March 21, 2010 6:56:06 AM EDT
Ok, here is our situation with QQ:
I open raise 3x to 1.50
SB thinks about it, and folds.
BB - noted lagtard. reraises me to 5.75 (4.25 more)
Stacks: I have 48.45 total, he has 52.70 total.
When Villian reraises the pot size is now $1.50 (your raise) + $0.25 (SB) + $5.75 (Villian)
So that's $7.50
If you just call the pot becomes $11.75 and you see a flop in position. You would then have $42.70 in your stack remaining, so you could still play post-flop poker.
If you come over the top, I'd think you'd reraise him to something like $12.50 (almost 3x his reraise of $4.25)
This then makes the pot size $18.50 and you have $35.95 remaining. At that point, it becomes difficult to extract yourself from the hand if Villian comes over the top you probably have to call. Then the pot would be $61.20 and we'd have to call another $35.95 (i.e. getting 1.7 to 1 on our call we only have to be 37% to win the hand, and unless we are certain we're against AA/KK we are getting more than the right price)
If villian were to just smooth-call our reraise there, the pot would become $25.25 and we'd still have $35.95 remaining.
The reraise size I mentioned essentially commits us to the hand either way. But it does give villian good odds to just call our reraise and then potentially hyper-aggro us out on any flop (or possibly outflop our Queens and get us to pay off a small pair that sets up)
So you could reraise to a larger amount, like $15-$16. In both reraise situations you're pretty much playing for stacks at that point.
Running QQ from the button into the KK/AA of the blinds sucks, it's a hell of a cooler, but it can be difficult to get away from. If you can't play the 3rd best hand in a button vs. blinds situation against a lagtard for 100bb's then you may be playing too tightly.
I will preface this with the fact that I do not consider myself a strong NL hold em cash player, so perhaps I'm way off and overvalueing the Queens here. But I would have a hard time getting away from it with this stack size against this type of villian.
Make us deeper stacked and perhaps we smooth-call and try to play post-flop poker.
