Envision this absurd hypothetical:

Specific street action isn't too relevant, but let's say it's a limped pot in a cash game. On the turn you have the nuts with QJ on a 93KT board. Before you can bet, a seemingly solid, competent player shoves 10,000bb into pot of 3bb. You cover. What's your play? Pretend that bankroll / risk of ruin isn't a factor and look at it from a pure EV perspective.

pretty easy fold? I must be missing something if you even have to ask this question, no?
we are risking 10,000bb to win 1.5bb? i understand there is only 1 combo that freerolls us, that still is enough to make this a fold...assuming 80% of the time you win 1.5bb and 20% of the time you lose 10,000BB.

snap call?

If he is competent he has QcJc literally 100% of the time. Fold.

I call. Why fold the nuts if you can't go broke.

Of course if he does have QcJc it's pretty unlucky for you, but if risk of ruin is not a factor, why fold the nuts...ever? Leaving money on the table, imo. Is this wrong?

Why talk/play poker if you can't read the board, or understand the idea of a redraw?

Not trying to over post, but this situation reminds me of the question "When is it correct to fold AA preflop?". In that situation, assuming you are in a tournament on the bubble with multiple shoves in front of you, it is generally accepted as "OK" to fold AA pre, for your tournament life. OK FINE- I can see that. But if your in a cash game, with a limitless bankroll and you have the nuts....even with 2 cards to go....why fold ever???

you're right, i'm a little bit of a crack head sometimes...
Wanna play some high stakes NLHE HU?

The comments on this thread are classic

isn't this s simple risk vs reward type question?

and if bankroll isn't an issue can't we just find a better spot?

A better question might be asking at what stack size would it be a fold. Like how many bb's does our opponent have to shove before we fold QJ no redraw. Cause at 10,000bbs into a pot of 3bb, its an obvious fold

I still can't find the fold button. Waiting for a good reason to fold the nuts.

Even assuming all clubs are still in the deck (if this was full ring, some were at least somewhat likely to have been in the muck already) opponent is hitting his freeroll less than 20% of the time right? Why leave any money on the table when you're better than 4:1 to get at least half of it back. I suppose if his cards were QcJc FACE UP, I might just decide not to gamble? But knowing I have the nuts currently....I would probably just call, and pray to phil hellmuth the dealer doesn't put out any more puppy dog feet.


So......what's wrong with me?

No. It is nothing like that. You are failing to understand the situation. Calling a bet of 10k BB into a 3BB pot from a "competent/good" player is massively -EV, from a cash perspective. There are no other considerations.

You are failing to properly interpret a bet of that size from a competent player. You are grossly overestimating your equity.

His range is QcJc given the above constraints. 80% of the time you will chop the 3BB already in the pot, 20% of the time you will lose an extra 10K.

He quite literally cannot have any other hand, after you realize that the math is very simple.

Read the first reply again. Should have been /thread at that point...

OP describes villain as competent so I thinks it's safe to assume by calling we either chop 3bb or lose 20,003bb pot. WE CAN NEVER WIN ONLY CHOP OR LOSE.

Once you've arrived at that conclusion the decision is simple.

If he has QcJc (which he should have) then the EV of your call is about -2,000bbs

The reason he should have QcJc is a matter of putting yourself in his shoes when he makes the shove. If he has QJ with no redraw then he cant shove 10kbbs because even though the chances of you holding precisely QcJc is very slim, it is still likely enough that the shove cant be profitable with QJ no redraw

I am not actually going through all of the math precisely because It would take a little time and I am not the best person on this forum to do it. But at 10k bbs I can assure you that he has to have QcJc. Once you know that, then it should be really obvious that the call is horribly negative EV

Trick question. No good player would buy into a cash game with an entire bankroll on the line. What is this rounders ?Risking losing 1 buy in with the nuts and one card to come is an easy call.

Fwiw he could have QcJs also, so he won't have QcJc every time. This changes nothing of course.

Let's start with this. Let's say we KNOW he has QcJc. What's our EV for calling? Our equity is 39.77%. We have zero chances to win so that means that 79.54% of the time we split and 20.46% of the time we lose.

EV = .2046*-10000 + .7954*3/2 = -2044.8

That's pretty bad.

What if we took a simplifying assumption that our opponent either has QcJc or no outs (pure bluff). What percentage of the time does he need to bluff to make our call break even?

EV = B*10000 + (1-B)*-2046
0 = 10000B - 2046 + 2046B
2046 = 12046B
B = 2046 / 12046 = 16.99%

If instead he's semi bluffing with, say, any set, any 2 pair, any 2 clubs then we have about 80% equity. Let's call his semi bluffing percentage S.
EV = S*(.8*10003 - .2*10000) + (1-S)*-2046
EV = S*6002.4 + (1-S)*-2046
EV = 6002S - 2046 + 2046S
2046 = 8048S
S = 2046/8048 = 25.4%

So... that doesn't seem SUPER unreasonable? There's some room for levelling here, since he should have the QcJc almost all the time you should always fold and therefore he can actually bluff some and therefore you should call some.

You can extend the river concept of optimal bluffing to this spot as long as full stacks are going in. I leave it as an exercise - what the percent of the time for him to bluff if he'd like to make you indifferent to calling?

So here's what I got out of that... 80% of the time I don't lose a dime. 20% of the time I lose A LOT of dimes. So instead of seeing this as a likely break even 80% of the time, we should take the loss 100% of the time?
Still looking for the fold button....and someone who can give me a legit reason to fold the nuts in a NLHE cash game.

Here's how my brain works.....if he is a competent, thinking player....and he knows I will fold anything other than QcJc myself.....he is more likely to make the play as a bluff. Of course I wouldn't really even have taken the time to consider this, as I would have already snap called. So I am the fish then for snap calling the nuts with a draw on board, yes? Must be something wrong with me. Psychologists apply within.

Actually if he has either the Qc or Jc at all then he knows you can not have the nuts with a nut redraw, which is very powerful informtion.

Yeah I realized this right after making my post....

No there is not. The chance that we hold QJs (black) means that he absolutely cannot make a 3333x pot bet without QcJc or QcJs.

This is why him being competent is relevant.

Not true. We can have spades as well. He needs to be suited in clubs or hold specifically QcJs to know he is unbeatable.