Weak or smart play with QQ?

$5,000 Guarantee (Rebuy): 150/300 Ante 25 - No Limit Hold'em -
UTG+1 (37,816)
MP1 (11,190)
MP2 (22,769)
CO (3,590)
Hero on Button (8,173)
Villain in SB (6,625)
BB (910)
UTG (11,797)

Hero has [Qd Qc]
2 folds, MP2 raises to 600, 2 folds, hero calls, Villain raises to 2,900, BB folds, MP2 calls, hero?

Stats on MP2: over 107 hands is playing 12/3
Stats on Villain: 205 hands with villain, has never 3 bet.. playing 18/10

I flatted the min raise with QQ to see a flop in position and gain information, and then folded to the reraise.

Is this too weak? I mean it turns out I was right in folding THIS time, Villain had KK, and MP2 had JJ (who stacked off on a small card flop). But is this generally too weak?

This would be better in the MTT forum. Want me to move it for you?

Yes, please. it was not intended to be posted here. my bad

{From SNG Tourney Tactics}

nice fold, I bet villain has KK

Originally Posted by rudefella

Is this too weak? I mean it turns out I was right in folding THIS time, Villain had KK, and MP2 had JJ (who stacked off on a small card flop). But is this generally too weak?

Originally Posted by bigspenda73

nice fold, I bet villain has KK

i agree with spenda lol

I re-raise initially, then contemplate a fold if Villain shove and MP2 calls.

I'm looking to get my chips in at some point in this hand.

Since the original bet was 2xbb and a call, villain may be reraising a little lighter than normal, but considering his stats and your read its definitly not a bad fold as played imo.

I would definitly raise SOMETHING preflop, as you don't want to face 3+ opponents calling a 2xbb bet. Even if you raised it to 900 or 1200 that wouldnt be bad.

I think I have to go with 'weak' here. bet raise reraise then raise some more. I don't see trying to protect a 12 M stack by folding QQ preflop without some kind ridiculous read.

raise pre, get it in when he shoves.

you played this way too weakly.

I know I'm too much of a nit, but I would have made it 1,500 pre flop and probably folded after a shove and a call from MP2.

Don't try and level your self with a small stack, or dumb shit like this happens.

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=CTH4KNiMyjU

to be honest, you played this super weak/bad and should've thrown in a 3 bet and called even if both shoved. your hand is wayyyyyyyy too strong to play like that. nitaments imo. Also, next time don't list results.

So, there seem to be some varied opinions on this, mostly on the side of nitty. One reason that I posted this is that personally I have probably never folded before in a similar situation like this. 99 out of 100 times, I reraise, and 90/100 probably call one shover, although probably fold a good amount of the time if both players shove. I have over 500,000 hands of tournament play that I could scour to see how many times I play for my stack in a similar situation with QQ and was either ahead or behind.

But I'll post what I think now about the hand along with more specific information about the players based on HHs.

The initial raiser had raised 4 hands out of 107 preflop, and min-raising, it seemed strong. Sure this could just be a bad run of cards. Looking back at the stats now, he had only been initial raiser twice, and 2.5 raised once, and 3x raised the other. I don't always think a min-raise means strong, but from a guy playing 12/3, I side on strong. {JJ+, AK}. Looking back on his showdown hands he had shown AA, AJs, AQs, KK, AKs, QJs, and each one won at showdown. He 3 bet with the AKs and KK, cold-called with AQs in position, and 3x raised AJs from CO, and 2.5x raised AA, was limped around to him in blinds with QJs (which flopped a straight). I can't say I knew all of this specifically, but I knew he was super tight and had shown down good hands and knew he was playing 12/3. I my mind I was calling to see how he would react on the flop. I admit, Cold-calling is weak, but I'm in position. I did make the mistake of not thinking about how I was inviting the blinds to play.

Some people might interpret the small-blind reraising here as a squeeze. But once again, this opponent had never 3-bet, not once in 150 hands, and he wasn't a maniac. In this case, he raised 1/2 of his stack, which means to me that is strong and committed. Looking back, Lapikas had shown AJs twice, KQo, AKo, QQ, KK, and TT, winning all but one (AJs was checked down by both opponents, and lost to 88). Can't say I knew all of this, but I knew he hadn't shown down garbage. I think I have to put him on the same range as the initial raiser, JJ+, AK+. Sure there is a change that is raising weak half of his stack to look stronger than he is, but the stats don't indicate that, and if he is doing that, good for him.

More action. Once the initial raiser flats, I think I can rule out KK and QQ(unlikely anyway), but that's it. He could easily flat with AA trying to induce me, or he could flat with AK and JJ hoping to see a good flop for him.

Someone equated this to philhellmuth folding QQ to a raise with 15 bb. Me having 22 BB's is I think a little different, although not much. However, I didn't fold like phil, I flatted (arguably very weak, but as not super nitty as open folding), and I only folded after I saw the continued action with reads on those two players.

So let's use your reads.

Code:

MP2    : 	31.259%  	27.38% 	03.88% 	    1495031460 	212073184.00   { AA, JJ, AKs, AKo }
Hero   : 	36.544%  	35.51% 	01.03% 	    1939419576 	 56279656.00   { QQ }
Villain: 	32.197%  	27.42% 	04.78% 	    1497438288 	260841772.00   { JJ+, AKs, AKo }

You have the best equity of everyone in the hand.

Very Nice. Thanks. I admit your calculation does, at the end, show that shoving and calling is marginally correct. However i think the calculation is based on an slight mis-interpretation of my reads, and highlights how these simple range calculations can be misleading.

You have to be wary just trusting calculations without understanding them. These calculations never take into account that "reads" don't mean that each hand in the range is "equally" likely according to its natural frequency. The distribution isn't flat, it's more often skewed. I put the 3-better on AA or KK much more often that I put him on JJ or QQ. That was consistent with my real-time reads. I say his real ranges were something like 35% AA, 35% KK, 10% AKs, 10% AKo, 8% JJ, 1% QQ, 1% 88-TT, AQs. Notice that I put AKo much less often than AA even though there are more combinations of AKo than AA.

Skewed distribution ranges are often the case when calling on the river with just TPTK and being lead into. Often I can put two different players on the exact same range of hands, either making a two pair to beat my TPTK, or missing a busted draw. Getting lead into happens often after checking the turn for pot control. Although I have the exact same ranges of hands, I can have reads that one player rarely bluffs the river and another player bluffs the river more often; this changes how that same range is distributed, and ultimately changes whether calling or folding is best despite the range calculation saying the same thing.

In the above hand the 3 better could be making a weird play, appearing to look strong by betting half his stack with a marginal holding (say 88 or 99), as squeeze play to look stronger than just shoving. But I don't think players do this often, so I wouldn't put 88 or 99 in his range as equally as other hands. However, many players do bet most of their stack and commit with strong holding AA or KK instead of doing all-in.

I'm not saying your wrong, I'm just commenting on how simple range calculations can be misleading. Of course more complicated calculations could be done.

You're ahead of a top 3% hand so the initial flat call is the worst part of the hand. If he has the two big pairs you'll usually go broke anyway but he may get away from lower PPs.

The problem with the stuff you posted about 3 bet having AA more than AKo is that you can use this logic to make any fold you want. You may be right in theory, but in practice I would generally make plays vs a standard range until you have a much better read than 100 hands can give you.

rudefella the distribution may be skewed in once sense. I.e. more players act like this with AA than do with AK.

But it's skewed the other way too (more ways to be dealt AK)

Yeah, you are right about the flatting. I admit that cold-calling was the worst part of the play for inviting the blinds, and for the reasons you add. I have been more concerned about whether to play all-in once I have flatted and there was a re-raise. I think it was mistake to cold call, and then marginal either way to call or fold once I made that mistake.

I do still want to emphasize, that it's not as if you should never think about people's tendencies beyond their range. My point is that some people throw up range calculations as if they were definitive (not accusing anyone though). For example, many of have seen that hand when Dan Harrington three bet with 62o or something in WSOP. I would never include 26+ in his 3 betting range if i was playing against him, using a normal calculator. However, a more sophisticated calculators could include that hand in his range but with a frequency much below its natural frequency distribution, and it would be correct to do so. What I am saying is that additional information not only tells you ranges, but can give you more specific information about distributions within a range.

You are saying that I am over-estimating someone's ranges, and will fold too much. I wasn't saying you should fold every time someone 3 bets, because they might have aces. In fact, my criticism of calculators is true for over and under-estimating equity in terms of naturally occuring distributions. I am very much saying that, for most players, someone is less likely to have weaker hand in their range when they shove for most (but not all) of their chips then when they shove all of their chips, even at times though the ranges might be similar. You can easily over or under estimate your equity by assuming a natural frequency. Calculators don't account for this, but you could create calculators that did.

Many people can correct for this estimational error by "varying" the range over several different calculations, including some weaker hands in one calculation and not including them in another calculation. This gives you a feel for how sensitive your equity calculation is to your read. If you read is slightly off and it makes a big impact on the equity than that is good to know, but if you read is slightly off and it makes no impact that is also good to know. Both variational methods and using non-natural distributions are about creating distributions of distributions to get a feel for your averages and variances.

And yes ginger, you are right about AKo and AA, but I mentioned that in my analysis that AK is more naturally occuring than AA. The calculators already take that into account, however, so it's not as if your effect and my effect cancel each other. One if accounted for, and the other is not.