AK, QQ when facing a 3bet/4bet
So as many of you know i have started my $50 bankroll challenge which is going decently well BUT i have a huge leak in my game that has always been a reason that i have either lost my whole stack or even my whole BR if i am not following proper BR rules.
The leak i am talking about is the horrible (For me) AK and QQ. These two culprits seem to leave me high and dry with no money and a healthy dose of tilt more often than not (ESPECIALLY the queens)
So this is going to be a "Overall" view of my scenarios as im not talking about a specific hand but more a array of hands. Lets say that i am on the button with QQ or AK and a mid position player raises to 3BB ahead of me. my normal play is to 3bet these holdings and 3x the original raise. BUT my issue comes along when i face a 4 bet. In my eyes and at the stakes im playing i expect many players to play wide and 4-bet with AJo,AQ,JJ,TT etc.... but this never seems to be the case. Without fail i will shove to thier 4bet and they will unvail AA or KK and i am drawing nearly dead.
I seem to run pretty bad with large pocket pairs as a whole because even when i shove AA i seem to get them cracked a good percentage of the time even heads up where i should have about 80%.
SO! my question is.... what do all of you do in these situations or how do you play AK,QQ,JJ in general.
- Do you call a 4 bet and set mine if the opponenst stack size is big enough?
- Do you lay down anything less than AA and KK to a 4bet?
- If you are 3bet with either of these hands would you counter with a 3bet or just call?
- When would you shove with these hands if at all?
I can honestly say that i am a solid player with good fundimentals but this has ALWAYS been a giant leak for me and has caused me to go on tilt and lose my entire BR more than once and i would love to fix it haha. It is soul crushing to sit and grind at a table for 3 hours to build a nice big stack and see it all shipped away on one bad call.
I have began folding AK to 4 bets and set mining QQ but im just wondering if thier are any better lines i could take with these hands.
Thanks Guys!
- Adam
Comments
You are not getting beat a " good percentage " of the time. You are getting beat 20% like everyone else over time. The math is static here. Of course the game has variance, ups and downs like a roller coaster. So results don't happen in a straight line.
When you shove QQ, you only get called by better. The light 3-4 bets fold and AA-KK call. Stay aggressive with the 3 betting here but call the 4 bets to keep the bluffs in and maybe you can get away at some point as an underdog by playing multi-street poker. You are facing a river bet with no over cards in a 4 bet pot. Ummm this is poker. You make the call. Pardon the pun. Your decision my friend. It is ok to be wrong sometimes. No one plays perfectly. Btw you are not necessarily set mining if you call. You may have the best hand. Use your HUD here. Fold to nits. Call LAGs????
Don't let short term results affect your
AA play. Keep shoving it. You have the best hand pre. Call 4 bets some to vary your play. Maybe shove the flop or turn.
I would not fold AK to 4 bets heads up. You are blocking AA and KK by 50%. Count the combos if you dont understand that. I have read an article in which a player said he might like to have AK over QQ because of the blocker effects. In my play I am willing to shove AK for up to 100 bigs. It is actually slightly a cooler if you shove AK and the villain has AA or KK. Not impossible but rare to see it. I play the high variance side so you can call and play post flop if you like.
Ak doesnt do will multiway so 2 all ins and action to you, it's likely a fold.
Lastly just analyze the decisions you make before the result. You cant do anything about the cards. They are going to roll out how they roll out.
Good luck. I am watching your progress.
Adam - I talked about this before in a thread about exploiting behaviors. There are super-passive games where a 3-bet range is QQ+,AK and a 4-bet range is KK/AA. In a game like this, you can exploitatively fold everything but AA (if you have KK, you are blocking KK so its almost certainly AA). These games are very rare though so I can't imagine you are playing in them over and over again. Maybe it feels like that but unless the player pool is tiny, it would be hard to imagine having tables like this as the norm.
Facing a more typical table of players, at effective stacks of 100BB or less, 3-betting a range including QQ+, AK is correct. If 3-bet and holding QQ+, AK, 4-betting the entire range is correct (you can call with QQ if you prefer). You aren't at stakes where balance is necessary and should be happy to get your entire stack in preflop HU with most of these hands. You will almost always have the correct direct odds for this if the other player has AK in his range. AK has more combinations than AA and KK combined. So, if you are playing someone you have no information on, you can profitably look to get stacks in preflop with QQ+. If someone is so bad that their entire range is 3 hands or less, you have to be able to adjust to that. I know someone who has a 4-bet range of exactly 1 hand. I'll lay down KK vs her every time if she 4-bets me until I see her pattern change.
As to set-mining with big pairs like QQ, if that is your approach, you are burning money. You will not have the correct implied odds to set-mine in 3-bet pots with effective stacks of 100BB or less. It sounds to me like you need a lot of post-flop work if this idea has even crossed your mind. You need to practice playing these hands, either here or elsewhere. If you can find a ring setting here that mimics the type of play you are seeing online, get on the trainer until you are more comfortable. If your approach has been to set-mine with QQ, you probably aren't running bad at all, you are just misplaying the hand. If the tables you are on are really tight with their 3 and 4 bet ranges, you can back off the 4-bets with QQ and just call. You'll have to be able to play the hand better post-flop though.
I don't know the exact percentages but if 80%+ of a players long-term profits come from 88+, AQ+ then I have to believe most of that 80% comes from the top of this range. You must be able to play your big hands confidently to be successful in the long term. Don't worry about TT/JJ until you are crushing it with QQ+/AK. Problems with these hands is not a leak, its the gaping hole left by smashing into an iceberg on the Titanic. I suggest spending as much time as necessary addressing this issue.
BTW - some people tell me I come off as too harsh. Please don't take what I say to be a condemnation of you personally. There's nothing personal about it. If you have real issues with hands you should be salivating at the sight of, I think this requires an honest assessment. I don't think sugar-coating an issue ever helped anyone. Anyway, even if you are put off by my tone, please don't let that stop you from pursuing a fix for this problem. I'd be happier to hear that you were addressing the issue but didn't think I was the person to help you do that than to hear you weren't going to work on this at all because of the way I said something.
GL and if I can help, I'm happy to.
Thanks for the replies, as far as the set mine with QQ i meant that as me calling the 4bet with intentions to fold to a pot size bet unless i hit my set. It wasnt meant as me attempting to set mine QQ from the start. I do think that Highfive is correct in saying when i shove with QQ the only hand that will call most of the time will be AA and KK which are most likely the ones that stick in my memory because who really remembers when they shove and someone folds... not many lol
So honestly if im hearing both of you right im gathering that i am playing this range correctly as far as 3 and 4 betting and even shoving. I must just be on the shit end of the variance train lately since more often than not within the last month QQ has lost me money. I will however probably stop actively shoving QQ and AK unless i have a particularly weak or aggressive opponent.
and as far as you guys being harsh, yeah you both come off a little snippy and most of what you stated i already knew and was just looking for re assurance that i was taking the correct lines but i also know you both wouldnt be here unless you had an interest in helping other players and having a pretty abbrassive personality myself i understand haha
hi Adam
yah i hear ya... QQ yikes... just now in a 27plyr SnG ... i on final table and get QQ... i raise get called
board is QAA ... i doin a happy dance and hope the the bad guy has an A... he goes all in
yup i get beat by quad A lol
yup its iffy if board has overcards, if you not goin play QQ what yah goin play with?
Oh ill still play QQ but im going to slow down considerably when I run into someone 4 betting and throwing thier whole stack in. From my experience anyone who is reacting to pressure with that much aggression is doing so because there is no doubt in thier mind they have the best hand. I rarely run into AK or AQ in these spots but nearly always run into KK and AA which leaves me with roughly 54% against AK or 20% against AA/KK
nods Adam...
yah my biggest loses when i check are when i have AA, KK, QQ lol
win small pots lose giant ones
harsh? no ... but never disagree with the local experts or they flip out lol
@AJHPoker - if the players you are facing have that tight of a range, then folding QQ would be fine. Do you know what their calling ranges are for 3-bets? If they are as tight with their calls as they are with their raises, you can make up a lot of money stealing with a wide range of hands. If someone opens say 15% of hands but only defends 3% against a 3-bet, print money by 3-betting very wide.
As far as knowing the ranges, I play the ole fashoined way without a hud and the site doesnt allow it anyway so I really have to go on feel and a super small sample size.
Thanks for the help warlock. We all have to get into a ring game on this sometime.
Comment Removed
Hey everyone. Let's keep things civil and personal disagreements out of these threads.
@pgearan you remove my reply - yet you leave the character assassination by Warlock about me?
Agreed. Had not seen that originally, but have also removed that and other comments.
Now, everyone keep comments to poker.
thank you very much @pgearan
mr @pgearan please remove this as well... "What the hell? Why didnt I get any pics lol!?!?"