I insta-muck AJo in EP at tables like these. Our preflop result (which is totally expected at my table) is a nightmare result.

Nightmare result is exactly this. We started with a biggish stack (ok, not huge, but 135bbs ain't remotely small either). But thanks to preflop we created a SPR 5 pot (zero room to move postflop), OOP, against multiple opponents. The first action we make we often put us to a commitment decision. Are we crushed on the flop and therefore should aim to put hardly any money in? Are we crushing and up against a draw and should therefore be shovelling in stacks ASAP to prevent suck outs in a *huge* pot? Thanks to our preflop play, we have *zero* room to find any of that out. The only time we'll know is when our chips are all in (which will likely be on the flop or on the turn) and the cards are on their backs. And if we're behind, we just gave eleventeen opponents insane 27+ IO preflop.

Anyways, I probably just check/evaluate the flop and see what happens.

As played, we've shown strength at every stage and yet this guy still goes all-in. If you're into tells (which I'm not), he also talked "how much?" during the hand (a classic sign of strength in most cases).

The problem is that we've put in 40% of our stack and are now considering folding. We should almost never do that, which indicates we've made a mistake earlier in the hand (preflop).

Gpreflopisoftenthemostimportantstreetinthesegames, imoG

Explain how the pot size is $855 on the turn before we call? Because that is the number that matters. Our $240 does not buy us any more equity percentages. Yes you get it back, but because you can fold and keep it anyway, adding it to the denominator only serves to make us call more often when we shouldn't.

Looks like J-10 or a set to me. Easy fold, probably should have checker turn.

If there's $1 in the pot and your opponent shoves $200 and shows you 72o, should you call or fold with AA? By your math, we need 99.5% equity to call and so should fold.

It's how much you have to call / pot + (how much you have to call x 2). The fact that when you win you get your own money back + the equivalent from the other player is why you never need less than 50% to call, then whatever is in the pot nudges the number down from there (and since in practice most bets are relative to the size of the pot, it's usually below 33%).

Or you can think of it in terms of straight 1:1 sports betting on the line. When you bet $50 on a game, you stand to only win $50 additional dollars from the bookie. But really, you only need to win 50% of the time to break even because they're really going to pay you $100 when you win.

It's possible you're getting confused with Fold Equity. When you are running a 0% bluff, you divide the cost of your bet (or raise) by the size of the pot. You do not add either your bet or the other player's call into the denominator because when you have 0 equity you never see that money ever. With actual showdown equity, you do see that money some percentage of the time (ie: your equity) and the math doesn't care whose stack the money came from.

I know that's more like a bunch of illustrative examples than it is a true "why" or "how", but it takes Bertrand Russell to explain the functional logic behind basic mathematics. You can Google "pot odds poker" to confirm that this is and always has been how you calculate pot odds.

There's $100 in the pot OTR & our V bets $50 & we call.. The pot is $200 & our $50 is 25% of $200.00. We need to win 25% of the time to break even.

shorn7: Think of it like this. If there is a pot of $50 and my opponent bets $50 into the pot, what equity do I need to have in order to call? Is it 50/150 (correct) or 50/100 (incorrect)? As the others in this thread have well put, you need to include your own bet into your equity calculations and here is why.

If your logic was correct, I would use the second example and need 50% equity to call a PSB. This is clearly incorrect, as I can call any bet of any size with 50% equity as we are coin flipping.

However, if I use the correct math I will only need 33% equity to call. If I do indeed have 33% equity, 1/3 of the time I will win the $100 pot ($50 pot + $50 bet), and 2/3 of the time I will lose my $50 bet. So in the long run I will break even with 33% equity in this situation.

If instead I thought I needed 50% equity. I would fold to any bet ever, where I thought I my holdings were below the middle portion of my opponents range, regardless of pot size!

This math counts the money you already put in the pot as a sunk cost, since it is impossible for you to recover that money (unless you win the hand of course).

The important thing is to make sure that you are not putting money in the pot at any point where your equity (actual or implied) is less than your break even point. Of course, the great thing about poker is that this is impossible to calculate! So we can spend our non-playing time discussing the ranges, fold equity, and IO of our decisions

Does anyone think that he has a set of 4s or 10s? Pretty enticing pot odds preflop. Check called, then check jam. If you have a tight image, then he's putting you on a hand. A lot harder to bluff someone if you think they are strong.

It seems like the range of hand this forum wants everyone to play are premiums. Look, I’m all for playing super tight, and have a stronger range than our V’s at showdown, EZ money, call it a night, etc.

Even in my lurking this forum, nobody asks the OP why did he/she chose to play xyz range, just that “Fold pre and all mistakes will be avoided.” Again, in many cases, this solves all the issues.

In this particular hand, the game is 8 handed, later at night, hero’s image is tight, and stacks for the most part are at or above 100bbs, I’ll open AJo even from EP all day. With that being said, assuming the fold pre police can look past this mistake, my question was about the line I took post flop.

I’d say my hand is pretty face up when I c-bet into 4 people, and DB on a blank turn, and when V c/r after I’ve shown strength for 3 streets I think he’s on the stronger part of his range (JT, 44, TT, KQdd, etc) hence the fold.

Even though my hand might be face up, assuming this V can read hands, don’t we still have to bet turn especially on a blank? I’d appreciate if y’all can look past pre for this hand, thanks

OK well put. Losing my mind...have been away from the game for a few years and clearly it shows. Thx

+1 pretty much my thoughts during the hand

I feel like a set would have taken a different line on the flop. There are just too many cards on the turn that V doesn't want to see either by virtue of killing his action or completing likely draws. Having this flop check through is a disaster 8 handed and I don't know why he'd risk it with a set. Even if he did check, with the action as played it seems like an obvious x/r with strong made hands. If I had to put money on it, I think he has a hand that we are currently beating but picked up equity on the turn like 5s6s, 7s8s, 8s6s. Curious to see what V had.

dunno, I folded, but I can reveal what he said after he got up to leave.

If you could PM it to me, that would be great. I'm definitely curious.

It's quite common for Villains to x/c flop followed by x/jam turn with a set.

8 handed with a flushing and straightening board? I'm not saying it doesn't happen. It's just...not the line i'd take?

I don’t mind betting turn bc he was last to act pre and last to act otf which should lighten up his calling ranges enough for you to more frequently bet bet down to AJ. And, because the board is JTx not ATx, plus the turn added SD equity to a handful of his more squirrelly naked FDs, you are going to want to either size up/commit/win the pot now or size down/leave room to fold/look for a showdown.
AP 100 probably looks good to you bc it’s a comfortable size that seems to set up for a 3 street stack off pretty well, but that’s an extremely ambitious plan w this hand/this board. I personally would likely bet turn too w AJ and ck KJ-, but for less- so I don’t think bet-folding something that’s so close to a check is all that bad. It’s also not bad doing so when a 1/3 player puts 340 in the middle on the turn.

I understand your frustration with this, and I agree that anyone who pretends that all problems go away so long as you play tight preflop are really just shying away from uncomfortable discussions. I mean, this same hand could happen HJvBU, and it wouldn't have been correct for you to open fold this hand in the HJ, so we're just moving the goalposts.

That said, having sensible ranges does solve a lot of problems, and that starts with preflop.

The one area the nits really had it right all along is with offsuit broadway hands in 7+ handed games. The value of Axo hands depreciate very quickly with each rank.

Think of it this way: on an A-high board, by the time you get to the turn, there are as many as 6 Ax ranks that are ahead of you (AK/AQ + all the two pairs) whereas you are only ahead of 5 (there will usually be at least 5 ahead of you unless it's a paired board or specifically AKQx, in which case now you're behind some Kx hands). So even if you're still finding players in 2017 who are clueless enough about kickers that they're calling an UTG aggressors' multiple postflop bets with any Ax whatsover, you are still making what is basically breakeven value bets when there is still a street to go OOP. It's just an ugly spot, and that's how you get into these "I can't check right? But also bet is gross, hm" spots.

This is without mentioning how redundant these hands are with your natural raising range. This becomes apparent on J-high boards. Since so much of your range is already dominated by JJ+, you're essentially overrepping your hand by the time you blast the turn with AJ on Jxx board, much less a JTx board where you easily have second set and even a couple combos of top two.

So you've got yourself in a spot where by the turn, villain has to be really bad to call with the QJ type stuff necessary to make your bet a value bet, and when he shoves on you, you're both folding too much if you fold this hand and in really bad shape when you call with it. With a more sensible range, you could always call off AJ because you're either unblocking Axdd/Jxdd or you yourself have the NFD+TPTK, and then fold QQ and KK/AA with a diamond, and you'd still be in good shape to have some AK bluffs.

So nits really have always had the right idea with these AJo and even AQo (which is marginal from UTG-LJ at tough tables). Where they have the entirely wrong idea is with middle coordinated cards and applying pressure on the A/K-high boards we crush in these spots and all that fun stuff. And also nits are pretty much always wrong about any advice they give for limping or opening CO/BU and defending BB and all that stuff.

This might sound like that yucky "balance" stuff that everyone's always told you you shouldn't care about, but if that's the case, then you're never allowed to complain about a line making your hand "face up." If I were mod, I would make it illegal to make both of those complaints.

Excellent post!!