QQ in a 5bet pot - Page 2 - MTT Poker Strategy

BigVach · 05-25-2012, 03:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by laffs83

"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 :-)

V-delaney posted this link in another SS thread yesterday.

killer_kill · 05-25-2012, 03:36 PM

Well you're betting expecting that bet over a long time to show a profit. Like for example the times you bet the Q45 flop and he folds AK or AT etc. We're making a value bet cause sometimes he'll call TT-99 there and he might float too.

**TeamTrousers** · 05-25-2012, 04:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by laffs83

"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 :-)

Yes, you are missing something - sorry if this sounds harsh, but you're missing what is pretty much the most fundamental of principles for a thinking poker player to master.

Of course you don't know your opponent's exact hand, that's why we weigh our hand against his range, and then you're either betting for value against that range, or you're bluffing against that range. So you should know if you're betting for bluff or value; if you don't know why you're betting then you shouldn't bet.

And it's not 50/50 whether you're ahead, that's just a 2+2 meme that is (was?) funny in BBV, but has no place in serious strat discussions (except those ultra-rare occasions when it actually is 50/50). In each hand you play, you are either ahead of his range, or you are behind his range.

laffs83 · 05-25-2012, 04:57 PM

I appreciate your honesty I'm here to learn after all. I understand the principle of ranges but I guess I'm still looking to find out for sure if I'm ahead instead of evaluating the equity of a particular spot. I was going to bake your head with further questions but ill read some other threads instead ;-)

kamikaze baby · 05-25-2012, 05:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by killer_kill

The problem with this post is that it's assuming everything goes the way we think someone should play big hands.

No. As long as villain will bet more than 25 chips in total on later streets, you can't call down. And raising the flop against the range I constructed is clearly more profitable than folding, even though the raise is never for value and is never a bluff.

Quote:

Originally Posted by killer_kill

Raising for info is like an illusion of logic. You either are value betting or bluffing.

So in the example I gave, what are we doing? Value betting? Do worse hands ever call? No. Bluffing? Do better hands ever fold? No.

You seem to be assuming in advance that 'you either are value betting or bluffing' and then contorting the facts to suit your point of view. But that's a really simplistic way to look at things. A bet serves a lot of different purposes - gaining value, folding out better, gaining information, stopping bluffs, protecting our hand, etc - and it just happens to be true that the value bit or the bluff bit are usually the most important of these purposes. But they aren't the only ones.