Limping QTs UTG is fine and prob best play in most 4/8 games. We've had this discussion before. Raising a hand like that will chase out the people who would've limped along with hands like j9, 7/5, or 10/8 etc. Would you rather raise and play Q10s two or three handed against hands that prob have you beat or dominated...or limp in and play 6-9 handed for one bet? Also, if you were on button instead of UTG...and it got to you with 4 limpers you should be raising Q10s..but you prob knew that.

It's 4/8. The people who are going to limp j9 are just as likely to call with it.

I agree.

Which is why I find your fixation on the odd/even parity weird.

Of all the things to complain about "there's a 50% chance I get pwned behind me," what's the most important:

1. Whether that's a good way to decide whether to raise.

2. Whether the exact probability is 40%, 50%, or 60%.

3. Whether that probability is calculated from the correct range.

4. Whether the combos in that range are counted correctly.

Whether the combos are 110/C(52,2) or 87/C(52,2) or 87/C(50,2) or 84/C(50,2), it's going to give the same qualitative result to the question of whether to raise or not. All of those are going t9 give probabilities too high for DTxCF's comfort.

Oh so that’s now your point?

It’s not a fixation. It literally took less than 3 seconds to look at his number and tell that it was wrong. But again, that’s because I bothered to read the posts first

This is not true in most 4/8 games I have played.

They're bad, but not that bad lmao. it's a SPECIAL type of fish that will cold-call a raise with j9, diff story if they limped in and then you raise, then yes they will call. Thats why you limp that hand up front and raise it in position.

Strange, because it's true most of the time in the 20 game I play.

I have played in tons of games between 4-8 and 20-40, and it's very rare to find a game where most players will play the same number of hands for two bets that they will for one. Of course you will get a few players like that but not too many. Even the guys who are really loose and play lots of hands for two bets should mostly play even more hands for one bet.

If you'll forgive me for the blinding flash of the obvious, I think it's dangerous to make ANY blanket statements about ANY game at ANY level and then blindly follow them like they're gospel - even 4/8.

In particular, at Winstar the games and villains vary. I've played at tables where I've raised AKs under the gun, gotten four coldcallers and had my jaw hit the floor when I saw the crap they were coldcalling with. I've also played at tables where open limps got 5 callers but open raises got 1.

So with that said, would a hand like QTs be an open raise UTG at a table where 4 people will coldcall me with crap, but an open limp at a table where I'll be heads up against a better hand if I raise but get a 5- or 6-way pot if I limp?

How long did it take to read his posts?

It's completely fair to say the average 4/8 player is bad. I would operate with that assumption until proven otherwise and therefore pretty much always open QTs if I somehow found myself in that rake hell.

As long as needed until I understood them. I’ll admit though your way does probably save a lot of time.

I’m sorry you find it so hard to believe that there are people who after spending more than decade doing something are able to tell with glance when a number is almost certainly wrong. Recognizing that a number is wrong is way easier than when it’s right. If he had said 86 or 88, I wouldn’t have noticed. Saying an odd number sticks out just as much as if he’d have answered -84.56 or purple. Because all it takes was reading his range and knowing the mistake he originally made, to know that the answer simply couldn’t be odd.

I don’t know how they taught you to do your sniffs tests in your fancy college but the first thing I do is make sure the answer is logical, and then I ballpark it. It saves a **** ton of time because when the answer isn’t you don’t have to do any extra math. Its almost always way easier to show that something is wrong than it is to prove it’s right

As a fraction of the total time you spent, what percentage did you save by pointing out the odd/even parity over answering the biggest problem with his analysis?

It's actually a huge failing of fancy colleges that they don't teach people to be practical. It's ironically the exact flaw you're mocking - ivory tower professors so concerned about fancy ways to analyze something that they miss the practical answer.

The practical answer is that there is no functional difference between 84, 86, 87, or 88. The practical answer is that sometimes write QJso when they mean to write QJs.

There are an awful lot of ways for the count to be odd, but not a lot of ways to get a useful answer from a count of 84+/-10, odd or even.

Yes, I know how good you are at poker, and since you're itching to brag about it I'll confess you have infinity times more Bracelets than me. And you know what else I learned from my big fancy college? Some of the best people technically are the worst teachers. It's exactly this sort of antics - "let me spend the next 45 minutes explaining how much smarter I am than you" - that makes people who have already committed their lives thrive, and the exact reason why casual students end up walking away. In a place like MSLHE where people have already shown willingness to commit resources to a lengthy and complex problem, it's fine. In SSLHE where sometimes people just don't know what goes in the numerator and what goes in the denominator, it's weird.

Irony?

I glanced at a math problem and pointed out something went wrong. I never bragged about my poker ability. You’re the one who tried to correct me even though you didn’t bother to read anything. You’re the one who said I was just taking a 50/50 guess and would play it off if I was wrong. Exactly like you have done several times already

Now you’re just flailing desperately try to find a point that lands. But please continue trying to find an actual point to cover up the fact that you put your foot in your mouth

My cover up must not be very good if I'm the one who told you up front that I didn't read the whole thread.

Maybe I should have said something short like "I'm just saying the number being odd doesn't seem odd to me."

callipygian and zomg, I respect you both and appreciate everything both of you have done to help me with my game. I also appreciate that though I started this thread to talk about betting on the come you've shown me that I need to look at my preflop decisions and combo counting and probability calculations.

With all of that said, I would really appreciate it if in THIS THREAD we could talk about the POSTFLOP decisions we make when we flop a strong draw and perhaps turn an even stronger one.

In the quoted hand, do you have any feedback on my postflop thought process? If so, I'll appreciate them.

Thanks
DTXCF

Fair enough and apologies.

Raise preflop and barrel until someone makes you stop or you run out of more to come.

What to do on the river if you miss depends on the player left, but you should be betting an A a lot. Part of the reason you raise pf is so you can credibly rep if you need. Pretty gross call if they had a naked 3 and were fishing, pretty gross to let him win with it when it’s now your pot to steal. Got to know your opponent though. Some will fold a 9, some won’t fold a 3 even if you turned over too set.

You keep asking if it’s a b/c or x/c, but on the flop it’s also a b/3b often depending on where the action came from. You’ve got 8 outs to the nuts, an over card, and a back door flush. It’s just a stove exercise. If you can trap everyone, keep putting money in. If you’re going to isolate yourself against the better hand back off.

Honestly, I don't think I've ever played in a 4/8 game where it was right to raise Q10s up front. You're either raising for value or balance preflop. In this case (4/8) Balance doesn't really matter that much so you're raising for value. But where is the value in chasing out the weaker hands and playing short handed with hands that have you beat or dominated? I've never sat at a tale where there was more than one person calling raises with hands like J/9os, but thats just me. Q10s plays best in a volume pot, you should be inviting people to play, not chasing them away.

I disagree there are two reasons to raise pre. I also disagree about being worried you have the worst hand against bad players. I don't purposely look for spots to play from behind but if the players are bad enough I comfortable working my way through it. Also, perhaps it's a game texture thing. In my home room it can get wild and loose. I seriously would rethink my decision to play if I was worried about 4/8 players exploiting me.

We are inviting them to play, just in a bigger pot.

This is just flat out ridiculous.

Being overly worried about the dominating hands is only a problem once they start 3b’ing you pf and you have to face them heads up oop.

Ha! Might be the first time zomg agrees with me. (Even though my take isn't a hot one)

Clueless as usual! Whats ridiculous is your first statement! You're inviting them to play by charging them TWICE the amount to play????? Nice invitation LMAO!

I stand by what I said about people calling raises with j/9 and if you had ANY clue about 4/8 games you'd know that a 3bet is rare and NEVER to isolate anyone.

And your last statement is just plain STUPID! it echoes my reasoning for NOT raising q10s! Forget about 3bets, I dont want to play that hand for 2bets! ..You raise that hand at most 4/8 tables and ur gonna end up heads up or 3 handed facing hands that have you dominated or beat.

I just want to state for the record that this is NOT me trolling under a gimmick.

As ZOMG said, it's hard to come up with general rules because it really depends where the action is coming from and what their ranges are.

You profit when the fraction of money you put in is less than the fraction of the money you win. If you bet the flop and get 4 callers, you put in 20% of the money but have a greater than 20% chance of winning, so you profit long term. If you bet the turn and get 1 caller, you've put in 50% of the money but will have less than 50% chance of winning, so that's not good.

You don't know how each opponent will respond so you need to build a tree. Start with the (unlikely) scenario that everyone calls everything. Go through scenarios where 3 call the flop and you pick up a flush draw on the turn and 2 people call the turn and then you miss, etc. etc. Add up all those branches, weighted by how likely they are.

If nobody raises one pair or draws, that makes things easier. If people do, you need to account for scenarios like "I got raised by T8" or "they raise me on the flop with AJ but fold the turn when a Q hits." It gets very complicated.

Even I would never accuse you of that