So villain routinely calls a $25 raise out of the bb with 85s?

Seems like a good play.

I will agree with this point.

so touching on the point that when villain says, "lets gamble" or "time to go home" and puts the money in....that its usually the nuts...

Ive been using this play on words with quite the effective result...if im playing and I get in a situation where if i shove and its a borderline spot...sometimes I'll say "lets gamble" as im putting my chips in the middle....and people take this as me giving a 'speech' and credit me for a way bigger hand than I might have...

just food for thought i guess

V adjusted in this hand.

A straddle doesn't make a $2/5 game like a $5/10 game it makes it worse than a typical $5/10 game because the stacks are all going to be smaller relative to the bet than at a typical $5/10 game! Who cares how many bb's you have? What matters is stack sizes relative to the bet you have to call.

In the hand everyone's arguing about, hero has to call a $30 bet with effective stack size of $800. That's more than 25x the bet. If we have a read on villain that says it's very likely that we'll get their whole stack if we hit our hand then I see no problem with calling here. It's pretty villain dependent IMO. Honestly, I probably would've folded if it were me, but I don't think it's a terrible call especially if you can get away from the hand the times one of the 4 other players wakes up with a better flush, boat, better straight or whatnot.

No. It really doesn't. $1/2 plays almost the same with or without the straddle on, same as if some guy was making $5 pot-juicer raises. My limited $2/5 experience was the same.

If you start calling with these baby SC, then you shouldn't be folding ever when hit gin....except maybe on a paired board. If you start getting worried about better flushes/straights in a multiway pot...then stop calling them, or only call with AXs.
You want to stack-off when you hit gin, instead of pot-controlling fearing better flushes/straights. In that case, you are not maximising your implied odds, which inturn makes it a bad call preflop.

Agreed - if a flush draw is worth $115 to you, surely it's worth $115 to any opponent who has one too?

This looks to me like just a case of knee-jerk avoiding multiway pots.

Which is a problem I have with the hand. I would think we want a muliway pot with a FD. Especially when a raise will not fold out any better flushdraws with the stack sizes involved.
If dgi's plan was to raise the flop because he felt he had fold equity, then by all means raise the flop....but to do it for his stated reasons seems a bit dodgy.

Another reason to raise the flop would be to fold out the villian's seemingly weak hand and get it in with the short-stacks who may have flopped a piece because of all the dead money in the pot.

Yea, this is exactly why I would have folded. I don't really feel comfortable playing these sorts of hands in this kind of a spot. I didn't mean folding to the original raiser and I guess in this example all the other players aren't deep enough to find a fold, but if some of the limpers were deeper I can imagine some scenarios where you might have to fold. If I'm still wrong, please let me know and again this goes back to why I would just fold preflop here if it were me.

You don't just get to magically realize your equity by calling preflop, especially oop.

Its a bad call pre ppl. Also dgi, the comment where u said u didnt jam turn simply because u believe majority of her range comprised the Ah and u wanted to fade the h before commiting is really, really bad. Like bad live reg bad, the type that you so often describe in your posts. And u mostly post good stuff imo.

Hate to keep the thread derailed regarding 85s pre - I believe and understand all the math that shows you have IOs to call - I'm worried about being out of position. We often win less when ahead and lose more when behind from the blinds.

Has someone ever done an example where they have adjusted the IOs necessary to call up or down whether they are in and out of position?

I guess position matters less when we know players are bad enough to stack off with overpairs regardless of the board...

this hand is super lol and goes to show that some people only look at their cards.

£1/1 Effective stacks £80

Hero limps in MP with 55
HJ calls with T3
CO calls with KT
BTN raises to £6 w QQ and we all call.

FLOP : 10-5-10 (£26)

Hero checks, HJ bets £15, CO calls, BTN calls, Hero shoves.

HJ callS, CO calls and BTN w QQ calls!!!!!! I mean wtf, you are never good there w QQ

I acknowledged my mistake on turn in post #114. You are right that my reasoning thinking the A was in her range majority of the time is live reg bad and a touch MUBsy. Based on the range I gave her, AA, AK, KK, AhQh, the A is in her range roughly 35%-ish of the time. So I should have made the more optimal +EV play of shoving turn because in this case, if the river was a heart I would have lost $470-ish of value.

And like I said on post 114, once I saw her reaction on river, I knew I made a mistake on turn. I consider myself an expert on fish psychology and even I on occasion will let my own bias influence my play, in this case, thinking villain would throw away all the non-A parts of her range to a turn shove.

I think the bold is why so many see my play as super fishy in this spot. I'm not sure if you believe me when I say I would have 100% ditched my hand if the other villains had flatted my c/r.

That is the key part of this play for this hand.

I know I didn't really give profiles on the other villains but they respected my image and their stacks were between $200 - $400. My c/r was NOT meant to push out other flush draws because other flush draws are NEVER FOLDING. It was meant for me to take control of the pot and isolate against V who I knew was monster. I was 100% sure of her range in this spot.

So, if another villain flats my c/r for roughly 25% - 50% of their stack, I know my FD is beat by a better flush draw high % of the time. I know I don't post a lot of hands here, but I fold baby flush draws that I hit all the time to better flushes because often it is obvious that other villains are on flush draws as well if you are paying attention to the action. So in my case, I don't have that ambiguity of whether or not my flush "may" be good. Or put another way, what are the range of hands from the other villains that continue and call my c/r. AK combos would have raised preflop so those are out of their ranges. And I can't see KJ or even KQ calling here for 25% - 50% of their stack. Only sets and flush draws flat my c/r and there is a good chance that sets and better flush draws 3-bet shove me on flop. Even if they flat, come turn, I know i'm 100% beat and would have c/f turn since my odds/hand have been counterfeited by a better hand and I don't make up the odds vs the V that has me covered. That is, if another V flats my c/r and shoves that turn for $400 and I call, then I only have about $400 behind for the big V to double me up with and that is not enough in the way of odds for my line to be profitable against her entire range of hands.

I think this is also another part of why so many see my play as fishy here. You have to be able to overcome the disadvantage of being out of position. This hand may make me seem like i'm a luckbox LAG just splashing around but its not the case. I'm not trying to justify my line with awesome soul reading abilities, but if you understand the table dynamics and your villains and how they perceive you, then there is all kinds of value to be had in these sorts of lines.

I'm $800 deep and up against a V who I 100% know her range and other V's that are more or less fit and fold and the price of admission is just $30 in which I will be getting 5:1 in direct odds if I call. Those are the facts here. Some have fallen for the red herring of "Well, its a straddle therefore you are only at 80bb..." but that is not relevant here. The facts are, I'm getting 5:1 in direct odds and I'm getting 34:1 in implied odds and I 100% know the range of my villain. Looking at implied odds, I have to be successful 3% of the time for this to be profitable.

I can improve my odds by getting away from the situation if it turns into an RIO situation which is where my flop c/r comes in. I know that may look like FPS but its not. I'm isolating against the V i'm targeting. If I just flat her $40 c-bet, odds are extremely high that other villains flat as well and then I have zero clue where I stand in the hand...

Even with all the above, I did make a mistake in the hand, I should have shoved turn

I think I will start posting more hands. If you look at my thread starts, I'm not too big into posting hands, truthfully, I think they would come across more as brags than posts because all my key hands are atypical situations that depend heavily on reads and table dynamics and involve big money decisions (look up some of my past hand posts).

FWIW, if I was at 100bb or less in this spot I would have folded preflop. But the fact I'm $800-ish deep makes a big difference in terms of profitability. Majority of my big hands and big pots aren't epic set vs set coolers or AA vs KK. They are hands like this in which I target other big stacked villains who I 100% know their range.

I think I will start posting one hand per week for discussion.

Well, the actual bet yes, but not necessarily the situation if earlier plays were highly dependent on implied odds.

If you valuetown yourself 30% of the time, that means that when the stacks go in, you win an average of .7 stacks and lose an average .3 stacks, for a .4 stack profit. If you are making a call with rags thinking "if I hit, I get his whole stack, so that's 200BB worth of implied odds." then BZZZZT. It's more like 80BB if you valuetown yourself 30% of the time when you hit.

Taking that into account, plus looking at money you may need to put in as a blocking bet on the flop/.turn before you've hit, implied odds calcs can get pretty thin. Take dgiharris's spot where he calls with 85sooted. He's calling $30 into what he rightly expects to be a $180 pot. Stacks behind are around $800. The simple calculation says 30 into 980 is 33 to 1 implied odds.

But it doesn't work that way. When you hit, your profit is more like 40% of his stack, rather than the whole thing, which means 30:500 which is 16.6:1 already probably too thin for this rag call.

But it's worse than that. When you hit a draw, sometimes you have to put some money in before you have the hand.

Hero bet 115 in order to control the postflop betting, let's call that $100 to be conservative and make the math easy.

So hero puts $100 in the pot in a situation with 28% equity (40% to hit the flush which is good 70% of the time), that represents an average loss of $44. In addition, the money going in after the hit is now $100 less which means profit on the stackoff is $40 less also (when the draw comes in, so $16 less on average The actual expected total profit for this line (hit a draw and bet the flop), is approximately $220, which is a whole lot less than 800. Of course sometimes you will hit the flush/straight on the flop and get the whole 320, but that will happen about 1/3 as often as you flop a draw like this. So on average the implied portion of your profit is
.25*320 + .75*220 == 245

So your implied odds here are 30:385 or not quite 13:1

That by itself is not enough to make this call. You need to pick able to pick up some pots with less than a flush or straight, or get out without making that $100+ bet on a fair % of your draws, or valuetown yourself a lot less than 30% in order for playing this 8h5h to be profitable.

I'm guessing that dgi is not in fact valuetowning himself 30% of the time, but more like 10-15% of the time. He may have a smidgeon of fold equity on the flop, etc. In that case the implied odds probably justify his line.

This all is why being good postflop is critical to making these plays with trash in deep games. Simple nut peddling isn't enough to be profitable unless your fish is 95% readable, the whole table is very passive, and the game is *very* deep.

dgi, I don't think you're calculating your odds right. When you have to put money in without the hand yet, when you have to fold some of your hits, when you valuetown yourself a certain percentage of the time, it's not as simple as saying "it has to work 3% of the time", because that means 5% of the time you hit something and don't end up winning the pot. But when that happens, you've invested a lot more than the initial $30.

I'm not saying I disagree with your preflop play -- working out whether it is ok is pretty complicated, especially considering what it can do for your image.

That said, I definitely disagree with your method of calculating the odds.

The calculation I did in this thread was more or less my rough calculation/guesstimation I did during the hand at the table. I knew it wouldn't be exact but I figured it would be close enough to give me the green light to go ahead and call preflop.

mes,
I definitely appreciate you taking the time with your maths... And I will do some modeling on this spot to get a higher degree of resolution on the maths and what is required for profitability.

The guidelines that I use now is a combination of being deep, knowing my villains/table dynamics, and having a strong image. But that can come across as "i'm awesome and therefore can do whatever I like." So....

I will start a thread in the Poker Theory section next week concerning calling raises with SCs and SGs (suited gapers) OOP. It will take me a week to do the modeling, I'm currently busy grinding like a mad man to build up for upcoming tourneys and the WSOP so it will take me a bit of time...

mes is the first person I've seen in about five years who knew how to spell "smidgeon" correctly.

mes joins 2+2 in 2005, averages approximately 1 post per year for 8 years, then comes in here and drops some real knowledge on us.

Seriously, though-- very nice analysis, mes.

lol. Thank you.

I was an RGP regular who migrated to livejournal and hated the 2+2 interface back in the 2000s, but got an account to post an occasional comment when I followed links.

I was mostly a theory guy back then. Never lived close to many live games, and didn't want to play online or in legal gray games for real money post UIGEA back when my wife was a pastor. I gave it up, and hadn't thought about or played poker in a few years when I couldn't resist a juicy table on a cruise ship a couple months ago, and then moved to MI where there are juicy legal games around every corner.

So now I'm back to studying seriously, and actually playing more as well.

Came here to talk strategy, because I need some remedial work in some areas where my basic instincts aren't as strong as my ability to model tightly defined situations (since I haven't actually played very much). Whatever I think of the blog interface, there's just nowhere else anymore than competes with 2+2 for poker strategy discussion. So here I am.

Here's one I just saw last night.

The setup:
$1/2 NLHE in a Michigan charity poker room, it's 1:30am and the room's due to close in an half an hour so things are starting to get crazy (best time of the night BTW).

YAG sitting to my left has $600ish to start the hand. He's decent, tends to pick his spots pretty well, and he raises soooo many hands that he gets a lot of action when he hits. Very high variance style, but I think he's a winner in the game.

Old Geezer to my left has about $500. He's an awful player. 80+ years old, drinks to the point that he has to be carried to a cab by the bar staff at the end of the night. Usually plays with less than $100 and spews hard, overvalues top pair even when there's another pair on the board and his kicker doesn't play. Rarely raises and makes a lot of MUBSy comments. He's built the stack he's sitting on by calling down bluffs with Q4 type hands on Q high boards and turning a straight or two. Everyone's drooling over the chance to take a chunk of his stack.


The hand:
Someone straddles $5 UTG, YAG makes it $30, Geezer calls, heads up.

Flop: K44r
YAG leads $30, geezer thinks a second, grabs a stack and raises to $90 (didn't count, just grabbed). YAG appears to consider raising, just calls.

Turn: 8r
YAG says "Check to you Pops". Geezer bets $100, YAG calls kind of quickly.

River: 7
YAG checks again. Geezer says "I'm all in" with a shrug and picks up his beer. ($302)
YAG exclaims "What the ****!?!", stands up and starts talking to himself and pacing/turning. "What could you have?" "You don't have a 4" "I have to be good here" etc

...

YAG eventually calls with KQ.

...

Geezer rolls 88 for a full boat.



YAG was PISSED at this. Mostly "how can you raise the flop?"

I of course agreed with him and gave him the "holy ****, you just have to go broke there, he has so many hands that you beat" spiel. But god damn, find a fold somewhere.

(Geezer racked up and left less than an orbit later, obviously afraid of losing what might be the biggest stack he's ever had.)

That's not an easy fold. In fact, I think it's a cooler, given that drunk old donkey could easily take that line with any Kx.

Good old pops. If that's who I think it is, I have a hard time folding too.

I didn't want to see another card

Villain is a massive fish who I see most every weekend in the room. He's donated a lot of money to me in the past year or so. He's been on a rush and feeling good about life. Stack ~$400

Maniac straddles for $18. Villain calls from SB. Hero raises to $50 in MP with AJo. Folds to villain who calls.

Flop: Ad Th 5h ($120)
Villain donks $50. Hero calls.

Turn: 9h ($220).
Villain spazz shoves. Hero chuckles and folds. Villain shows 6h8h.
He said he didn't want to see another card.

So, he charged himself to draw on the flop. Then by shoving the turn, he insured that I never ever pay him off with a worse hand or draw and he gets owned hard by a bigger flush. Easy lay down. Awful player.

The happy ending to the story is that I got all in pre flop with him for $400+ later. AQ>QJ. Ship it bitch.