Ok so fairly early in MTT, 85bb deep i picked up QQ UTG and opened 2.2x. folded to small blind who 3 bets, I 4 bet, he 5 bets..

At this point im certain he has AA and im thinking about folding, but then im getting 3.5-1 with 3900 to call in a 13560 pot. He has a similar stack to me and my line of thinking was...If i flat and hit a Q i will get his whole stack, otherwise i can fold easy.

Luckily i hit a queen and doubled up, but what do you make of the play? Was a fold better?

(btw this is my first post, I have just copied the history directly from txt file, if there is a better way please share!)

(EDIT - sorry it wasnt folded to SB there was one caller who folded after my 4 bet)

PokerStars Hand #80842754291: Tournament #562532836, $2.00+$0.20 USD Hold'em No Limit - Level XII (150/300) - 2012/05/22 17:41:27 WET [2012/05/22 12:41:27 ET]
Table '562532836 58' 9-max Seat #5 is the button
Seat 1: maximusss10 (8985 in chips)
Seat 2: maqui76 (16114 in chips)
Seat 3: pazuzu100 (5539 in chips)
Seat 4: Konstanin_St (15597 in chips)
Seat 5: Sall23 (13781 in chips)
Seat 6: ionutz24kk (27353 in chips)
Seat 7: camikater (3458 in chips)
Seat 8: 5tacker (25903 in chips)
Seat 9: missvera (26597 in chips)
maximusss10: posts the ante 40
maqui76: posts the ante 40
pazuzu100: posts the ante 40
Konstanin_St: posts the ante 40
Sall23: posts the ante 40
ionutz24kk: posts the ante 40
camikater: posts the ante 40
5tacker: posts the ante 40
missvera: posts the ante 40
ionutz24kk: posts small blind 150
camikater: posts big blind 300
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to 5tacker [Qc Qs]
5tacker: raises 360 to 660
missvera: folds
maximusss10: calls 660
maqui76: folds
pazuzu100: folds
Konstanin_St: folds
Sall23: folds
ionutz24kk: raises 1140 to 1800
camikater: folds
5tacker: raises 2700 to 4500
maximusss10: folds
ionutz24kk: raises 3900 to 8400
5tacker: calls 3900
*** FLOP *** [8s Qh 7c]
ionutz24kk: bets 6900
5tacker: raises 10563 to 17463 and is all-in
ionutz24kk: calls 10563
*** TURN *** [8s Qh 7c] [4d]
*** RIVER *** [8s Qh 7c 4d] [3c]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
ionutz24kk: shows [Ah Ac] (a pair of Aces)
5tacker: shows [Qc Qs] (three of a kind, Queens)
5tacker collected 53046 from pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 53046 | Rake 0
Board [8s Qh 7c 4d 3c]
Seat 1: maximusss10 folded before Flop
Seat 2: maqui76 folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 3: pazuzu100 folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 4: Konstanin_St folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 5: Sall23 (button) folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 6: ionutz24kk (small blind) showed [Ah Ac] and lost with a pair of Aces
Seat 7: camikater (big blind) folded before Flop
Seat 8: 5tacker showed [Qc Qs] and won (53046) with three of a kind, Queens
Seat 9: missvera folded before Flop (didn't bet)

flat the 3-bet. his range at these stakes is generally going to be fairly nutted

Sup. http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/sh...88&postcount=2

Yea flat the 3b readless. These positions aren't conducive to action and we don't do well vs a 5bet range at these stakes

Why are you 4 betting without a plan.

I just did some quick mental arithmetic, so I might be horribly wrong, but I think calling that 3900 is almost exactly breakeven if you always win villain's stack if you flop a set (and fold otherwise). But it suddenly becomes a losing call once you factor in the times that you flop a set but lose anyway, because villain also makes a better set. That actually happens about 2% of the time or so and you lose so much when it happens that it actually matters quite a bit. Of course, if you'll fold middle set on an AQ3 flop, you're a superhero and you'll lose less, but you'll still lose in the long run making this call. But it's way closer than it might look at this stack depth - I was a bit surprised how close it is to breakeven. If villain's 5-bet is a bit bigger, it's a horrible call though, assuming you know with absolute certainty villain has KK or AA.

By the way, there's a handy 'Hand History Convertor' link that you'll see above the post window every time you post here. Just click it, paste your hand history in there, click convert, easy as pie, and you'll have a pretty looking hand history that everyone can read!

Well I had been very active at the table, and so was confident SB could 3 bet with AK or smaller pair so the 4 bet was to find out where I stood. If I had called the 3 bet I would not have known If I was ahead on a dry flop as he would likely maintain the betting regardless of holding. In this case where he did have AA, if there were no A or K on the flop I would probably have been knocked out.

Once he 5 bet I was as certain as I could be that he had AA. He would have called/folded AK or worse, and I would imagine a call/5 bet shove with KK?

Break even? I hadn't done the maths which is why I was posting here really, not sure where to start with it but thanks for workng that out. At the table I figured it was probably profitable given that I was 100% sure he would call a shove if i hit a set, and i would have really tried to fold to any A on flop, even if i hit a set.

You very rarely should be raising to "find out where you are"


You also keep his range as wide as possible and allow him to make more mistakes oop.

pls convert the hand the next time

here is a basic posting guide for beginners
http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/23...h-function-68/



with these stacksizes and from this position i'd 2.4x preflop
if you are sure that he has AA its a fold to the 5b

even if you are 100% setmining you are nit getting proper odds, in general aim for 15:1 odds in position and 20:1 odds out of position.
here you get about 13:1 total (unless i missread stacksizes)

fyp


Raise for

1) extracting value from a villain range where you are ahead
2) bluffing a villain off a pot when you are behind his range, but force him to fold often enough to make the bluff profitable in the long run
3) capitalising the money already in the pot (usually a c-bet on the flop)

Never raise the bet unless you know why you're doing so.




Flatting the 3bet is made more awkward by the presence of MP1, who flatted our original raise, and I actually don't hate Hero's 4bet, but I'd make it a bit smaller, about 3900. I think that people are giving him more credit for his 3bet than he deserves, because randoms squeeze from SB with all sorts of random stuff (they heard the word squeeze on TV, and zomg Gus Hansen does it with 93o, don'cha know!) His 3bet range is deffo much wider than KK+, but his 5bet range is definitely nutted. When we make it smaller we get more value from his bluffs and when he does 5b, where we know he's nutted, we can profitably set mine if he makes it smaller, or fold if he makes his 5b too large.

I was maybe a little light on my statement. I mean from the point of view that we know exactly what action villain will take with x range of hands on certain boards, and what exactly they do with another range of hands that lets us define what they have and how we can proceed on later streets that might not be apparent to us if we just call.

In OP's case he got the info he wanted, but would maximise his EV most of the time by flatting and playing postflop. Therefore raising for info is wrong in this case as it will be 99% of the time. I also agree that OP's 4bet sizing is poor

p.s.

4) To allow us to get to showdown cheaper in position in tough spots (usually the turn) where raising will most likely cost us less than call/call when we believe we are ahead, but want pot control as villain will most likely check river to us when we have initiative.

We are getting the price to setmine against his 5b imo. Our direct odds are ~14,000 to 4,000 and with this SPR we're basically guaranteed to get in our last 17,500 postflop (ip). So assuming that's in the pot we're getting 31,500:4000 and we can setmine on 7.8:1 direct.

I think the only other 2 things we need to factor in are 1) the odds of him not committing the rest of his stack otf, and 2) the odds of him showing down AK or something worse than QQ (this is a 2.20 after all). I'm pretty sure 2 is > 1 which sweetens our price.

Thanks, I will definitely watch my bet sizing as this is a good point.

In response to doubts over the odds of set-mining in this spot, would anyone ever factor in the effect it would have on table dynamics, or your position in the tournament with increased stack? Or would you say it is too early to start thinking about that?

Two of my biggest poker peeves in this thread!

No, no, no. You can use the rule of 20 if you're facing a single raise preflop with a hand like 44. We need odds that long because often we win a small pot postflop even when we make a set. But if preflop the pot has been 3bet or 4bet or, like here, 5bet, it becomes way way way more likely we win a stack with a set. We don't need anything close to 15:1.

If you're folding pocket pairs in 3bet pots because you don't have 20:1 odds to setmine, I think you're missing out on a ton of really profitable spots.


It's close, but if my math was right, it's still about a 500 chip losing call against AA/KK, but only because we lose set over set sometimes.

No, Keenan was right. Raising for information is a dumb idea most of the time, but definitely not all of the time. The main reason not to do it is you often aren't sure what the info you get means anyway. But in cases where you know 100% for sure what the info you get means, it can be the most profitable play. The main reason to do it is when bets are small now (so a mistake now isn't too costly) and bets will be much bigger later (so without info, you could screw up badly), and where you have too much equity to simply fold outright but too little equity to simply call every street. So for example:

* you have KK, pot is 15 chips pre. Flop A72 rainbow. Villain bets 5 chips. Say you know for sure that 60% of the time villain has AK/AA and 40% of the time villain has QQ. Villain will fold to any raise with QQ, will reraise any raise with AK/AA, and will bet pot on the turn and jam the river with everything if you call.

You clearly can't call, because you don't have enough equity to call a jam on the river, and calling now and folding later is obviously really stupid. So folding now is better than calling. But if we raise to 12 chips, villain folds QQ and we win 20 chips 40% of the time (EV is +8 chips), and villain raises AK/AA and we fold, losing those 12 chips 60% of the time (EV is -7.2 chips). We make a 0.8 chip profit. That's better than folding and better than calling. But our raise wasn't a value bet (we're never ever called by worse) and wasn't a bluff (we never make a better hand fold). It's purely a raise for information so that we don't make a huge mistake later in the hand when the bets get big. And it's the most profitable way to play the hand.

I agree with the first part to a certain extent. To the second paragraph though. It's kind of two different situations that's you're quoting Furo on and he's strictly talking about the current hand here.


The problem with this post is that it's assuming everything goes the way we think someone should play big hands. Raising for info is like an illusion of logic. You either are value betting or bluffing. With the example you gave it'd actually be better to just outright fold to a bet over a certain size. The problem is sometimes the villain can bet air, sets, draws and 2nd pair to list a few. Then assuming villain can't double barrel air or that he's always triple barrel shoving is pretty flawed.



*Back on topic* Flat the 3b pre. I don't like 4b here as I don't think you should have a 4b range w/o reads here at all. As in if I had aces I'd flat to let the player behind do something stupid and spaz out.

"You either are value betting or bluffing"

I cant get my head around this. If I knew my opponents cards then yes, it makes sense, but suppose you have JJ on 45Q flop and the only hands you put your opponent on are AQ or AK. If i have the lead Im going to bet the flop, and there is a 50/50 chance that your ahead, but until you see your opponents decision you dont know if it is a value bet or a bluff.

Am i missing something?

Edit -in terms of equity in this example its not 50%. But its either way more or way less - hence 50/50 im ahead :-)