Weird spot the other day at a 1/3 table:

Hero(400): Playing my usual tight game while I peg opponents.

V1(150): Very tight, but then fairly passive after flop so far.

V2(55): standard sloppy loose fish that we all know from these 1/3 limits.


V1 limps, V2 limps, MP limps, hero limps with 55 in CO, and BB checks option

FLOP(15) 359

BB checks, V1 bets out 5, V2 pushes for his remaining 52. As V2 pushes, V1 shows his neighbor his cards (which I can plainly see) and he has 97.

What is the right play here? I thought for awhile after seeing this and I decided that I should flat call and not blow out V1, and push any non spade turn. Would it be even better to just shove flop? Since he was a little tight/weakish post flop, was scared he wouldn't call of the rest of his chips like 80% of the typical loosy fish do at this level.

Thoughts on this weird spot?

Shove now

I haven't done the math, but I'm pretty sure you're correct to call now and ship safe turns.

Haha, this spot is really neat!

You have a great opportunity here: the opportunity to play perfectly with respect to your opponent's cards. You also have another opportunity: to induce your opponent to play as incorrectly as possible with respect to your own cards.

How can we maximize the error made by V1? By forcing that error as late as possible.


(1) Let us first suppose that V1 will check the turn and river, and if he misses, he will stack off with just a paired 9. In this case, you should wait until the river, then shove. V1 will stack off his 100 chips while you have 100% equity. (Of course, if he hits on the turn or river and shoves, you will have to fold.)

(2) I admit that it is unlikely V1 will stack off on the river with just a 9. So let us now suppose that V1 will check the turn, and if you shove, he will stack off with his pair+flushdraw. In this case, V1 stacks off his 100 chips while you have 82% equity.

(3) But let us suppose that V1 has a read on you: you think that if he misses the turn and you shove, he will get away from his hand. In this case, you need to stick it in on the flop, right now. In this case, V1 stacks off his 100 chips while you have 68% equity.


You see? The later you force V1 to make an error, the more equity you get on your shove. But beware! If you mis-estimate how late V1 is willing to misplay his hand, and you let him get away, you will have just given him free cards (free equity!) while letting him escape from your value bets.

Oh, yeah, and if you flat-call the flop and he reshoves, then you are in the same situation as (3). Not quite as good as (1) or (2), but still a fist-pump call.

I mean, we're almost a 70/30 favorite against V1 on the flop, and we get to play perfectly on the turn. I don't think he folds whiffed turns with $170 in the pot and < $100 behind.

So I think we should definitely encourage a call by calling ourselves.

I think reraising now is better than later because there are too many cards that could scare away V.
Think about this - what if a non-spade A, K, Q, J or T comes on the turn. Will V call another bet with just 9-high?
By playing a bigger pot now, V will feel more comfortable putting in chips when he thinks he's ahead. And we're getting our chips in when we're way ahead - which is the whole point of playing poker... besides, it's only 100 more.

Villain is playing perfectly on the flop if he only has to call 52. And if he shoves when he hits his flush he plays perfectly then as well -- we'd have to fold not getting odds to draw to a full house.

If we think he'll call the turn (getting much worse odds than now) when he wouldn't call the flop (and he can profitably call against almost anything but what we have) then you're right.

If your range is 55/AA he can profitably call. Why do you think he'd fold?

No, it's $140+ more to V1 if we shove now.

Why do you want him to give him a reason to fold when you're a 70/30 favorite?

When he calls, turn pot is $171 with actually $95 left. If he wants to fold a whiffed turn, OK. I don't think he does fold. But if he does, he'll give up his ~18% equity.

It'd be a "correct" fold on the turn since he'll be getting almost 3:1, but it pretty close to break-even and we're pretty indifferent to a fold or call at that point given the pot and stacks. What we don't want is him folding the flop. Also if the turn is a spade, we can play perfectly.

Someone can run the numbers here, but intuitively, I think we're best off calling.

Correct, we'd fold. Easy game. We deny him any implied odds.

However, he might hit and check to us. Easy game - we take a free card.

He's not the one playing perfectly on the turn, we are, especially in position.

Though he might give up on a paired turn. That's 7 cards.

So yeah, it's definitely a math problem.

Have to calculate whether he ever folds flop to a shove, in what way he slows down on paired turns, what he does on spade turns and whether we have a chance to check, whether he pays off on paired rivers, how often he calls off whiffed turns, all adjusted for the frequencies of all those outcomes, etc., etc.

Shipping flop is definitely the "easiest" option.. he probably doesn't fold much. But I'm feeling a pull toward calling, an option that allows us to play in position on the turn with very shallow stacks against a known hand, and I'm not sure he folds with much more frequency when he sees a turn.

+1

Well, if he faces a bet of 50 on the flop, he has the odds to call. So when we just call the flop, we give him the opportunity to play the flop correctly.

Why do this? So that he can have the opportunity to make a bigger mistake on the turn.

But if V1 can escape on the turn, or even if he escapes on only some turn cards...
then we must shove the flop to get him make a mistake when he is willing to make it.


Here is our order of preferences, from best to worst:

1.) V1 misses turn and river, stacks off anyway.

2.) V1 misses turn, stacks off on the turn.

3.) V1 stacks off on the flop.

4.) V1 gets free cards and doesn't end up stacking off after he misses.

Also, how is villain playing perfectly if he calls 52?

He'd be getting something like 2:1 on the flop.

He's like 4:1 to hit the flush on the next card (and we're gonna ship whiffed turns). That's not a profitable call.

Also, he's drawing to some serious reverse implied odds if he binks another 9 or a 7, which will happen some % of the time, as well.

I just think when you consider all the scenarios - and yes, there are a ton of them - we're coming out ahead pretty well by calling. He's going to make a lot of mistakes in the hand, and we won't make any. When we shove the turn and he calls, that's certainly a very profitable outcome, and it's a big mistake, but it's only one mistake. We can get him to make more and worse mistakes while playing perfectly ourselves.

Look at my post above - him calling the flop getting only 2:1 is definitely not "correct."

Not only does he not have the right odds to draw to one card for his flush, but if he happens to hit a 9 or 7, he will lose all his chips, as well. And I don't really think he's getting away on whiffed turns.. but if he does, that's not the end of the world. He's giving up a huge pot where he still has plenty of equity, and while he fold would be "correct," it's not so bad an outcome for us.

Ah, yes, that is true. V1 has 31% equity if he gets to see two cards for free. But he will only get to see one. So you are right, his equity is only about 15-20% or so.

Here's the results of the hand:

A few things to note here:
First off V is not 30% to win on the turn. He is only 30% to win by the river. He only has 9 outs to win on the turn, so he is roughly 19.5% to win. As long as we give him less than 4:1 odds on the flop, he is making a mistake. Remember, he has 0 implied odds. We will never pay off a bet on the turn unless he gives us proper odds to boat up.

So, on the flop, if we flat, when action gets back onto him, he has to call $47 more into a pot of $124 getting 2.63:1, and is making a $22.2 mistake. If we shove V will have to call $142 into a $213 pot, getting 1.5:1, he is making a $30.82 mistake. So, he makes a bigger mistake, but we lose the value of perfect information, and we risk an extra $100 to win and extra $8. And we risk the chance that he might fold. And we lose the chance to make the villain make a bigger mistake on later streets.

If we flat, on the turn, the pot will be $170. All we have to do it bet an amount that denies him again 4:1 odds and he will be making another mistake. So, anything over $57 that we bet, and he calls he will be making a mistake. If we shove, he will be calling $95 into $265, a $21 mistake. This combined with the $22.2 mistake that he made on the flop, and we can actually force him to make $43.2 in mistakes through out the hand.

Once we think about these things, we have to decide how often he will fold to scare cards on the turn. And we have to weight the risk of a card falling on the turn that will improve his equity to a point where we can no longer force him to make as big of a mistake. An 8, 6, and 4 would improve his hand so that he only needs to be getting 2.14:1 on his money to be making the correct call. And he will be making a correct call on the turn.

In the long run, I think it matters little what you do here, given the stack sizes and the size of the pot, and the chances that he folds at any point, are hard to quantify, so I think either route is fine.


Edit:
This is what I get for watching TV while typing out an answer. Everyone beat me the the punch.

Well played.

Not this.

Consider the fundamental theorem of poker.

Also ask... Would villain call $1 to win $350 on the river with an unimproved pair of 9s? Conversely would we profit $1 (loose $1 less) if we folded spade rivers for $1? How much more than $1 would he call?

Assuming we want to and can get stacks in...Subtracting that amount above from remaining stacks we should divide our flop and turn bets to provide equal pot odds on flop and turn which should also be greater than villains drawing odds.

So we lay villain equally incorrect drawing odds on turn and river and save one irresistiblly small river bet that we can fold for the times spades come on the river.

I would shove now. Tighty is only playing with $150 (50bbs), so even though he's tight, I just don't see how he can fold the flop with TP + flushdraw + backdoor straight draw. However, he can certainly manage a fold on a later street in a protected pot when his draw doesn't come in, and especially if overcards hit. In fact, against this guy, my guess is that if we call the only way we get the rest of the chips in is if he hits his flush and we boat up (or if he hits a 9/7).

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