To shove flop or to shove turn?

To shove flop or to shove turn?

This is a theoretical debate that I am opening.

Both players have $130 behind.

We have QQs and 3 bet an ep raise to $30. Ep calls. Pot is $60 (let's ignore the blinds).

Flop is T 7 3.

We have $100 behind.

Debate: Should we shove flop or should we c-bet flop then shove turn?

Which option is more profitable?

I look forward to hearing your points of view.

20 April 2025 at 04:39 AM
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Depends on texture. With a disconnected flop. C bet. Maybe plan your 3’ better too. If you expect to want to get AI on flop size up.


There is no theoretical debate here, since you give no reads or card suits, and with an SPR<2, the money is going in regardless.

The actual answer is, "it depends."

/thread.


It depends on player tendencies. If you were playing a gto bot, you're going to be called way more often spreading over two bets. $100 in $60 on the flop is a large overbet for a street where 75% psb is usually considered "big".

Against a player I know nothing about, I'd default to betting small and assess if shoving will be called OTT. A $20 bet results in $100 pot with $80 behind OTT and now a shove is a normal bet.

Buy if you're short-stacked in an aggro game and V might get sticky with two overs, jamming flop is not terrible.


ok super important question: what stakes are we talking? is 5/10 and we're both extremely short stacked? or is .50/1.00 and we both are a little over 100bbs? this piece of info is integral in how we construct ranges even in a general sense especially for EP's call 3bet range etc.

That said, i'm going to assume .50/1.00 and we have 130 big blinds each - feel free to correct.

as already stated - the strategy response is not static to all opponents. If we want to talk about static strategy against all opponents - go use a GTO solver, answer will be clear as day. But if we're talking about sub optimal opponents, then we are in realm of exploitive strategies and now will be veering potentially from GTO strategy. Some villains over aggress this situation and you gain more through inducing. Some villain's under aggress and you gain more via VB'ing smaller to keep **** hands along for the ride. The latter category can be further subdivided into tight passive and loose passive.

With loose passive calling stations as the 'loose' approaches an extreme (eg. they will just call down with almost any combo that connects down to 2nd or 3rd pair say along with some # of combos of drawing hands that maybe bink a losing pair on the river) - a simple 3stret bet when checked to line without worrying about turn and river is going to be ideal but it is predicated on that assumption in parenthesis.

Similar to the above, as the passive opponent gets tighter regarding the ranges from pre through post flop play, you want to be more likely to shift from a 3 street game to 2 street or even just PSB on flop. But the PSB on flop villain differs from very loose passive calling station in that their range may be less low equity draw/3rd pair they are willing to call with but shifts more towards poor understanding of relative hand strengths / poor hand reading / "i put you on AK and call w/ Tx"

additionally, tight passive types that approach nit - you have to now dissect **** like does the tighter passive villain float flop w/ 2 overs and a bd draw? An absolute NIT probably doesnt open hands like 33 from EP, and 77 and TT is up for debate / scales on spectrum respectively.

There is the fantasy opponent who only will raise and call 3/bet with AA/KK. Non zero that they exist but for purposes of stupid tangents, lets assume they only play against other unicorns, dragons, tooth fairies etc so lets remove 'em all together from our concern.

But opponents to approach that profiling, i think betting when checked to for some size 1/3rd pot or less will produce the same response as PSB and liklihood you get stacks in would be limited to JJ and AT at the best case for you trending towards what turn is and if this nit call 3bet range from OOP includes 2pairs combos.

for any of these opponents, aggressive action should trigger alarm especially on later streets. and while it wouldnt necessarily mean folding, it DOES absolutely now open that option up as a non zero possibility.

On the flip side you have aggressive villain types - here down betting flop may get a call on flop and a donk on the turn. Again, we can split this group up in as far as loose/tight pre as well as scaled range of aggression from a frequency of aggressive action that indicates value ranges and increases towards maniacal A2C.

Its this subsection that I think warrants necessity to now talk about their EP call 3bet range and what it looks like and how it interacts with the board.

Ok so as you can see, the answer is hardly simple because we can keep breaking these larger categories down into sub categories influencing our strategy.

hope this helps put you down the road towards what you're looking for, im just a little exhausted and ran outta steam on continuing the analysis piece by piece facet by facet

but if you want some theoretical singular response type GTOwizard into search and drill the mfing hand out - 100bb approximate ranges will give you a singular "whole earth theory" of strategy and i'd wager a solution wouldnt change much at all from 100-130 bbs. but notably this is assuming your opponent is also optimal, which just isnt the case in the real world.


rag-rag-rag is a board we want to check or bet large a lot, especially in a 3-bet scenario. Either branch is fine. The only decision that gets made is sometimes we check back AK or AQ here, turn is a blank and V shoves and we're left with a decision to call or not.

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