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Spin up spot, should I fold the flop after the reraise all in?
This hand happened after I had played well and built up a 10 buy in stack. Villain is good and has either had it or hit his draw in most hands he has played. He is the big stack and has me well covered. My question is should I fold the flop? Any criticism eagerly awaited as this sort of spot seems to be endemic in my cash play. i.e. gradually build up a big stack and then get in one of these hands.
| Player | Action | Cards | Amount | Pot | Balance |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Enut | Small blind | £0.50 | £0.50 | £76.96 | |
| Bert70 | Big blind | £1.00 | £1.50 | £9.00 | |
| Your hole cards |
| ||||
| xxxx | Raise | £3.00 | £4.50 | £139.12 | |
| tillyannis | Fold | ||||
| AlexC10 | Fold | ||||
| Enut | Raise | £9.50 | £14.00 | £67.46 | |
| Bert70 | Fold | ||||
| xxx | Call | £7.00 | £21.00 | £132.12 | |
| Flop | |||||
| |||||
| Enut | Bet | £10.00 | £31.00 | £57.46 | |
| xxx | All-in | £132.12 | £163.12 | £0.00 | |
| Enut | All-in | £57.46 | £220.58 | £0.00 | |
| xxx | Unmatched bet | £64.66 | £155.92 | £64.66 | |
| Enut | Show |
| |||
| xxx | Show |
| |||
| Turn | |||||
| |||||
| River | |||||
| |||||
| xxx | Win | Full House, 7s and Kings | £154.12 | £218.78 | |
Comments
If villain is good (as stated in OP), he shouldn't really be peeling many suited connectors 77xbb effective, so we can rule out some flopped straights and 2pairs. (he also doesn't always shove all in with the flopped straights he does have, so this reduces them further)
We don't have the Ad, which is good for us, he can have all the big flush draws.
Its gonna cost us £57 more to win a pot of £98, is that right?
I believe that's abit less than 2/1 on our money, my maths is terrible, but I reckon if we can find a range that gives us 40% we're in clear "profitable call" territory.
Start with "worst case scenario" he calls preflop, and shoves the flop, with all the suited connecting hands that make 2pair or better.
9Ts
54s
86s
78s
67s
We'll just give him the best overpairs that might call pre flop and shove the flop...
AA/KK/QQ
Leave out JJ and TT as these are probably less likely, and would help our equity if he has them.
We can give him only the best 2 flush draws,... (because obviously the more flush draws he has in his range, the higher our equity will be against it, and we are looking for the "worst case" first of all)
AKdd
AQdd
And, lets assume he of course has the sets (worst case for us here is he has them all, and he shoves all in with them all everytime.)
66
77
88
I'll leave out 99/TT and 55, which he definitely does have if he has sets, and they all might well shove, but again they'd help our equity and we're not wanting any help at the moment.
The computer says against that range, we are a shade under 40% to win the hand.
So we're probably in comfortable call territory already, against what is probably the worst realistic range we can give them.
They're "good" so we aren't going to start putting off suit connectors into a range that peels 3bets 77xbb deep.
----
I think it's clear from the above that we're going to profit making the call.
But we can profit more if we start giving him a more favourable range.
I think he can have more flush draws, the better ones being
AJdd
KQdd
TJdd
I think 99 is definitely there, as is TT. I'll give him JJ too. (although not sure how likely these hands are v a good player taking this line)
And if all the sets are there, 55 is there as well, at least sometimes.
That takes us up and above 50%, we become an equity favourite, getting nearly 2/1 on out money. The stuff of dreams.
In reality I think his range and therefore our equity will be somewhere inbetween the first example and the 2nd example, but either way I think we're in "break the mouse calling" territory.
There's every chance I've royally ballsed up a calculation somewhere, or missed out some potential hands, (89s, T9s I've just spotted myself but make little difference).
Apologies if so.
I really like your bet sizing on this board texture, I think it's the key to how well you played the hand.
A lot of people, myself included, see a wet board in an inflated pot and bet 75% or even more, trying to protect our hand.
All that does is strengthen the range of hands they continue with, making them less likely to bluff, semi bluff, or make loose call downs with weaker hands, and makes the % next to our 1 pair of Aces shrink when the hand gets as far as the turn.
I think checking a lot of your range here is valid here. A lot of your bare overs don't particularly want to cbet this board which is much better for villain's range than you. We can protect some of our check give ups with hands like this that we can check shove (it's a bit vulnerable to call and play down the streets, especially without the Ace of diamonds and there's a lot of value to be had by shoving vs a bet), as well as check shoving any draws that we've flopped.
Checking gets an extra street from hands he might stab flop with and fold and lets us get the money in before the runout gets too gross for us. If he checks back we can assume we are going to be ahead almost always and can lead turn a lot. It also lets him sometimes 'catch up' with hands like KQ which are dead on the flop.
We still lose to the same flopped monsters but think playing it like that does better against his range. Checking is good as well for our bluffs as once he's checked he's essentially told us hasn't got the top of his range (almost everyone would bet a strong hand on this wet a board), so we could make it really uncomfortable for him if we were to bet turn and jam river (runout dependent) with a lot of his hands.
It also makes me feel better that you think it's a call.
The more I think about it the more it irritates that he was effectively set mining when my pre flop reraise didn't really give him the odds to do so, or maybe it did, possibly I should have bet more than £10 pre. I guess it doesn't matter what the odds are when you hit though.
Thanks again for a great post.
Out of interest do you think he plays KQ here to the pre flop reraise? I know I don't in most cases given that sort of pre flop action.
I don't think that many bad things can happen from checking. I think a lot of players will autobet top pair hands like 89s and hands like 99/TT v.s a check which is fine for us as we are a favorite against those and we're perfectly happy getting it in vs those. If they do this we can feel much more comfortable on turns which are really bad for us (like 9's or tens) if we think he's gonna bet most of them on the flop when he faces a check. Checking lets us learn more about his hand strength, whilst giving him chance to bluff and overvalue hands which I think is a good win for our us. Even if we are wrong in our assumptions of what hands he bets I still think checking is valid. If he knows we always bet overpairs he can happily bet any hand he's peeled with and make a load of money because we cannot defend with just ace high on this board. If he knows we can still have overpairs it means he can't feel as good about betting a lot of his hands knowing we could still be strong, which helps us realise equity with our 2 overs, which again is a good result for us.
I think more of an argument could be made from betting a hand like JJ here which is really vulnerable to over-cards and benefits a lot more from him folding a hand like AQ KQ. Again a hand like that benefits from not having to see a turn which we can only do at these stack depths by check shoving, but it sucks much more if he checks back in that situation.
It depends on the opponent in terms of what hands he continues. What I would continue with is different to you, or him. I would say that if you think he passes KQ suited here, its certainly possible they're ditching hands we're worried about like 87s and t9s too.
Basically if he has you beat on this board he gets your money. The only argument is how you want to get it in and play your range. Your line here is completely reasonable.
The one thing I would add to the discussion is "what do you think it looks like you're holding to him?" You've 3-bet him a healthy size pre, you've led out on a very wet flop and yet he still deems his hand good enough to put all his (and more to the point your) money in the middle. I feel your actions scream "I've got a big over pair or massive draw and I'm going to find it really hard to fold if shoved upon"
Yes, A9dd would be a hand we could profitably call against.
You can see, it is a favourite against our hand, but the key thing is the price we are getting, when compared against the odds we have of winning the hand.
We only need to win the hand around 38/39/40% of the time, because it only costs us £57 to win £98.
We actually win the hand 45% of the time against specifically Ad, 9d, so we have an edge calling here.
-----
I'll use some other examples to try and illustrate the point.
If you have played roulette, you'll know that the chances of any single number coming in, is 36/1.
This is because including the zero, there are 37 numbers on the board.
The house offers us only 35/1 on our single number bets.
So we're making a poor investment, because the odds of us winning are less than the odds they are offering us.
However, if the house offered us for example 100/1, on any single number hitting, then we can stand there all day and play, knowing that each time we bet, we are making profitable investments.
We will still only hit our number, and win, 2.7% of the time, that wont change. Almost every spin we will lose.
But the times we do win, (once every 37 spins), we win more than enough to make up all the losses, and make a nice profit as well.
It really doesn't matter if we lose this time, next time, 500 times in a row, and it's the same in poker, as long as we make the profitable calls, then we are winning over time.
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In the sporting world, Man United Play against Man City this weekend.
The bookies are offering best priced 3.5/1.
Personally, I don't think Man United have much chance of winning, and the bookies odds reflect that.
I wouldn't go near that bet.
If however, a generous bookmaker decided to take a risk, and offer all their loyal customers odds of 25/1 on a United win, this would get my attention.
Does the inflated price mean United have more chance of winning all of a sudden?
No, that doesn't change.
What does change is the amount I'd win, for the same stake, if they should pull off the shock.
I know I'm going to lose my investment most of the time, but that's irrelevant.
The times I do win, I'm going to make more than enough to cover my losses in the long term, and that's the important thing.
The odds they are offering me are much higher than the odds I would need to break even.
I would only need United to win 5% of the time to make profit.
I think they probably win 10% of the time at least, so this is a clear value bet for me.
----
It's really difficult to find situations where we have big edges, like the ones in the examples above, in a single poker hand.
So we must take smaller edges, such as the one in this hand above, where over time we're going to be making a positive return on our investment (the investment being the call of his shove).
All these small edges add up.
We win some, we lose some, there are ups and downs, but over time the profit curve goes in a steady upwards direction in our favour.
@FeelGroggy, thanks for explaining further and I see the merits of the check now.
@lisa1962 and @MattBates, I think you may have hit the nail on the head here, from memory it was the first time I had 3b him pre, or certainly the first time he had called a 3b from me so I guess I was pretty polarised.
Given that dynamic I think I should have found the fold however his shove confused me and I tended towards putting him on 5s, 9s or 10s because of that with a smaller chance of Js, Qs or Ks. I genuinely thought a flopped set would have slow played and got it in on the turn but I guess he was scared of me having hands that could outdraw him or maybe just saw as the sort of muppet who can't throw AA away! (He was right).