This is from page 173 of Hold 'em Poker for Advanced Players:

But isn't the equity on these raises negative in many cases? and according to you, your expert opponents would never make this raise either since the equity is negative. So while, as you point out, the game may have passed me by, it sounds like you never caught up to the game in the first place.

Mason

Yes Mason, keep banging your dated book. I'm sure if I had a moment of glory like that I'd be loathe to let it go as well.

So they call JJ 5 ways when they should raise and raise 3 ways when they should call? This seems bad

Shouldn't you have an even bigger equity advantage 3 ways?

Depending on the action and the players, quite possibly not. If decent TAG opens UTG+2 and a flinty fossil raises on the button we might not be in very good shape at all.

Moreover, with just three players in the hand and quite possibly only two after the flop action, hand reading becomes important. Unless we are playing four-bet-or-fold, we are going to have a calling range here, and it is going to be relatively small, and our four-betting range even smaller. It's tough to balance in this spot, so calling gives us a little bit more maneuvering room after the flop. Also, we get to find out whether or not the opener likes their hand enough to four-bet.

If it's an opener and a cold-caller, I would be more inclined to raise, simply to take advantage of the cold-caller's terrible mistake, but the range-splitting argument is still a factor.

The situation was against one raise, not two.

I really don't understand why people think "being balanced" is so important 3 ways but not 5.

It's simple. GTO is basically useless in multiway pots. In the three-way case, there is a significant likelihood of heads-up play after the flop. Five ways, not so much.

C-betting frequencies are higher, easier to make up lost bet and balance more important.

Unless opener is super tight, it's obvious that JJ has a range advantage, so we are always making a +EV play by 3b'ing pre. The onus is on Mason (or others) to show that we can *always* gain a bigger EV edge postflop by flatting. That is a tough task. Telling people to read a book for the justification is not adequate. Yawn.

100% concur. When claiming a fancy play is superior to a play that any 8 year old with a range calculator can make, the people arguing the latter shouldn't have to justify the utility of their play, because the reasonably simple math is self evident.

If we can get 5 extra small bets into a pot with 30% equity (in a pessimistic case), that's a full 0.5 small bets more of value for us on preflop (1.5 additional small bets of equity for 1 small bet of investment), or 0.25 big bets. And it's really hard to make up for that kind of equity OOP postflop.

But some people are basically saying the same thing about flatting preflop in 3 handed pots. Can they really show you can *always* gain a bigger EV postflop by flatting everything there? I'm pretty sure they can't. All this comes down to judgement, and to the individual players you are facing.

Guys, we dont need to justify it anymore. Mason and David have a right to sit in the 20/40 game with their 18 year old playbook and play as they see fit.

Thanks for the insults. You and DonkeyonTilt can now enjoy your vacations.

MM

Hi phunkpish:

You won't always gain a bigger EV.

The reason why I've told people to read the book is that

1. I'm not going to post the whole Loose Games section here, and

2. There are a lot of different things to think about. Some of which are complex and some of which requires a fair amount of judgement. But with effort and experience, I think many players can improve their long term expectation in these large, big pot situations.

Best wishes,
Mason

Hi jdr0317:

I agree with your estimate of 0.5 small bets more of value.

But suppose you don't three-bet preflop but are able to increase your probability of winning the pot by 5 percent. Since there will be ten small bets in the pot preflop, isn't 5 percent of ten small bets also 0.5 small bets. And even though you're out of position, I think in many of these situations you'll be able to make adjustments in your strategy that will gain you that five percent, and you'll do this mainly by being able to knock people out where this would tougher to do if you made it three bets before the flop.

On the other hand, if you knew that the hand would be played exactly the same whether or not you made it three bets with the pair of jacks, then taking it to three bets is certainly correct.

Best wishes,
Mason

Do you think it's both possible that people can read your book and improve on these spots without everything you present being correct.

I mean I think you are clearly wrong about this spot with JJ, everyone else does as well, you state it's impossible you are wrong and are naming people that disagree with you. I feel like that is not the most productive method for discussing this topic

Mason, here's what I don't get. I've played in tons of games live and online with world class players, and I've seen quite a few 5+ way pots played out. I can't recall a single instance whereby I've seen a world class player show up with JJ HERE.

Is your stance really that every single one of them is wrong and it's impossible that you are, or is it at least possible that the best players in the world are all doing something that is in fact correct?

You don't understand. What we present in the book is theory with some examples of the theory in practice. We also state that some of this stuff is a bit of a two edged sword, and exactly when these plays are right also has a lot to do with exactly how your opponents play.

You're allowed to have your opinion.

I wrote in Post #26 "No. You need to read and understand all of the Loose Game section in HPFAP. You'll see that we explain that these plays can be like a two-edged sword." This means that they won't always produce a higher expectation. Again, this is addressed in our book. Also, no one who disagrees with me has been named. Why would you write this?

MM

Okay. And it's also my experience that you'll only see a play like this on a rare occasion. However, if you read Post #43 you'll see an example of one.

Also, and I could be wrong, but you're describing a game with a lot of tough players. Again, if you were to read the Loose Games section in our book you'll see that we make distinctions when the players are fairly weak, where they are tough, and where they are terrible. And while it's a different example, take a look at page 174 if you have the book handy. You'll see that in this example, our advice for playing when your opponents are tough or terrible is the same, while different for when they are fairly weak.

First of all, I try not to play against the best players in the world. However, I suspect that they may be playing correctly relative to the game they are in which is in most cases a high stakes game where most of the players are tough. That kinda goes along with being one of the best players in the world. And again, this is addressed in the book.

MM

Here a hand I played last week. I open KJs and 2 cold calls and both blinds call. 556 flop checks though. Turn K I bet and bb calls two streets with JJ. It doesn't always work like example posted (which is still played wrong pf).

Fine. And if the jacks makes it three bets do you call his flop bet? And why wouldn't you since you'll be getting 16-to-1? (And you didn't mention if you had a backdoor flush draw.) So assuming you make the call on the flop after the jacks makes it three bets, it costs him an extra small bet to get to the same result.

Also, if you were to read the example in our book, which I posted in Post #21, you would see that in this spot, after the jacks just called preflop, we would have him lead bet the flop. Now you would only be getting 11-to-1 to call and you only have three outs.

MM

The point of my hand isn't that I won its all of the bets that people didn't put in, most of which were likely at a massively equity disadvantage.

KJ opens 9T cold calls. JJ calls and donks the 556 flop and 9T folds. Yes we win this pot more often when they don't make a running straight, no we don't make more money

While I can see merits to both sides, I have to agree that this hand supports Mason's position. If the guy in the BB with JJ had donked the flop, you would have had the tough decision to either fold your equity or to make a possibly (actually in this instance) bad call, nowhere near closing the action.

preflop threads still have the most responses, when one sufficed

Seems like you can expand your 3 betting range in this spot and just check a significant portion of flops.