Married to overpair?

Question

I just played a cash game hand yesterday that made me wonder if I'm too married to my overpairs. It's a headsup game, and we both have about 40X, with me slightly ahead. I wake up to QQ and raise to 4X preflop (my standard raise for the past hour). Villain calls. Flop is 442, I bet 5X, villain calls. Turn is 9, I bet 10X, villain calls. River is another 4, I shove. He calls and shows J9. Is it dangerous to shove on a board with potential quads like that, especially if he's calling two streets before that??

Answer 1

Why are you only worried about quads?

What beats you?
4
99
KK
AA

What hand might call that you beat?
JJ - 33 (except 99)
2x
9x

Hero should not have called pre flop with 2x

Pre flop call with 4x is wrong. And he does not have 44 with 3 on the board.

Pre flop villain should have raised AA, KK
In heads up you would likely get a raise from 99

Call pre flop with
A9 suited or 99 is in the range
J9 to me is a marginal call but this is heads up so OK

To me that is a good shove
VERY unlikely you are beat - to me just 99
The only hands (9x) that would call would likely call a big bet

In head up I don't really blame villain for making that call
He is only losing to AA-99 as 4 is not likely in your range

On the turn you were both pretty much pot committed

Answer 2

Let's say for the sake of argument that J9 is the worst hand this player calls the river with.

Your hand beats and gets paid by: J9+,TT,JJ (54 combinations of hands)

You hand loses to: KK,AA,99,42+ (59 combinations of hands)

Using this alone we see that it is barely not a profitable shove:

54/113 * 20BB - 59/113 * 20BB = -0.88BB EV

However, let's now consider a much more realistic Big Blind defending range and river calling range:

• Remove TT-AA - These would probably 3-Bet pre-flop. I would include 99 too, except considering you are worried that 4's full of Q's 40BB deep with a SPR of 1:1 may not be a shove I'm going to assume the game dynamic to be passive.
• Remove 42-Q4 - Your opponent is unlikely to defend the Big Blind with these hands.
• Add 97+,T9 to the opponents river calling range - Likely he would defend the BB with these hands and is certainly not folding the river if we know s/he calls with J9.

In a standard HU you could add more hands such as medium pairs that bluff catch, heck even Ace High; but as I said above I'm assuming the game dynamic is not aggressive at all.

Now the EV becomes profitable:

78/89 * 20BB - 11/89 * 20BB = +15BB

This is a monster profit in the long term given the stack sizes.