$2/3/6 QQ facing cold 4b from good player

V1 and V2 know you are "super snug" and you just raised from UTG. Game plays with few 4 bets. You are going to be OOP vs a V that you describe as a better player and another V you describe as good. I think your range on V2 in a game with few 4 bets is much larger than his actual range especially given the range V2 should be assigning you. I'd exploitive fold given position and knowledge the player with best position is a better player. BTW if V2 is actually a better player he is not underestimating your abilities as you think while you are correctly estimating his abilities.

Now I do believe we are ahead more than half the time and if 4 bets were more common than you describe or if you did not describe V2 as better than you or if you had position rather than being OOP or if we were so shallow going all-in was reasonable I'd play differently but as described think we are -ev.

TAG makes small 3bet looks weak
LAG figures he can fold the nit and take on the weak 3better - 4bets 175

Raise 300
From you this looks honest and very strong.
Nobody is bluffing you anymore
If you get raised - resistance means you’re likely behind and now you can fold queens

Preflop:
Fold - too nitty
Call - accomplishes nothing
Raise - take the lead now and decide by villain(s) reactions where you stand.

Doubt both call, but if called, you can check the flop and fear of check-raise is in villain’s mind. Even good players tend to expose themselves at this point, because they feel you’re strong enough to call down their monster.

My philosophy is to try to find out early where I stand and not be just calling along. When you tell the story of strength, good players listen.

I don’t like comparing myself to other players
It doesn’t matter, focus only on the story they tell. Sure, they are good players, but no one can make you feel inferior without your consent. They don’t have to make better decisions than you do.

Villain is tight passive, tight aggressive, loose passive, or loose aggressive.

OP described V as better. You might not like comparing yourself to other players but in my experience in live play when someone describes another player as better than them it tends to mean that player is very good at reading them. This to me means you are being very cavalier when you state "Nobody is bluffing you anymore." Assuming you are correct and they always raise better and always fold or call worse they are not better. What do you do on a call that then bets/raises your bet on a three low card flop? An A on the flop followed by a bet? Remembering the V likely doing that will sense you dislike the A and knows your game well enough to not raise better preflop to keep you trapped.

I fully agree folding vs average opponents is too nitty but feel not taking advantage of the read V2 is better and is in position is like doing the effort to realize a V is an OMC and not taking advantage of that read. Deeper stacks make position and relative skill more important. Think here that either V wins big if they beats us whereas we win small when we beat them. I certainly am not recommending folding QQ all the time but in this specific situation feel it is wise.

Folding now costs $25; playing big pots vs an opponent we feel is better and in position likely costs more.

350

QQ is only middle-upper part of a UTG opening range to begin with. Also there's a big difference between a 4bet pot which hero has 3bet (in or out of position) and one which has been cold 4bet.

The fact that these are two decent players and could be making a move against each other doesn't negate the fact that you have raised UTG and are perceived as tight.

I'd imagine solver has this as a pure fold?

Calling OOP in a 4bet pot 250BB deep against two players doesn't feel like a recipe for making money (and may invite V1 to come over the top light). 5betting OOP feels like an overplay, you might get the odd KK to fold (and a lot of AK as well) but you're in big trouble if called especially OOP.

The fact that you are up against two good players does mean their ranges may be looser than otherwise, but doesn't negate the fact that you are OOP and perceived as tight. Also the chances of two players going crazy with junk is slim.

Feels like a fold.

Grunch:

Immediate thought is that all three options are on the table. But...

Thinking that a 5B would need to be at least $425-$450. It would absolutely suck to put that much in and fold to a jam. It wouldn't feel awesome if we get flat called. We'll be OOP vs an uncapped range.

We could keep our range wide by flatting to set mine. But we'll be inviting V1 to come along. We'll be OOP with the worst relative position.

Folding feels criminal. And yet, I really don't like this spot.

I think 5B is probably slightly better than folding, and folding is probably slightly better than flat calling. But I'm really not sure. Calling may be better than folding.

If we just dragged in a big pot after showing AA, I wonder how often opponents simply don't believe we were immediately dealt another big hand, and as a result they tend to continue too wide or play back at us.

I dunno. I'd have a hard time folding with the read that V2 is LAG. Seems close between 5B and calling.

I could get behind this line of thinking, especially if you think you’re being outplayed.
The old ‘don’t make him tell me twice’ fold.

It’s just extremely deep and we hold a very strong hand. When extremely smug and passive hero raises like this, even into two tricky pros - they become honest in a hurry. They can run you off the $25 open, but are not likely trying to fold you out after the $300 5bet.

Don’t ignore Hero’s image.
Better players give more credit when passive becomes aggressive.

We’re raising for value expecting worse hands to come along, but we also get info with the actions villain(s) take. This deep, the implied odds are likely near worth set mining alone.

Take a stab
If called, evaluate
Fold to resistance
or
just fold preflop
if you think you’re worse than a flip or you don’t want to get in a tricky situation post

Limited experience in this depth and vs good tricky players but I'll put my 2c, and experienced ppl can push back.

IME, a cold 4b is death for QQ especially with a tight utg involved. If this action sequence is not common in your game, then I lean toward folding as weak as that seems. If on the other hand, you are seeing a lot of loose isos and re-iso then get ready to put your stack in on reasonable flops and run-outs.

I don't like 5b small "for information" just to fold to a shove, putting in 20% of stack seems bad, and even if called you still have to fade a bunch of bad stuff. I guess we could call the 4b bc set mining price is not bad, and you get to see how the 3ber reacts.

Isn't that tantamount to begging the 3bettor to 5bet with AK and some other Ax?

I don't know, is it? On one hand, we have capped our range by flatting (ok it's not AA but still could be KK?). On the other hand, the 3b made a bs looking 3b and then got cold 4b. So does the player in the middle put it all together and 5b Ax? If so...maybe you use the read that he is full of it and back 6b shove QQ as long as the 4b player doesn't. This could get weird

How about playing zero 5bets here when starting 250 straddles (very) deep? All the problems of splitting into 5bet/call become irrelevant?

I like calling. Still lot of play behind. I think it's going to be better than folding or raising again.

Yeah but then you let V1 come in with ATC and QQ really benefits from getting heads up and chopping the SPR down to place where u can felt off as an OP happily

I mean...V2 could be reading this situation perfectly and setting hero up with this small iso 4B while holding AA.

If we assume V2 has AA, then the play is to either fold or flat call. We can rep a wider range that will connect with more boards, especially if V1 folds pre.

If V1 comes along by double-flatting, that kind of sucks for us, but the good news is that it should slow V2 down somewhat.

If we just want V1 to fold pre, we could conceivably click it to $290. V1 should almost certainly fold anything worse than QQ, and it kind of puts V2 in a $hlt spot. He can call and hope we'll punt off the rest of our stack post-flop, or he can 6B and turn his hand face up, knowing we'll mostly just fold.

If he's bluffing and wants to 6B, bless his degen heart.

ETA - just remembering something that's come up in Bart Hanson's podcasts, about how some players will 4B too small with AA, giving their opponents too good IO to fold, so they call, and AA ends up getting cracked. This is why I was saying our 5B needs to be $425-$450. But I'm not sure, when we have QQ, and it'll be a 5B pot. I'm guessing we could c-bet super-small or just check and V will struggle to find the optimal response.

Results: H folds. V1 calls. Flop TKK. V1 x, V2 cbet. V1 f.

I wasn’t sure how to continue in the hand in a way that made sense so I folded. Pretty sure folding was a losing play though. In real time my thought was that I needed to 5b (and I still think that would have been correct) but I was thinking larger than suggested ITT, something like ~$450-500. At that sizing I’m really committed so maybe just straight jamming looks bluffier and may get called lighter. But then I value own myself when the cold 4b’er has it. So I confused myself and decided to fold so my confusion didn’t turn into a disaster. I think 5b/f to ~$325 would have been the play.

It's a tough spot. I don't think it was a huge mistake to fold pre.