QQ in the SB 1-3

There's no open jamming on this flop, since that will insure that only better will call. I think this is a clear check.

Think about what each of your ranges looks like on the flop.

Don't get obsessed with the idea of an opponent having one hand. Of course they could have AK, but they can have numerous other hands as well. The 4x raise over two limps is a bit weak (your 3bet, to 1/4 of effective stack, is fine).

Jamming would be disastrous; exactly as you say, you're not going to fold out a King partly because your own AA/KK/AK would never play this way. Bet small or check. Obviously it's not a flop you like at all, but button will also hate it if they're sat there with JJ. No reason to think you're a hopeless case yet, just proceed cautiously and try to get to showdown cheaply - you'd rather stacks didn't go in.

I'm fine with preflop.

On the flop we're WA/WB so very little reason to bet, imo. Might have to call a small bet and see what he does on the turn. Otherwise prolly attempting to check it down to the river where I may put in a very small bet targeting smaller pairs.

GcluelessNLnoobG

Go back to my first sentence - you're still focussing on individual hands. When I said "JJ" it was a figure of speech for JJ, TT, 99, 88 and loads of other hands. Think about ranges. It's SB vs button; he can have loads of hands which you can broadly categorise into groups: (1) Kx; (2) monster flopped hands ie 77, possibly 22 and some extremely unlikely KK or two pair; (3) pocket pairs particularly QQ-88, but also possibly 66-33; and (4) all other hands which don't connect with the flop at all - so hands like AQ, AJ, QJ and so on. You're making no money from Group 4, and while you're going to lose money to Group 2 the number of potential hands is so small as to not warrant worrying about much. So you have a load of Kx hands and a load of pocket pairs. Those are all hands which will want to play pretty cautiously - but the Kx probably aren't going to fold top pair at this SPR. So you want to keep the pot small.

Do you think 150 pre flop or a shove pre-flop would be better or do you think another bet size would be better?

If more worse hands than better hands are going to call a shove preflop, then it might not be bad. But is that what is going to happen?

I sounds like you are trying to make things easier for yourself / avoid dumb spots / etc... and there really isn't anything wrong with doing that either (and the less skilled you are the more you will want to do this). But as much as can you attempt to simplify things, there will still sometimes be spots where you will have to play pokrz. Shoving preflop where you will only be called by better (likely the case here) does not accomplish anything good.

Gggodluck!G

What bet sizing do you like in this exact spot pre-flop?

Your sizing was fine, could go 120

Seems like a consensus on pre, so let's move on.

Hero checks
V bets $100
Hero??

I typically like to offer poor IO of 8:1 preflop to prevent setminers (let alone anything else) from profitably calling (especially if I'm creating a small SPR where I'll likely be forced to stack off postflop with TP / overpair). In this case here, that would be about $75. But being OOP (and perhaps a little noobish and cooler with taking it down preflop), $100 is perfectly reasonable.

GcluelessNLnoobG

Postflop isn't easy here. A lot will depend on your read. Against a lot of straightforward ABC old guys, a flop fold is fine. Against others, we might have to lean to a call to see what they do on the turn. And against these guys we'll have to protect our checking range by mixing in flop checks with TP+ here (which I would often do on such a dry board like this).

GcluelessNLnoobG

Nope. At least 24 hours after posting or once the conversation dies down. 3.5 hours is nowhere near long enough. A lot of posters haven't even seen this yet. I edited it down to next action.

Agree completely. As for the hand, I'd check such a dry flop, even if I had AK or KQ. The villain is never folding a king. You're ahead of virtually everything else other than a set. Peel another card, which is most likely going to be a blank and see if the villain takes a stab at it.

In a post, I gave the details of what happened on the flop. I checked and villain bet 100.

As played, it is only a 1/2 PSB. I silently thank the villain for saving me money and fold.

But did we really save money if villain turned 88 into a bluff when given the green light to blow us off our hand?

It’s admittedly an uncomfortable spot and we have limited maneuverability given the shallow effective stacks (1.4x SPR), but I believe our range will play better with a small bet in the $40-50 range. We have plenty of KK/AA/AK here, but we also have 16 combos of AQ, and possibly 16 more AJ (or 4 AJs at a minimum).

A small sizing forces villain to defend some of his PP’s that are worse than QQ. Sure, sometimes he has AK and we value town ourself, but he also has JJ-88. Depending how flop plays out (live reads/timing tells), we can often bet small again on the turn like 60/290 if we bet 40/210 on the flop, and especially so if the board pairs.

A King on the turn would be the perfect card for us imo as it reduces villain’s combos of Kx while increasing his chances of defending another small bet. If we get raised we can safely dump it as it’s suicidal to bluff raise (while turning whatever hand he’s holding into a bluff like some wizard) when we have all AK and possibly some KQs.

River then usually goes x/x as villain is happy to take the showdown hoping his pocket pair beats our bluff and dies inside a little bet when we turn over QQ and scoop the pot.

Fwiw - described villain should also have a non-zero 4bet frequency with AK. Flatting AK for 25% of effective stacks is a pretty fishy move and I’d expect him to mostly be 4b or folding those combos.

I would bet 20 to 40 with my entire range. Against unknown bet 30 and see what develops. Getting him to make a decision either way with ace high or TT is great. Probably checking all turns except a queen.

just range bet very small, like 1/4p, ezgame

You should get a lot of cheap showdowns against other split pairs, you shouldn’t pay off any more to AK and if he floats with ATs double BD type stuff, then nh, onto the next one, flop better next time.

I think you should know that you have a fundamental part of the game wrong.

Without blockers there are 12 combos of AQ not 16, also 12 of AJ instead of 16.

Also, I’m not certain how often people at 1-3 are calling 100 with 88 or 99, maybe 1010 or JJ though.

Um, what? 4 Aces and 4 Jacks can combine in 16 ways (4x4).

i dont see how you can c/f when people stab so often in these games when checked to. i honestly dont know if checking or 1/4 pot betting is better, but c/f to a 1/2 pot size bet seems terrible.

No, might be an intuitive thought but it isn’t correct.

You can ask google or you can manually write down all the possibilities on a piece of paper and count them when you are done.

Why don’t you try it yourself, and write out all of the combos of AQ.

if this isn’t a troll job, you might want to consider going back to basics if 15 years in you still don’t know how to count combos.