How do you play this situation?

[dalecooper]

No HH, sorry - I'll try to describe it well.

I am UTG with QQ. CO has been pretty aggressive, raising somewhat more than normal and taking down a lot of pots without showdown - but not full-on LAgg or donking away. Just a good aggressive player. She reraises preflop periodically, suggesting her range for this may be fairly wide. I reraised her pre-flop raise an orbit prior and she folded. We both have good-sized stacks - she has a max buyin of $25, I am up to $35.

The action: I raise the .25 blind to .75 - standard pot raise. 1 fold, then CO reraises to 2.25. Folds around to me. I consider my options for a minute and flat call. The pot is now about $5.

Flop is scattered garbage, all undercards. Something like 742 rainbow. I check. CO bets $4. I check-raise to $15. CO thinks it over and folds.

Do you like the way I played this? Do you think I could get more value for my queens, given that I think I am solidly ahead of CO's range? If I'm going to get tricky like this, is the CR right out of the gate the right play, or should I have waited another street to get feisty? (I suspect CO is an automatic double barreller when someone is just check-calling.)

[mcatdog]

Dale,

If you assume she is going to "automatically" double barrel, then you should obviously just call the flop and let her do this. I think this assumption may be questionable, however. The less often she's going to double barrel, the more you should do what you did instead of giving her 2 free cards to let AK (or something similar) get there.

[dalecooper]

That was why I CR'ed it I think. It's an over-statement to say she is an auto-double barreller. I think based on her aggression level she's very capable of double barrelling - that might be a better way to put it. I don't know what her read on me was though, and based on her range I'm not sure if she had an overpair to the board or just missed overs (my guess is the latter). So that complicates the equation. Giving her a free card if she has AK is probably not a good idea. If she has AQ, fine. But then letting her lead another round of betting if she has 88 or 99 is obviously great.

[Galapogos]

I like to 4-bet preflop if I'm OOP but either way is ok really.

[dalecooper]

I like to 4-bet preflop if I'm OOP but either way is ok really.

I split about 50/50 between the 4-bet and the flat call, against this type of player. If I flat call I'm usually leading or check-raising most flops (maybe not AKx).

[IowaSkinsFan]

If you think she/he is frequently double barreling, than this is a board I'd expect that action, so I'd call the flop. Clearly your play is fine.

[Ragnar4]

I like to 4-bet preflop if I'm OOP but either way is ok really.

Isn't a 4-bet always a full shove? Why would you want to full shove with QQ when a 3-bet is almost always AA, KK or AKs? I mean you're only ahead 1/3rd of the time.

[microgrinder]

Isn't a 4-bet always a full shove? a 3-bet is almost always AA, KK or AKs? I mean you're only ahead 1/3rd of the time.

No, although with current reads I think I will be calling a shove if I do 4bet here and they end up shoving over it. Not going to shove as a 4bet instead just going to raise to like 6-7$ to induce a mistake from them thinking they have FE or set equity, when they do not.

a 3-bet is almost always AA, KK or AKs?

since when?
If you actually thought that was their range C/F flop would be correct, but that range is ridiculous even for the nittiest of nits, which the villain is not.

I don't mind how this was played, I too probably prefer the 4bet OOP, but this is also fine. Flat calling and checking turn is also fine if there's a good chance they double barrel cbet.

[IowaSkinsFan]

I like to 4-bet preflop if I'm OOP but either way is ok really.

Isn't a 4-bet always a full shove? Why would you want to full shove with QQ when a 3-bet is almost always AA, KK or AKs? I mean you're only ahead 1/3rd of the time.

Re read op, he says opp is a light threebettor. Also, if opps threebet range is AA/KK, AK, than we wouldnt want to call at all.

[dalecooper]

Isn't a 4-bet always a full shove? Why would you want to full shove with QQ when a 3-bet is almost always AA, KK or AKs? I mean you're only ahead 1/3rd of the time.

A 3-bet from a random 6max player is not that likely to be one of those three hands, and if you have someone pegged as aggressive you can say that with certainty. A good, aggressive short-handed player is 3-betting most of the time with 99-AA, AK suited or not, AQ suited, and maybe a few other hands. Some really aggressive players will 3-bet with any pocket pair and about any two face cards if they have position or if they're defending their blind against a late position raiser.

[Galapogos]

I like to 4-bet preflop if I'm OOP but either way is ok really.

Isn't a 4-bet always a full shove? Why would you want to full shove with QQ when a 3-bet is almost always AA, KK or AKs? I mean you're only ahead 1/3rd of the time.

A 4-bet isn't always a shove. Assuming their 3-bet is a normal size and you're both sitting on about 100bb stacks you can 4-bet to about 30% of effective stacks.

And yeah like the others said, this isn't full ring and the described villain is definately 3-betting with a wide range.

Also, there are more combinations of AK than AA or KK so your equity is actually about 40%.