What’s Your Play? Street-by-Street in the SCOOP: Pre-Flop

32 thoughts on “What’s Your Play? Street-by-Street in the SCOOP: Pre-Flop”

1. This is kind of easy, due to a previous “WYP” where I’d assumed you’d 3bet QQ+ here but it was pointed out that at full ring in spots like this it’s very common for a reg. vs reg. to have a 0% 3bet range in your spot. So call.

   • 0% 3bet range? I must have missed that WYP. Could you or Andrew expand on that? A 3bet here is too polarizing, you’re either super-strong like JJ+ or have complete air? So it’s better to call and 5-bet over a squeeze from late position if UTG folds?

     • I think stacking off 150BBs deep at this stage of the tournament preflop is going to be a huge mistake against most players. If someone actually 3b behind, I’d just flat and go from there.

       • This seems like a bad plan. Why would you flat someone else’s 3b after you call?

         Now suddenly your playing a 3b OOP.

         What if Villain 1 4b? Now you’re stuck in the middle and would have to consider folding the best option even if V2 was 3b as a bluff. You certainly can’t 5b after calling unless you plan on 5b/folding. If you call the 4b and it’s 5b, 6b, or all in we’ve just lost like 30% of our stack without seeing a flop with QQ which is relatively strong hand pre-flop.

         • I’d flat if someone 3b behind because I don’t really see hero overcall and then 4b as a bluff pretty much ever. I think overcalling and then 4betting has the same basic problem as an initial 3bet. It defines hero’s range very strongly and allows villain to play almost perfectly against hero. Assuming of course that the 3b comes from a competent player.

           If villain 1 4bets I probably fold.

2. I’d always call in this spot. A 3bet looks really strong because you usually don’t see light 3bets in this spot. I don’t know why that’s the case, cause if everyone thinks that your range there is super strong that would be a reason to 3b light.
   So if you 3bet he’s going to put you on a very strong range and you’ll only get a lot of money into the pot when you’re beat. Stacks are deep enough that he can call your 3bet with a lot pairs and maybe some other stuff like suited Ax. The plan with the pairs is to hit a set obviously and with suited Ax either hit a FD and go from there or hit top pair and try to get a cheap showdown. I guess what I’m trying to say is that 3betting tells him a lot about your hand and makes it easy for him to play correctly.

   Now if you just flat, he might decide to barrel some boards and you can call down, or he might value bet a worse TP strongly, etc. There are a few ways that you can make money by flatting, whereas if you 3b you’re usually not going to win a lot of money postflop.

3. I don’t think we are getting much value from a 3-bet pre-flop: Thinking about villain, his 4-betting range is strong 6-handed, (i.e., around 1.32% of hands he opens 22*.3*.2=1.32 from all positions). It may be stronger still UTG, 9-handed, deep and early in a tournament. Also, as far as I am aware, we don’t have any history that suggests a pre-flop raising war would be particularly profitable. And, even if he 4-bets a polarised range, I don’t think our options are very good in the event of being 4-bet.

   I don’t think we are getting much value from a 3-bet post-flop: If villain or one of the other players flats our 3-bet (e.g., with a suited connector), I think they are going to play against our range pretty well, as our hand is not well disguised and we are deep.

   I think the hand plays out better if we flat: Heads-up we take a strong hand to the flop from which we can get a decent amount of value on a good number of boards. If we are squeezed, depending on who it is coming from, I think our options are better than in the bet, 3-bet, 4-bet scenario. And, while the potential of taking the flop multi-way after flatting is not ideal, among other things, it is not likely to be costly (i.e., fold on Axx 5-handed).

   Overall, I like flatting most because of the disguise factor deep stacked against someone good.

4. 3bet to 360. Building a pot and gaining initiative when you’re in position and have most likely the best hand is rarely a mistake. Flatting does disguise the value of our hand, but many players 3bet in-position wide especially at these stakes – so it’s not like we’re overly narrowing our range by doing so.

5. I’m not sure if 2x is a standard raise this early in a tourney w AA or KK, but regardless I want to play this since I’m in position.  I’ll raise to 380, an amount that should get all other players out and should get him to define his hand by calling or re-raising.  If he re-raises I can decide whether to fold, call, or 5 bet based on the size of his raise.

   • @ Dana: 3 betting won’t help to “define” his hand, because even after he calls/4 bets you won’t really know what his range is, let alone the specific hand that he has.

     • @prabhat, I think you are right @ that.  Against some weak tournament players an early position min raise is very often a very strong hand, but that isn’t the case here.
       However, one reason I don’t like flat ting is it opens up to multiple callers and then we have the worst relative position on villain.  So then I’m only going to be comfortable continuing on the flop when I hit a queen on a relatively dry flop.  Maybe it speaks to a weakness on my part, but I’d rather raise to keep position on villain (& fold to most 4 bets) then face an uncomfortable situation this deep in a multiway pot.

       Andrew – I’m writing this from Golden, Alberta on a Canadian Rockies tour (I think we go to Banff next)

       • Oh, sweet! Will you be in Jasper? That was my favorite part of the region. It’s a little out of the way but well worth it, a much quainter town than Banff/Canmore.

         • We’re not going to Jasper, but we did go to Jasper park and see the glacier.
           I thought Banff was quaint, although a bit commercial.  The rapids and the hoodoo lookout were cool.  Gotta love the weather, yesterday was in 70’s and today it’s snowing.

   • @ Dana: 4 betting won’t help to “define” his hand, because even after he calls/4 bets you won’t really know what his range is, let alone the specific hand that he has.

   • I think it’s a mistake to try to glean much if anything about Villain’s hand from the size of his raise. Good players simply aren’t giving off that sort of exploitable bet sizing tell very often at all. It’s reasonable to say “His 2x range is wider than his 3x range” – there’s a mathematical basis for playing that way – but not to say “he wouldn’t raise 2x with AA”.

6. Flatting is obviously standard in this spot since in a $2100 tournament, we are never getting 150 BB in with QQ as a favorite barring some extraordinary dynamics. That said, with many hands we can 3 bet with the intention of calling a 4-bet in an inflated pot.

   The problem is that QQ isn’t this kind of a hand, because unless we flop a Q, there is no way we will want to play for stacks. 3-betting with 56s, 89s etc with the intention of calling a 4-bet in an inflated pot is attractive, but I don’t really see any reason to build a huge pot with a hand which rarely flops huge. I would just call.

7. What do we want with this hand ? Do we want to have a lot of people into the hand ? We’ve got 5 more people to talk after us, do we want them to see a flop ? QQ is a great hand but against 3 other people I’m giving so much opportunities to other lesser hands if I flat.

   One of the major objective of a raise is to get bad hands out of the flop. If I call, I would let all of them see a cheap flop with these kind of blinds and stacks. So many of them would call because it’s quite cheap.

   I would at least 3bet, I don’t want many people seeing a flop, there are too much of them talking after me and my hand is good enough.

   If I face a Ace or King high flop I would dislike it but if that happens, well, I would play with it.

   • The other point in raising is that it prevents me from being bluffed out by the late position guys with a huge raise if some other people call after me.

     By raising, only the best hands would reraise after me… which would make me fold.

     PROS :
     Stop the limpers
     Prevent being bluffed out
     Narrow my opponents hands range
     Narrow my calling range
     I am building a tight image ? If that so, I would profit from it later on

     CONS :
     I am yelling “I’VE GOT A GOOD HAND !”

8. I like a raise to 380. My only reason is you don’t want a bunch of people in pot in position.

9. regarding sizing, i think anywhere between 350 and 444 is ok

10. As many stated, 3-betting with QQ is a bluff as we are not comfortable to 5-bet to a reraise and should throw away a premium hand.
    On the other hand, we will not be happy after calling to see a Kxy or Axy flop with four players.
    We benefit more from a big bet-sizing with more polarized range, here QQ looks more like a medium-top pair.

    So I would min-raise to 240 as an attempt to tell “I know you open light, so I can raise you cheaply light too”. Then villain will have a hard decision between folding (usually the right decision here but the odds are too tempting not to go on), calling (bad with a light hand) or 4-betting (usually light).

    Then I would fold to a squeeze and 5-bet bluff to a reasonable 4-bet.

11. If we 3bet here, how are we reacting to a 4bet? Are we flatting or 5betting? Both options seem pretty bad to me. We don’t want to get it in with 150BB behind against a range we are unlikely to be beating once all the money goes in.

    We want UTG to make a mistake here and by just flatting his raise, we are keeping all of his weaker hands in his range and are obviously disguising the strength of our own hand.

    Andrew, this might not be hugely important but how is the rest of the table playing? Are we getting squeezed often if we just flat? Then that might give us the opportunity to put in a profitable 4bet after one of these jokers 3bets us. 

    In any case, I think this is a flat.

    • I think I’d flat the 4b if no other callers. We’d have position on villain with the only real hands that we’re scared of AA/KK.

      Say we 3b to 380, villain 4b to 1400 I think we flat and play some poker. We still have position and a pretty decent starting hard.

      Flatting the raise I think encourages others to come along with excellent odds that would have position on both Villain and Hero.

      For others that feel a flat is correct. What is worse?

      A. We 3b folds to Villain who 4b?
      B. We call and have 4 – 6 players to the flop including BB? With 1+ having position on us?

      I’m not saying we’re getting a bunch of callers after we call but I’d like to deter callers and I’d like to have position on my Villains.

    • Good question, but it’s super early in the tournament, so I don’t really know.

12. You got to think Villain thinks you would just call with your entire range so if you 3bet it keeps him guessing which can’t be all bad.

    Seems to me standard line is to call
    always doing the standard thing must be bad at some point.

    I call 90% and 3bet 10%.

13. Why does everyone think Villain is going to 4b? We have no history as others have noted. The action has gone UTG raise, UTG+1 re-raise.

    Our hand has to look as strong as his. We also have to think what villain things about him 4b and then us flatting. Suddenly Villain is playing a 4b OOP against a good opponent.

    Like others have noted it’s early in a tough field. Why would Villain 4b us light? Even if Villains range is AA, KK, AK I think we’re still 45/55 vs that range and in position. (I don’t have Stove to run the numbers)

    I feel people are to concerned that Villain is going to auto 4b us without taking into consideration what villain is going to do if we flat his 4b. Is his plan just to barrel till the river and stack off with AA on a dry board after we’ve called his 4b, flop and turn bets?

14. Call Preflop. Shove any flop.

15. I’m raising here to about 350-80, It’s a great preflop hand, and I don’t want to have to play against a bunch of villains out of position. This allows us to play against probably 1 oppontent in position. If he reraises us I think we can call and check out a flop. If we get 4bet squeezed I think we can either call or 5bet, since we’d be out of position I’d probably 5bet and if we get shoved on we can probably fold…of course depending on which villain is playing back at us I would make different folding/calling/betting decisions. My first preflop move is to raise to 350-80, almost always. I don’t necessarily think this would be perceived as a super-strong move either, I could make this play with just about any pocket pair, big ace, suited connectors, etc…in hopes of isolating the raiser and keeping my opponent out of position, which we’re kind of doing anyway but with a pretty strong preflop hand.

    • I think my 4bet and 5bet statements should be 3bet and 4bet, effectively, since if we flat a squeezer would be 3betting and we could 4bet. I think that makes better sense?

      • doh…nevermind, I was right the first time…it’s Friday… Hey, where’s the results and next step…?

16. Left a comment at CP also. It’s early in the tournament and you can choose any which way to play this hand. You always have to be aware of stack sizes, but everyone is deep so lets mix our play up and hope to get to show the QQ in any fashion … even a fold.

    You have to try and discover informaiton about the players/table and QQ is a good hand to do it with. If you have the dicsipline to fold that hand against a lot of boards, then you can flat some. If not, then pick a raising size (400?) and see what happens.

    I like the idea of a 4-bet against a late position squeezer … but only if Villian folds ahead of me. This puts you OOP to a call though whereas a 3-bet or 4-bet call puts you in position with Villian. It’s time to show the table you know what you are doing and play a strong hand.

    • I guess the idea is you aren’t going to consider all of these options later in the tournament, so why not play a little right now and hope they take notice. This will allow you to get away with lessor holdings later if you show QQ now … win or lose. Constantly making the ‘math’ play or playing by the ‘rules’ this early and deep only serves notice that you can be played against later in the tournament. Losing one 20 BB hand right now is the same as taking down a preflop ‘steal’ with AK in 2 more levels.

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