UTG w/QQ - Don't want to limp, nor lose potential

[poker_profiteer]

I'm under the gun with two queens - I never know what to do in this spot because I feel that if I raise too heavy, people at the table will all fold to me and give me credit for a hand (I've been playing relatively tight, not raising too much but not playing like a rock either.)

I absolutely hate the idea of limping to try and trap, as there's not been much raising pre-flop unless my opponents have had the goods.

I'm not sure if I can lay it down to a re-raise or not either - A lot of players at the table seem to love aces with a high kicker (jack and above).
Is it worth it to take the risk and flat-call in this spot, try and see a flop, then get away if a scare card hits or else re-shove pre-flop and flip the coin?
(Also any other suggestions are welcomed!)

[Mr. Bucket]

First off, congratz on your first post. If you really want to learn poker, you have come to the right place.

The problem with your post is that we have no context for the hand. Next time whenever you are confused in a spot, I would recommend posting a hand with reads etc.

As for this particular spot though, raise the QQ because players do love alot of hands worse than QQ that you can get value from. Limping QQ can be a disaster because with multiple people going to the flop if an A or a K comes off you are very likely to not have the best hand. Also, lots of people in the pot highly increases the chance that someone will make a hand better than QQ.

The biggest thing here is that QQ is one of the best hands in poker, and when you have one of the best hands in poker you want there to be money in the pot.

As far as getting 3 bet, its very difficult to answer this question without more reads, but in general if the player seems loose you can 4b for value, or if the player seems extremely tight you can just fold. I wouldnt advocate flatting 3bets OOP very often at all.

[poker_profiteer]

Good point - It would definitely depend on the opponent; In cases where my opponents are tight, I think I can fold as long as they only things they're shoving with are overs and higher pockets, but if I think they have just high cards, I might call - As you said it's more vital to have reads than ideals about what to do in certain spots.

If my read was that the person wouldn't put it all in unless they had it, I could fold - I wouldn't like to though, and I suppose that's what bothers me about having QQ or similar (I want to/think I should fold sometimes, but I convince myself to call or else don't call, but it never feels like the right decision (no reads is probably the cause of this - Also it's probably as much to do with learning as with any other factor)

Thanks for the advice, it was very helpful - Would love to hear from anybody else with their opinion about the situation as well.

[Shotglass]

I agree with most everything already said except that unless I've got a read that someone will ONLY 3bet with KK, AA then I'm going to look to get it in pre.
The reason behind this is that you want to develop a range of possible hands that your opponent would be holding and QQ is ahead of all but two hands: AA and KK. Granted it's only a slight favorite to AK, but you still want to get your money in when your ahead.

[Mr. Bucket]

Shotglass, if you open QQ utg and get 3bet by someone you view as "extremely tight" you need a specific read to fold?

If not, what do you disagree with?

Edit: Assuming 100bb effective

[Shotglass]

What part of what I wrote did you not understand?

Edit: After re-reading one of your other posts I realized that we have different ideas of the definition of extremely tight.

[Nekrogovner]

Never limp it UTG unless you got a good reason. A good reason is a laggy psycho at your table that likes to reraise a bunch, and you definitely wanna reraise/shove that one preflop.
Other than that, raise 3-5xbb, don't fold to 3bet, unless you are certain villain only 3bets AA and KK. Postflop you can do bunch of stuff, but if you don't have many reads, fold to any aggressor that wants to stake you for all your chips (unless you hit a set ofc )

[poker_profiteer]

Advice so far seems sound, thanks
Shotglass, are you saying I should get it in pre every time if I suspect they have AA or KK, or only the first time so that I can establish the range they'll call with (and hopefully see that they haven't got AA or KK)?

In future I think I'll start to call a few more three bets with QQ, even if it's just to establish the range (assuming I understood shotglass's post correctly)

[Shotglass]

I've got to apologize. Blanket statements like I made in my first post are good ways of getting into trouble.

It'd be a TON better if you were to post some hands during which you where unsure of which action to take. That'll probably spark better discussion than hypotheticals.

Generally, my reaction to a 3bet is really situational dependant: position of 3bettor, reads, previous actions by him & me, etc. That being said, even with someone that is very tight, say opening top 20% on the button and 3betting top 10%, we still have a lot of combos that we are beating.
Against an unknown, normally I'd rather 4bet than to flat with QQ. I don't have any information about his playing style and I'm looking to find out if I'm up against another premium hand.
There is a great argument for flatting a 3bet with QQ, but I try to keep this for someone on whom I have a read and can try to exploit some of their tendancies on latter streets or against unknowns in an early position.

Bottom line is this: With QQ pre-flop you've got the 3rd best possible hand. I wouldn't worry about your opponents folding out to a large pf raise. You want to get maximum value from your hand and the way to do that is to open raise or 3bet. Yes, of course there are times that you'll run into the top of someones range or someone else will call you light and suck out but you want to think long term value (+EV) not 'fuck, my QQ, KK, AA got cracked last 3 times so I'll just limp.'
Keep asking yourself 'What is the best way to get the most value from my hand in this situation?' and you'll scoop more than your share of pots.

[Mr. Bucket]

first off 3betting 10% is super super loose, not tight.

Secondly 3betting 10% against an UTG open is lol, only complete fish are doing it.

It'd be a TON That being said, even with someone that is very tight, say opening top 20% on the button and 3betting top 10%, we still have a lot of combos that we are beating.
.

[Shotglass]

first off 3betting 10% is super super loose, not tight.

I'll restate:

Originally Posted by Shotglass
Edit: After re-reading one of your other posts I realized that we have different ideas of the definition of extremely tight.

What's your idea of a tight 3bet from the button, top 1%?

[Nekrogovner]

I'll restate:

What's your idea of a tight 3bet from the button, top 1%?

I think you are missing a point here. If you 3bet 10% from a button vs UTG, you are very loose, but if you 3bet 1% from buttons vs UTG then you are tight.
On the other hand, if you 3bet 10% from button vs MP or LP, you are quite tight.

[Shotglass]

I think you are missing a point here. If you 3bet 10% from a button vs UTG, you are very loose, but if you 3bet 1% from buttons vs UTG then you are tight.
On the other hand, if you 3bet 10% from button vs MP or LP, you are quite tight.

I understand all of that, which is one of the reasons I why I wrote the longer post than the first one that was a cookie cutter statement. It's also one of the reasons that I recomended that the OP just post hands instead of generalizations, because most decisions that are made during a hand are going to be situational dependant.

Basically I forgot to write in the bold part (again showing my true blonde nature):

Originally Posted by Shotglass

That being said, even with someone that is very tight, say opening top 20% on the button and 3betting top 10% vs a raise from MP2 or later, we still have a lot of combos that we are beating.

I thought about fixing the post but think I should leave it as it is due to the responses.
Sorry for any confusion that I caused.

[Mr. Bucket]

Assuming 100 deep and both players are regulars, 3betting range of a BU against an UTG open has almost no bluffs as bluffing a tight range is unprofitable. Most regs will 3bet KK+, some throw in QQ, and a few will add AK. If the reg appears to be tight, it's far more likely to be KK+.

Above is all based off of my very limited experience. Above is also all very villain dependent. I think we are in agreement that to really talk about this we should have a HH infront of us.

As for the definition of "very tight" I'd say anyone with a VPIP under 16.

[poker_profiteer]

Looks like I'm going to have to dig through my hand histories a bit then
Even the cookie-cutter advice was quite helpful; The rest is going to take me a while to chew on and digest, but I'm sure I'll integrate it into my play eventually.
(I like to try and make one change to my game at a time, or as few as possible so I can tweak and fix without introducing more leaks)

It might do well for me to explain that I play poker through a virtual machine (I run linux as my operating system).
I lost most of my hand histories a while ago when I deleted the virtual hard-disk without thinking :-S
Now I mostly just have omaha 6-max cash game hand-histories backed up, but I'm sure I kept an alternative backup of the hold'em hands I've played in the past; Time to get looking.