Stacking off KQ on QJ8 board late in 4.40 180

[DoanDiggy]

Good play or bad here?

MP1 is pretty average, not horrible, but not necessarily great, either.

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em, $4.00+$0.40 Tournament, 200/400 Blinds 50 Ante (8 handed) - Poker-Stars Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

UTG (t9099)
UTG+1 (t13817)
MP1 (t11715)
MP2 (t7248)
CO (t10524)
Button (t4528)
SB (t8865)
Hero (BB) (t10201)

Hero's M: 10.20

Preflop: Hero is BB with Q, K
2 folds, MP1 raises to t1000, 4 folds, Hero calls t600

Flop: (t2600) Q, J, 8 (2 players)
Hero checks, MP1 bets t1300, Hero raises to t3200, MP1 raises to t10665 (All-In), Hero calls t5951 (All-In)

Total pot: t20902


I'm thinking his range on the initial raise is pretty wide. I can reraise my KQ from the BB, but then I have to fold to someone shipping it in, someone who potentially has a worse hand or an underpair. If he has a worst hand and folds, I'm just blowing him out of what could be nicely-concealed hand for me. So I just flat call from the big blind, figuring I'll be stacking off a lot of Q-high flops against worse queens.

The flop comes, and it's almost exactly what I'm looking for, except that QJ is definitely in his range, so he might have flopped two-pair. With the idea of keeping the strength of my hand concealed, I went ahead and checked to him. He puts in a nice half pot raise, and at this point I'm thinking he could have a pretty big range of hands: QQ, JJ, 88, QJ, AA, KK, AQ, KQ, QT, AJ, KJ, JT, TT, 99, an underpair, AK, AT, A9, A8, and maybe (but I didn't think it very likely) T9, Q8 or Q9. I reraise him, thinking that QJ, Q8, T9, QQ, JJ, 88, and maybe even AA, KK, and AQ are reasonably likely to flat call and let me bet back into them on the turn. When my opponent overshoves, it really looks to me like he's trying to make me go away or get called by a horrible player who has a gutshot, a low pair, or a worse Q. My whole reason for flat-calling preflop was so that I could beat worse queens in just this situation, so I went ahead and made the call. I was completely expecting him to turn over QT (it was weird... I felt like I knew exactly what he had), where the shove is one of those "Well at least if I get called by a better hand, I have some outs," but I thought he could even have something stupid like AJ, KJ, TT, 99, A8, or even AK, AT, or A9.

So, did I make a rash decision or a smart play?

[baudib]

In the heat of the moment I'm sure I call but villain is showing extreme aggression here. I'd expect to see AQ or better here quite a bit.

If you think QT or some other pair+gutshot is really in his four-betting range then ok....

[DoanDiggy]

I just figured that with the way I played it preflop, this was pretty much exactly what I was hoping for. I agree that this was marginal at best, though. It did turn out that he turned over QT, and I felt like Negreanu. I must have had some kind of subconscious read on him, or maybe I just got lucky. I really wish it would have been live so that I could talk and say what I thought he had before I called.

[drmcboy]

I didn't read the whole novel up there, but I would just CRAI, it may look like a draw and if you get cold called on the flop you end up in a weird spot with lots of scare cards that can come.

[DoanDiggy]

I didn't really want to overshove the flop and blow out a worse hand, so I sized my flop raise so that I could ship the rest in on the turn and my opponent would pretty much have to call. The only turn cards that would have worried me would be a 9 or a 10, so I wasn't too worried about that. An overshove might look like a draw here, I guess, but at this point, MP1 has committed 2300 chips into the pot... 4600 more is a pretty big amount.

With my smaller raise (maybe slightly smaller, like 3000, would have been better), the opponent would feel stupid folding to a 2100 chip raise in a 7100 chip pot, but the only real choice is shove or fold, especially since I'm obviously planning to put the rest in on the turn. I think a lot of players here have a tough time laying down QT to such a small raise, and they're just going to shove over it and hope they have some fold equity to go with their outs (and they might be winning!?).

[drmcboy]

scare cards are important for both you and your opp

and in this case they are A,K,J,T,9,8. Even if you don't care about most of those they will often kill your action from QT types.

your logic is a little odd in that you expect your opponent to know you are committed to the hand and yet not view your raise as the same as a shove.

[bigspenda73]

what's wrong with c/c

[chardrian]

what's wrong with c/c

nothing depending on why you are doing it.

If you are check/calling to induce an agg player to keep firing who would fold if you check/raised is great.

Check/calling to "re-evaluate" after putting in 25% of your stack with TP K Kicker is spew methinks. I.e. if you're calling, you should never be folding.

[mcatdog]

what's wrong with c/c

nothing depending on why you are doing it.

If you are check/calling to induce an agg player to keep firing who would fold if you check/raised is great.

Check/calling to "re-evaluate" after putting in 25% of your stack with TP K Kicker is spew methinks. I.e. if you're calling, you should never be folding.

Meh, this is kind of read-dependent but I agree vs. most opponents.

Some people just don't double-barrel very often if ever.

[bigspenda73]

not c/c'ing to re-evaluate, c/c'ing to allow him to spew it off

[hopeful]

You said MP1 was pretty average, an all in re-raise from a pretty average player normally means a serious hand. What hands make this play? He raised early, CB the flop and then pushed all in.

I would narrow the range to one that beats TP K kicker.

[Sprayed]

I shove pre.