Queens facing three bet from aggro opponent, NL MTT

DailyHandQuiz

Game type: $100 1R 1A
Stage of tourney: Deep ITM
Your image: Aggressive
Opponent’s image: Smart LAG
Your hand: Q♣Q♦

The setup: You’re deep in the money of this bigger buy in tournament on Full Tilt Poker when the following hand comes up.

You get QQ on the button and the table folds to you. You’ve been opening a decent amount of pots in late position and make your standard 2.3x ish raise. The SB folds and the BB 3 bets to 6k.

The BB is a smart, very aggressive player.

What’s your play?

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DHQ Staff says: Let’s look at the price you offer if you shove: the BB will have to call 17k to win 30k, so a bit worse than 2-1. They’ll likely feel compelled to call with a good amount of smaller pairs and maybe even some big aces.

This comes down to stack sizes – if you were deeper, you might be able to trap some weaker hands with a call. If you were deeper, a flat might not look so suspicious. As it is, the chance of getting all in against a range you’re killing and the improbability of extracting additional money from weak hands by flatting makes this a good spot for a reshove.

What actually happened: You flatted and the flop came 3h Th 2s. The BB checked, you bet and he folded.

Quiz courtesy of PartTimePoker.com. Check out our WSOP Satellite Strategy and Info Pages.

8 COMMENTS (Jump to comment form)

Jeff

I voted shove, especially given our table image. If we’re not playing our premium hands aggressively, our aggressive posture with other holdings will be for not.

I agree with the staff analysis that if we were deeper, flatting to trap would be a valuable option, but I think this play is less effective more so because the opponent isn’t deep enough.

He essentially has 2 options on the flop: checking or shoving. His weakish 3bet pre appears, given his stack size, that he wanted to take it down right there and it is unlikely he will continue if we flat.

Plus, shoving in this spot announces to the table that we’re prepared to re-shove if 3bet into.

[Reply]

Loki

Absolutely agreed with Jeff. The whole point of being wildly aggressive is getting paid off big time when you have a premium hand. Also, you raised originally from the button, which is the ultimate “steal sign.”
If the SB is the smart player as noted above, he/she will suspect you are stealing at a crucial point in the game and play back at you to quiet you down. Furthermore, if a smart player actually had KK or AA, he/she would likely flat call a preflop raise and then check raise when you c-bet.
Therefore, the re-raise by the SB right here smells like an attempt to re-steal and take down the pot out of position. Shove back and protect your image.

[Reply]

Rowdy

Raise all in. We probably have the best hand, he probably folds so we pick up nearly 50% addtion to our stack. And we have QQ not KK or AA – supposing an Ace or King is on the flop? Try and take the chips now for such a big %

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runefs

I agree on the re-raise being the best option (in this particuklar sit a shove) and don’t however agree with the flat call with a deeper stack.
There’s more than a 40% chance that either A or K hits the flop putting us in a bad spot if he bets after we’ve flatted. Even with a deeper stack a reraise would be the better play.

[Reply]

_CityBorn_

Easy shove. No question. We set this up with our aggressive play, and now that we got what we want, we’re going to flat and let him catch a miracle flop or get away when he misses? That makes no sense.

I Agree completely he’ll feel compelled to get it in with lesser hands that we’re crushing, and the stack sizes are optimal for further disguising the strength of the hand behind the shove. We either take it down without risking anything and gain a nice chunk, further frustrating the V, or we get all in with what is likely a dominant hand. This situation is tailor made for an all in.

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Mare

I’d fold, I’d be too nervous of the 35

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Tony G

Ship it!

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McCowish

I voted shove, and still believe tht’s what you should do, but you really have nothing to gain by pressing your hand except picking up the pot–It’s more avoiding what you lose by not. If he has AA KK your beat, rare QQ you tie, JJ 1010 you beat, Ak flip. As Staff said (I looked), it’s hard here because raise call represents either strength or you’re-getting-out-of-line-so-I’ll-call-you:In one case you’re strong in the other you sceptacle of his betting, neither of which is conducive to bluffing.

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