents will rarely try to bluff you off your hand because you have an ace such a high percentage of the time. Even if he thinks you can call KK and QQ on this flop, he’s not going to want to bluff you since will have an ace the majority of the time, and you’re never folding that.
As for him drawing out on you on the turn or river, well, it happens. Most likely, he only has a couple to a few outs to outdraw you, so it won’t happen much. If it does, he’ll bet, and you can comfortably fold since I feel he’s rarely bluffing. There’s always the chance you can spike a Q and win a huge pot against him if he has a big hand as well.
Also, at these limits where you will play the same type of players every day, it’s important to never look like you’re easy to be run over. You must make calls with marginal hands to prevent your opponents from stealing every pot from you.
What actually happened: You called and the hand checked down to the river. Your opponent showed eights and you won the pot.
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