LOL...posters in this forum never cease to amaze me.

Yes I remember that guy and AFAIK he's still grinding and still almost always the best player at any given poker table.

Meanwhile you have ppl in this thread arguing over whether or not you should raise or call the flop as I'd one play is better than the other. Both plays are losing propositions but not a single poster says fold, even tho its technically correct. You even have one poster saying you should raise more because you're behind. Does that mean we should go all in with 45cc?

The thing is, this is an interesting hand because all three plays lose money, its just that the winning players are turning it into a profit.

Ppl here are talking about baluga whale "thereom" as if its relevant. Anything that is called a theorem should be proven mathematically and the only two thereoms that are relevant are the fundamental theorem of poker, which states that the winner of the game is the player who makes the most money when the position and hands are reversed, and Mortons theorem, which proves that you need a 3 way pot to profitably play a flush draw.

What's important about this hand is that there is no right answer for the flop because we are aware that the bb has 15x as many qx as the sb, so the amt of times we get it 3 way is negligible. Therefore all of our plays are -ev, but isn't poker itself -ev with rake.

I don't think the turn is interesting since shoving is the only play.

I could talk for hours about this flop but my advice is to ask yourself what you would do if you had 45cc instead of JThh. If you are auto-folding then you should just auto fold here too.

This is a flop that you can always float or bluff raise and IMHO,your frequency of each action on this flop should mirror your bluffs. Therefore, I am folding some of the time and not surprised no one has mentioned it

I run into this situation so many times a night that it's really just dependent on villain and stack size. If I'm playing in a 100bb cap game and near starting stack I will always raise big on flop and try to GII and double my stack as fast as possible while I know I have at least ~50% equity to be deeper with other Vs at the table ASAP.

On the other hand, when I'm already deep or in a 200bb game I'll consider both flatting or raising flop for various reasons. In the games I play in its important to kind of merge my sets/combo draws because most Vs are thinking. I've had Villains shove over my flop raise with TPNK expecting me to flip over a flush draw and see a set instead. If lets say I have a set 10% of the time, 2pair 15%, and combo/pair+FD 75% of the time when I raise this flop, it's profitable to GII with a villain who is known to stack off light on FD flops. The mistake they are making is that these villains always put you on a FD in this spot so in one case they are at best even money (if I'm only raising flop with 5xhh, JThh, KJhh, AKhh) or a huge dog when I have a set. If you're a smart villain and you merge my flop raising range then they are put in a tough spot with even TPTK.

As played, I'm not sure Villain b/c flop then leads this big on turn with The nuts so I'm ranging him on pair+Ah or Kxhh so I'm probably shoving and saying nice hand if he has it. TBH if I was Villain this is the line I might take with a Set sometimes.

I like the raise on the flop since we have good equity vs top of his range and some fold equity. On the turn gii. He has top pair with Kh or Ah/ smaller flush here way too often to take a passive line and possibly miss value on River.

I agree this is a common scenario. If hero calls the flop and plans to 1/2 pot semi-bluff raise the turn:

Eff. Stacks = 360 Pot = $95
Villain bets $50, Hero raises to $150
EV = .3(245) - .7(150) = -31.5
Hero needs 17% fold equity

I do think a turn raise has more FE in general. It's rare to see low stakes villains bet-fold the flop.

The raise sizing is critical. A 3/4 pot semi-bluff to $200 on the turn doesn't leave enough for a credible river bluff if we miss (stacks will be $160 and the pot $495)

It's difficult to figure out whether you are trolling or just really that bad.

Folding is the worst play.

Why not?

Again, it's hard to figure out if you are trolling really hard or if you are a really bad player.

If I have to ask the same question 3x in a post, maybe you are just that bad.

Look up pot odds in the Beginner's Forum.

No.

Eddie, I don't understand how you get your fold equity needed of 25% if H shoves the turn.

We have -Ev of $60.50 when V calls, so we need a high enough % of folds to win the same to break even.

So, isn't that $60.50/$185 = .327 or 32.7%?

I also come up with a different FE% needed otf, since 17% of $70 is $11.90, which isn't enough to make up for the -Ev $14.50.

What am I doing wrong? I don't have a clue! Thanks.

There isn't ANY fold equity on the turn. Hero has the 3rd nuts.

It's impossible to know which turn cards are blanks, how much equity the villain will have on future streets, or whether villain will decide to call an AI.

Hero wins the pot of $185 when villains folds and has -$60.5 EV when called.

The break even point villain needs to fold to make raising profitable is:
$185(x) + (1-x)(-$60.5) = 0
$245.5x = 60.5
x = 24.6%

If any of this math looks wrong, please comment.

As played, yes. The hand plays itself when hero hits the 6h on the turn and the strategy shifts to maximizing value. I wanted to look at some alternate scenarios if hero just called the flop and if the turn blanked.

It's same to assume any blank is a card that does not complete a straight or flush. We can estimate 30% equity per street because hero beats almost all of villains range when he hits and loses to almost all of villain's range when he misses.

@Nice_Guy_Eddie: Well.......... duh! . Thanks! Eyes opened wide now!
Can I blame it on a brain fart?

Um, no, it doesn't; you just think it does, because you've invented a generic villain.

Um, no, that's not what a blank is. A blank is a card that doesn't fundamentally change the way we are framing the problem. But that depends on villain and his tendencies and we don't know enough to make an ACCURATE assessment. Again, we can invent a generic villain, and turn this into an academic exercise, but then we will only be establishing some sort of baseline EV that does us absolutely no good!!

E.g. a 9 is probably NOT a blank. But we simply DON'T KNOW, not at the point you are trying to model.

And then your last sentence is just another repetition of the same error; playing against a villain we desire in circumstances we imagine. Yes, I know about deviation to the norm, but that's not how you win at poker. You win by noticing and collecting on deviations AWAY FROM the norm.

@BadlyBeaten: Would you please be so kind as to demonstrate to the readers how you would establish a meaningful baseline Ev? Thanks.

Good to see this flop is getting the discussion it deserves.

In a complete vacuum with no reads I'm fairly confident calling folding and raising will be about the same.

Remember that if we call a bet on the flop and villian bets 60% on blank turns, we call and make our hand on the river and villain check folds, we have won the money but lost the hand.

Again...my advice is to think about what you'd do with a pure bluff as well as a made hand. If we have 2 black kings are we always raising the flop?

There are a lot of other things to talk about in this hand such as implied odds and reads and table image but the first thing that comes to mind for me is range merging. You want your mid strength hands and monsters to look the same to villian, therefore, so its just as important to think about other hands in your range and consider how you'd play this flop.

That is why you should be folding flop some of the time (not often) and continuing with a pure bluff some of the time.

The villain in the hand is unknown. We don't have any accurate information to use. Obviously we should adjust our play as we learn more about villain. We're not figuring out how to play the hand all the time against all villains.

We do these exercises to estimate our equity and what kind of FE we need. We can use that information to help us create a plan for the hand.

Idea of any EV exercise is to first create a range. Without more specific information, this range would often be rather generic. It is still far superior than not calculating EV.

Maybe you don't quite understand how this modeling works. Although Eddie oversimplified what he considers blank card as anything that doesn't improve Hero's range, he's at least making it clear what his qualifier is.

Hence a very generic model...

Baseline is better than no baseline, DUCY?

And you do that by first establishing the norm...or what you might call a baseline.

Because it's finally speaking to your level?

That's just plain wrong.

Folding is giving up equity that Hero will never realize, and that in itself is always negative EV if you consider V's likely range.

Stop talking.

Uhh...yes.

Don't hurt yourself buddy, just one thing at a time, and I would start off by figuring out what EV actually means and collect its variables.

It's not really merging in this context because the board is so far from defining what a winning hand is going to be. A bluff catcher at this point can be as bad as Q-high, but obviously it is very unlikely that Q-high going to be strong enough to be bluff catcher by showdown.

ROFL!!!

Folding a very strong draw to balance your folding range.

spexdome

^ A baseline ISN'T meaningful, and establishing one isn't meaningful either. That's my whole point!! We're not playing Keno. An EASY baseline is to assume everyone goes all in, you make your str8 or flush an average number of times, and it wins 80% of the time.

^ What matters is the FE you HAVE, not the FE you need. At low stakes, it usually isn't much, and in this particular case, Hero should probably consider it negligible. There aren't any prizes for over-analysis at low stakes poker.

^ Except for the OBVIOUS FACT that OP was asking about this one specific HH, your comments get a blue ribbon.

What purpose do you think this forum serves?

In this particular case, OP wanted to know the best line OTT.

Folding is always 0 EV.

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TTHRIC