I wrote a blog post a few days ago about a kind of interesting hand where a player's bet-sizing combined with his verbal (a weak-hand statement) should have gotten me to make a pretty big hero fold. But I wasn't fully concentrating.

Here's the blog post: http://www.readingpokertells.com/201...and-statement/

What do you guys think? Do you think it'd be a good fold? Or would you not be certain enough of the behavior/bet-sizing to make this fold?

(Hopefully it's all right to link to my blog. If not, mods please let me know and I'll refrain in future.)

Pretty easy to spout off here as a Monday Morning QB, but (in general) I don't get heavily involved with this type of hand 'anymore'. If it's a steal, then great, good timing sir, well played.

1) Speech in a multi-way pot .. even a strong sounding speech multi-way screams at me
2) Talking about taking chips off the table (via cab fare, implies he may be ready to leave)
3) Perhaps the type of player who saw the semi-tank by SB and wants to stir it up a bit to create a better chance for a call when he raises.
4) Not sure how often bluffers actually leave chips behind .. never really tracked that as of yet.

Like I said, easy to judge now but perhaps not so easy in the moment. GL

Yeah it is kind of obvious in hindsight. Mainly in the moment it was hard for me to think of playing 66 or a hand w a 5 in it this way. It was not by any means normal for him, which is why I wasn't really considering random hands too much. In the moment I thought he might play TT or something similar like this. But yeah it is pretty obvious in hindsight and shows why you should always take a few seconds to think about a decision.

His actions scream "strong hand", but I don't see how it can ever be correct for you to make it $150/fold on the flop against somebody who has only 2x pot behind.

Going to the flop, there's $275 in the pot (not $265, unless UTG was allowed to take his limp back) and UTG+1 has $515. After betting $150 and SB calling, to make the math easier let's assume UTG+1 shoves. Now you are getting 3:1 with SB behind who you put on a hand you want him to call with. Even if he folds 100% of the time, you need to only win the hand 25% of the time against UTG+1 to have a +EV call.

Now we check combinatorics. You ruled out AA/KK and we also have to somewhat discount at least 66/55/65s because lots of players check/call that flop, especially with that stack size. Now there also might be 75s/54s/53s/A5s, each being 2 combos. Including 66/55/65s, we reach a total of 13-14 combos. If we discount for slowplays, we might end up with a total of 9 combos that beat you which means you only have to beat a total of 3 combos to have a +EV call. Since we included a lot of hands you thought he wouldn't have, we also should include hands like 87s/43s for the OESD. If we only take the 3 combos each that flop a backdoor FD to go with the OESD, we land at 6 combos. And there's also a chance he might do something weird with an overpair to the board.

That leads us to a pretty high number of hands that we beat compared to the number of hands that beat us and remember we need to win only 25% of the time and we even have 8% equity against his nut range.

So when all is said and done, your read probably needs to be right >90% of the time to find a fold here. If you are >90% sure in hindsight, you should fold the flop. But if it's one of those spots where you think the read might be right in around ~75% of the time, I'm pretty sure you have to call anyway.

I do agree you have to be very sure to make this fold, which is why in the moment I didn't think about it that long. But I do think the combination of the bet-sizing and verbal is super-reliable information; I think it would be in the 95% reliable zone not even considering I know the guy, but just for a random stranger.

Mainly it's the bet-sizing; almost everyone with a bluff or vulnerable hand there is going to just shove. And then combined with the weak-hand statement, I think it really makes it almost certain. The only way I could see it not being super-reliable is you happen to know the guy is capable of reverse psych stuff (both bet-sizing and verbal) like that before with weak hands, but that's very rare in my experience.

I agree if he has 66 or 55 he's going to just call most of the time, so mainly I think it's hands with 5s in it.

But yeah, I agree if you're not very sure, for whatever reason, you'd have to call.

Also one other random player-specific thing that I didn't mention, as it's only specific to this guy: I've seen him bet or raise hands on the flop that were very strong and that most people would slowplay; like flopping a full house and raising a flop bet and him expecting to get action from an overpair or something. This player-specific information does make it possible that he'd play 66 or 65s this way, esp being so short, although it's still going to be unlikely. It's def not something your average, random player would do with those hands. Just thought I'd mention it as it was another piece of the puzzle that would have increased the chances of him actually having a strong hand and something I could have thought about.

95% sure would make it a fold. Personally, I'm never >90% on almost anything but your reads are prolly just way better than mine.

Shoving full houses on the flop wouldn't even be bad on his part since your bet size kinda commits you anyway. Without a read, it might be hard to fold AK with a backdoor flush draw here in your position. Which puts your sizing in question, but that's a totally different story.

Your blog really, really messed with my eyes... I was seeing black and white stripes for >5 minutes afterwards. I would change the color scheme iyam.

+1

I'm not often that near-certain about anything myself; it's not usual that's for sure. I just think with the two indicators of strength it makes it very reliable. I mean, if it was just one or the other thing (bet-sizing or verbal) I would be far from certain and would def be putting the money in no problem; it was just the two together that in my experience I have essentially never seen from someone without a big hand. I don't know, though: I could be wrong and maybe it's not as reliable as I believe it is.

Yeah, I purposefully do that so people will get frustrated and buy my books or videos out of anger.

Just kidding. I'm also annoyed by it and it's a known issue. thanks.

Not sure if this is a real hand or you are just trying to drive traffic to your blog (which I'm guessing since you copy and pasted link but not HH)

Are you actually advocating folding an overpair in a 3b pot when dude opens originally and flats your 3b after starting w 60bb? Do you realize how truly awful this is? Would we expect to see more nuggets like this in your books?

The fact you think you should have found a fold here is really funny, but I'm not sure the hand is real. Trump school of advertising ftw!

It's a real hand. Just played it last week.

Yes, it's not an easy spot; obviously the fact that we're so shallow is what makes it interesting. Obviously there is debate about how reliable the information is, and I get that; I'm not pretending this is easy. But do you not admit that his behavior and bet-sizing are likely to be meaningful information? I think most players who play a good amount live would admit there is information there that points to a strong hand. The question is: is the information a reliable enough indication of strength (and strength that beats our hand) to fold in such a shallow spot. That's fine if you disagree; I don't pretend this is an 'easy' fold. It was more an interesting spot because I think his behavior and bet-sizing is highly likely to be a strong hand; obviously there can be disagreement about how reliable that info is.

But after thinking about it (and especially when taking into account my knowledge of this specific player) I'm very confident that this behavior and bet-sizing will be a hand that beats me more than 90% of the time. And my opinion is that the behavior and bet-sizing is probably nearly that reliable for a blind read of a stranger, too.

If this had been a more clear-cut situation where we were beat--guy doing this when we were deep or something--it wouldn't be nearly as interesting. I could post a ton of hands like that where stuff was more clear-cut. It's the fact that it was so shallow and iffy that I posted it. The iffy, controversial ones are the ones that interest me.

24bb in preflop, 50bb behind, overpair on 5 high board. There is no range you can give him where stacking off here 100% isn't correct, even with insane lol live tells. Sometimes we lose, it's ok!