Is folding QQ to a 4 bet the standard play now?

[Phantaroth]

I feel like I keep getting stacked in these situations.

I haven't played cash games in a while but if I remember QQ was like the nuts 6 handed.

Are people at 25 NL 6 max good enough that we are supposed to fold Queens preflop to a 4 bet? Do we call and see a flop? What do we do? =(

[TheKid0151]

Kill the fishes

[Pelion]

Need more informations.

UTG Vs UTG+1?

Button Vs Blind?

Tag? Lag? Passive? Aggro?

In position? Out of position?

Put them on a range.

There are certainly players and situations who it is very profitable to get QQ in preflop. There are others where it is probably suicide. Against an unknown I doubt it is more than a minor mistake.

[tomato paste carnage]

It's hard to generalize without reads and/or stats

[Micro2Macro]

Here's my take on 4betting QQ (would love some criticism here):

4bet folding QQ is typically a bad play. The reason is, theoretically, a hand as weak as 72o is better than QQ to 4bet/fold. This is because with 72o you will make your opponent fold better hands. With QQ, 4bet/folding (i.e. turning your hand into a bluff) isn't going to allow your opponent to make the mistake of folding AA or KK because no one is 3bet/folding these hands preflop. All it does is make your opponent fold worse and shove better. (mostly) So against someone who has such a tight 3bet range that you can't even continue, you'll have to just fold. (yes I know folding QQ to a 3bet sounds gross and exploitable, but if someone is only 3betting KK+ they're not exploiting you).

However, if someone has a pretty wide 3bet range but will shove AA/KK/AK only as a 5bet, we're still a 40%ish dog against his continuing range (5bet range). But, you'll have pot odds to call off the shove most of the time, and the reason we 4bet is because we're so far ahead of villains 3bet range anyway (assuming he's 3betting light) that alot of the time we'll just scoop up the dead money in the pot with our 4bet when he folds. And when he jams its not a big deal because we'll be priced into calling and will have made up for our slight equity disadvantage against his 5bet range with all the times he's folded to your 4bet when you held QQ.

Now if we're ahead of villains range and we hold QQ perhaps it's more correct in a theory sense to call. However, if we're OOP it's going to be pretty damn tough to play vs an aggressive player when we don't have the initiative and will often have to just c/f and Axx or Kxx flop because we won't be able to call down many barrels profitably due to these flops hitting villains range to hard.

Here's my take on 3betting QQ:

If we're going to 3bet QQ, it's for value. We have ze premium. However, if villain won't continue with worse, you're wasting your 3bet. Example: Villain is a supernit folding 95% of the time to 3bets. In this case, we should 3bet a polarized range until he adjusts. That is, weak hands we can't call a raise with, and then just AA or w/e. Same idea with the 4bet, we're wasting QQ as a bluff when we could bluff with a hand that theoretically earns us more money because villain is folding better hands. In fact if someone is folding this often to 3bets we might be better off flatting AA since we'll have more value postflop, and then just 3bet him purely as bluffs.

So like all spots in poker, it just comes down to villains range and how he plays it. If you have someone who just folds or 4bets when you 3bet, you can just 3bet a polar range till they adjust. If someones calling your 3bets, whether IP or OOP you can 3bet a much wider range for value, while cutting back on pure bluffs.

Okay this is too long already..maybe someon else can add moar. I hope I explained myself clearly? I tend to get messy when I write out rambles on strategy so some things I wrote may not make sense or perhaps I mixed something up. If you catch me on it let me know thx.

[spoonitnow]

Cliff notes: If you're not willing to stack off you probably shouldn't 3-bet unless Villain has a huge calling range against your 3-bet or you're trying to isolate a fish or something along those lines.

[Phantaroth]

Thanks this is all very helpful information.

Ok so let's say we are in BB with QQ and it folds to SB who has nitty stats over a small sample size and he raises 3x from SB, and the following things happen:

1. We 3 bet, he 4bets ---- Is it worth it to call and evaluate flop or are we just folding?

2. We just call instead of 3 betting ---- What is the plan here? If it is a dry low flop are we re-raising his C-bet and then shutting down if he keeps playing, or are we stacking off on all the low-dry boards???

Thanks =-)

[surviva316]

4bet folding QQ is typically a bad play.

footnote: this is true because it is very very rare that people have a "flatting a four bet range." essentially the only time you wanna {any kind of raise}/fold for value is either because there is enough reasonable fear that someone is going to suck out on you that protecting your hand outweighs value (irrelavent preflop) or because HE HAS SOME KIND OF FLATTING RANGE THAT WE BEAT. and people who flat 4b's at 25nl 6m is like "woah, he just flatted my 4b, wtf does that?" so mainly people only continue to 4b's by stacking off preflop with a 5b, so if that stacking off range is one you can't call off to, then you have manipulated his range so that a range that you once crushed, now crushes you.

3b/folding QQ, however, is a scenario that isn't uncommon at all because people call 3b's all the time. fish do it to the point where you're missing out on immense amount of value by not 3b'ing them with like AJ+, TT+ IP because most 60/20 LAgg fish think that KJ and AT are the nuts preflop and won't fold them to what seems like a mild amount of aggression.

as for your question about the nit in the bvb spot. i believe you said that you play 25nl, which is the first limit where i think that it's fairly common that people are 3b'ing light. so if, even over a small sample, the nitty villain appears to be stealing blinds with any kind of frequency, then we should be 3b'ing here so often as a bluff because they're going to be opening wider than they feel comfortable with and they're not going to want to continue with much of it OOP. so, if you're able to build up a bit of a rapport of 3b'ing like anything suited and any Ax, then you almost SHOULD 3b QQ from a theoretical standpoint (to balance your bluffing range just a bit) because someone who just looks like a nit over a small sample still may have the propensity to start playing back at you. i would pretty much need to have like a 70-100 hand sample on someone being like a 14/10 for me to not want to auto 3b/get it in in this spot though.

if you decide to flat QQ IP, i wouldn't suggest making raising a cbet on any non Axx or Kxx board your "standard" play especially against a nit. in bvb, against a reg, you prolly can because you're gonna look so FoS because it's bvb and everybody's always FoS, so you WILL get called alot by KJ on a J-high board. but other than that, your opponent usually needs to be a fish to continue with TPTK to raise on a dry board, so raising a T-high board IP isn't usually going to be preferable to calling because you're getting value for like JJ (which will often consider a fold too, especially if it's a nit)

so if you're flatting PF, usually you're making a decision that means it's going to take multiple streets to stack your opponent, unless the flop comes like AQx or you flop overpair+OESD or flop is a wet 7-high board or something like that. soooooo, don't make anything you're standard play because i just included a lot of exceptions (fishy opponent, bvb, a flop where you look FoS if you raise and that allows for a lot of lesser overpairs, etc), but don't get caught in the thought process of "well i have to either raise PF or raise on the flop" it's still all about ranges and so forth[/b]

[Pelion]

@ surviva316: A* stuff in this post.

@ Micro2Macro: Having a spot where we fold QQ but raise 72o preflop just doesnt make sense. Flat QQ and raise 72o? Sure. Raise 72o and fold QQ? Just no. If we are in some theoretical spot vs some theoretical villain where there is value in a raise/fold because we expect villain to fold a tonne, but no value in a call for whatever reason then we raise as a bluff. We still prefer to have QQ than 72o because QQ has more equity and more value than 72o the rare times he smooth calls/ DCs/ feints/ whatever. When you are bluffing you always prefer to have the best hand you can (that isnt profitable to play in some other way).

There is an exception where you would prefer to have a hand that flops nut draws than a slightly better hand that doesnt e.g. A2s is much better than A8o to 3bet vs a lot of villains because you can be aggro with it on more flops and semibluff out some better hands, whereas if you decide to bluff with A8o postflop you will rarely have much equity when called and you will rarely be called down by worse when you value bet. 72o flops horribly though so that doesnt apply.

Cliffnotes: QQ > 72o.

[spoonitnow]

@ Micro2Macro: Having a spot where we fold QQ but raise 72o preflop just doesnt make sense.

He never said there was any situation where you should fold QQ but raise 72o preflop.

[Phantaroth]

4bet folding QQ is typically a bad play.

footnote: this is true because it is very very rare that people have a "flatting a four bet range." essentially the only time you wanna {any kind of raise}/fold for value is either because there is enough reasonable fear that someone is going to suck out on you that protecting your hand outweighs value (irrelavent preflop) or because HE HAS SOME KIND OF FLATTING RANGE THAT WE BEAT. and people who flat 4b's at 25nl 6m is like "woah, he just flatted my 4b, wtf does that?" so mainly people only continue to 4b's by stacking off preflop with a 5b, so if that stacking off range is one you can't call off to, then you have manipulated his range so that a range that you once crushed, now crushes you.

3b/folding QQ, however, is a scenario that isn't uncommon at all because people call 3b's all the time. fish do it to the point where you're missing out on immense amount of value by not 3b'ing them with like AJ+, TT+ IP because most 60/20 LAgg fish think that KJ and AT are the nuts preflop and won't fold them to what seems like a mild amount of aggression.

as for your question about the nit in the bvb spot. i believe you said that you play 25nl, which is the first limit where i think that it's fairly common that people are 3b'ing light. so if, even over a small sample, the nitty villain appears to be stealing blinds with any kind of frequency, then we should be 3b'ing here so often as a bluff because they're going to be opening wider than they feel comfortable with and they're not going to want to continue with much of it OOP. so, if you're able to build up a bit of a rapport of 3b'ing like anything suited and any Ax, then you almost SHOULD 3b QQ from a theoretical standpoint (to balance your bluffing range just a bit) because someone who just looks like a nit over a small sample still may have the propensity to start playing back at you. i would pretty much need to have like a 70-100 hand sample on someone being like a 14/10 for me to not want to auto 3b/get it in in this spot though.

if you decide to flat QQ IP, i wouldn't suggest making raising a cbet on any non Axx or Kxx board your "standard" play especially against a nit. in bvb, against a reg, you prolly can because you're gonna look so FoS because it's bvb and everybody's always FoS, so you WILL get called alot by KJ on a J-high board. but other than that, your opponent usually needs to be a fish to continue with TPTK to raise on a dry board, so raising a T-high board IP isn't usually going to be preferable to calling because you're getting value for like JJ (which will often consider a fold too, especially if it's a nit)

so if you're flatting PF, usually you're making a decision that means it's going to take multiple streets to stack your opponent, unless the flop comes like AQx or you flop overpair+OESD or flop is a wet 7-high board or something like that. soooooo, don't make anything you're standard play because i just included a lot of exceptions (fishy opponent, bvb, a flop where you look FoS if you raise and that allows for a lot of lesser overpairs, etc), but don't get caught in the thought process of "well i have to either raise PF or raise on the flop" it's still all about ranges and so forth[/b]

Wow good analysis thanks . Maybe I have just always sucked at cash games and am only now realizing it because I am starting to play them again, but I really feel like two years ago I was doing everything possible to -not- worry about what 25 NL opponents were thinking, and just betting into them with AK,QQ+ and even if they raised it seemed like they could have less than TPTK a lot of the time... Now I feel like 6 max is super nitty and if I get played back at my hand is crushed like >95% of the time unless I have the absolute nuts... Hopefully I can figure this out.

[Micro2Macro]

Cliff notes: If you're not willing to stack off you probably shouldn't 3-bet unless Villain has a huge calling range against your 3-bet or you're trying to isolate a fish or something along those lines.

this sums up my excessive banter quite nicely

[Micro2Macro]

Pelion I should have made myself more clear. If it is correct to be folding QQ to a 3bet preflop, villains range is going to be too narrow to 4bet bluff, thus 4betting 72o as a bluff when you can't continue with a hand as strong as QQ will definately be -EV because he isn't folding enough to make it profitable. In a situation where villains range is wide enough to bluff, choosing QQ to 4bet/fold is worse than choosing 72o because of the reasons stated in my post (spoonitnow sums it up nicely).

I dunno if I just made what I said more confusing or not aha. (I also made a silly assumption that we're opening 72o preflop but it was mostly just to illustrate the point). I hope everything is a bit more clear? Although I think I just confused myself tbh.

[Pelion]

In a situation where villains range is wide enough to bluff, choosing QQ to 4bet/fold is worse than choosing 72o because of the reasons stated in my post (spoonitnow sums it up nicely).

Yeah ok I slightly misunderstood. But its still the case that if you are 4bet/folding you would marginally prefer to have QQ than 72o. Its just also the case that if you have QQ you would quite possibly prefer to call than to 4bet/fold. I mean, if you were dealt 72o, and then you 4bet knowing that youre only getting 5bet by AA/KK, then the dealer offered to sneakily swap your 72o for QQ, it would still be better to take the swap. Thats like the least important point of the thread though really :P. The other stuff was pretty solid logic.

[Donkafelts]

Great analysis in this thread btw.

@M2M your example was fine, easy to understand, and eye opening. FWIW no one said it, but if villian's range is super super narrow then 72 is also better because QQ is blocking his QQ and AQ hands making it more likely that he has a hand he is stacking off with.

[Micro2Macro]

Great analysis in this thread btw.

@M2M your example was fine, easy to understand, and eye opening. FWIW no one said it, but if villian's range is super super narrow then 72 is also better because QQ is blocking his QQ and AQ hands making it more likely that he has a hand he is stacking off with.

Interesting..because alot of players will actually make the mistake of 3bet/folding QQ or AQ against someone who is only 4bet/folding prelfop. Thanks for pointing that out.

[Pelion]

There arent many players who will only 4bet or fold to a 3bet. At lower stakes lots of players tend to call 3bets way too wide, especially OOP. And at higher stakes good players call more 3bets since there is so much more 3betting at higher stakes.

[Micro2Macro]

I think 50nl FR on Stars is a good example of having a player pool where many regulars are folding >80% of the time to 3bets while only 4bet/folding OOP, and then calling more when IP. So in short, they are responding to 3bets differently IP as opposed to being OOP. So depending on whether or not a particular villain is IP or OOP, we're going to have to adjust our 3bet range according to how they react to our 3bets.

Calling 3bets OOP is tricky and requires you to have a significant skill edge, though calling IP isn't as difficult to make profitable due to our positonal advantage, thus we can call a wider range profitably IP as opposed to being OOP.