QQ on A high flop, pot control, get c/red on river

Hey guys, a hand here from tonight:

$0.02/$0.05 No Limit Holdem
6 Players

Stacks:
UTG ($3.97)
UTG+1 ($7.34)
CO ($5.14)
Hero ($5)
SB ($5.73)
BB ($5)

Pre-Flop: ($0.07, 6 players) Hero is BTN
UTG raises to $0.17, 1 fold, CO raises to $0.45, Hero calls $0.45, 2 folds, UTG calls $0.28

Flop: ($1.42, 3 players)
UTG checks, CO checks, Hero bets $1.10, UTG folds, CO calls $1.10

Turn: ($3.62, 2 players)
CO checks, Hero checks

River: ($3.62, 2 players)
CO checks, Hero bets $1.20, CO goes all-in $3.59, $2.25 to Hero ($2.25)?

Villain is unfortunately unknown, this was like the second or third orbit of the session so I had no meaningful stats on anybody yet. He 3bets pre I put him on something like TT+, AK, AQ, KQ. Maybe a little tighter than that if he's aware and 3betting less since original raiser was UTG, 4betting is clearly no good here without reads, folding is still bad even if it's worst case scenario and I'm setmining here with QQ so I flat.

Decision to bet the flop was pretty autopilot at the time, in retrospect I'm not so sure it may have been the right one since we had a 3bet and a flatter, likely that at least one of them has an ace so odds of taking the pot down here with a bet are not great... at the same time though CO checking when we would otherwise expect to see a cbet from him looks like weakness. At any rate, I decide to bet the flop, if this is horribly wrong I'd be glad if somebody could explain why. If it's any help at all for later in the hand, CO tanked for a while before deciding to call the flop, I expect he's continuing here with {TT+, AK AQ} and probably not a whole lot of air given I don't have reads he floats and he would probably be looking to make a play on the flop if at all since he's OOP.

Turn is a relative blank, check back here for pot control since I obviously don't want to play for stacks with QQ in this spot readless. Villain checking the turn makes me want to discount him having an ace or AA and weight his range more toward PPs looking to get to showdown, we go to the river.

The river decision... him checking the turn and then checking it to me again here makes me think he his range is more TT-KK type hands than top pairs or AA... betting the river here may also be a mistake, it's thin at best... we have to severely discount AK/AQ and AA before this becomes a bet (giving him TT-AA and 4 combos of AK gives us 50%). Anyway I went for thin value on this river, got raised... pot odds we only need 32% to make this a call but I have a hard time putting him on anything we beat and even though his line looks kinda bluffy it feels like spew here to try to convince myself this is a bluff anything approaching the frequency we need it to be to call here.

Bottom line is I felt like there were a few marginal spots in this hand that I wasn't too sure about, if you guys could shine some light on what I ought to be thinking about here that would be great.

TLDR

I'd check back river - betting river essentially turns your hand into a bluff. JJ might call i guess but everything else beats you in the balls with a stick

http://www.flopturnriver.com/pokerfo...ll-173396.html

I would 4bet smallish preflop and probably call a shove. As for the flop, your bet size is awful. You are only getting called by Ax and maybe KK by betting this big.

Also your river bet size is pretty atrocious too. Either you are betting for value and should be betting like 1/2p (fwiw I don't think he basically every has a hand we beat that calls.) or you are betting as a bluff with QQ which makes so sense given how the hand was played. Check behind on the river, failing that don't bet something small enough that you might talk yourself into thinking that he is bluffing you and end up spew calling when you are behind 100000000000% of the time.

UTG raise, CO reraise, unknown players, no odds to set mine... fold pre

As played you can try to bluff bet the flop if you really want but I'd say it's a pretty long shot (smaller is better imo, 2/3rd pot does it just fine), but as soon as you get called, you shut down and don't put a $ more in the pot. Betting river is horrible and a fold to his aces full of fours.

Flop bet seems fairly bad. River bet seems fairly bad.

I think I'm okay with flatting preflop to set mine.

As for the flop, I think betting was not the right move for exactly the reason you mentioned. The odds that one of them holds an Ace is high. If your reasoning for flatting preflop was to set mine, why would you make a 3/4 size bet on the flop?

Even if their check seems to show weakness, it doesn't mean that you should c-bet because most of their range is beating you (35 out of 47 possible holdings beats you) Only the hands that beat you will call.

AA, AKo, AQo, AKs, AQs, AJs, KK beats you
QQ chops
JJ, TT you beat


As for the river, I think everyone else covered it quite well.

Preflop is okay I suppose but flop and river are terrible. Not really sure what you're trying to accomplish with a river bet. The FD missed, the board is paired, and there's an Ace out there. What are you getting value from that will call?

Originally Posted by daviddem

UTG raise, CO reraise, unknown players, no odds to set mine... fold pre

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say folding QQ at 5nl is just -EV imo.

There are way to many times UTG will have a range like 99+,AJs+,KQs,AJo+,KQo then stuff like JJ+,AQs+,KQs,AKo raise the utg bet. This still gives us pretty good equity and I honestly see much worse ranges from both positions tbh.

Obviously the post flop play is a different story.

That's because daviddem is a nit.

Thread title is all wrong BTW. You're not pot controlling the turn. What you're doing is not turning your hand in to a bluff. But then you went and did it on the river. Bad hero, bad. Now go sit in the corner, have yourself a vanilla ice cream cone and wait it out.

True, I am a nit.

OK it had not ticked that this is 6max. Fair enough to flat pre. However, note that even against the 3b range you assigned (JJ+,AQs+,KQs,AKo), you are still a slight dog. But then the money already in the pot makes up for it.