Online Poker Forum at Full Tilt Poker

MikeyPipes86 · Posted: Mon Mar 27, 2006 12:56 pm Post subject: Tough Beat...played correctly?

Here is a tough hand that I experienced the other day that has been haunting me for the past couple days. Critique of my play is appreciated.

1/2 NL, 9 players. I have approximately $140.

I'm in the small blind with Q9d. Two limpers in late position call, I complete my blind and the big blind checks. Pot at approximately 8 dollars heading to the flop.

Flop comes 8s 10s Jh. I've flopped the straight. I'm thinking to myself, "how do I get the most out of this hand?"
Of course, the two spades have me a little on edge.

I bet $5, approximately 2/3 of the pot. All call. Pot now around 25-30 dollars.

Turn is a blank, something like 4c. I bet $15. The big blind raises to $30. Im happy. The other two in the pot fold, and I go over the top all-in, putting my remaining $120 or so in. I have to be the favorite at this point.

After some contemplating, the big blind calls (he has me covered) and turns over KQs. A spade hits on the river and he takes down a monster pot with a king high flush.

Now I can see why he made his call, as he had double-digit outs. It was a gutsy play by him, but not ridiculous.

So, was my play bad, or did I simply get outdrawn? I assume some can say my $5 bet on the flop wasn't enough, but even if I bet the pot, I still would likely have gotten at least 2 callers. I guess the only real error I made was making my initial turn bet a bit light. I should have bet closer to $20-25 dollars, perhaps showing a little more strength. I feel he sensed I was not too strong and perhaps also on a drawing hand, thus the reason for his raise.

So what would you have done? Thoughts appreciated.

CrazyJoeDavola · Straight Flush Joined: 05 Oct 2005 Posts: 393

The pot was aprox $75 then you all-in'd for another 120, the pot's now $195, and it's going to cost your BB player $105 to call, w/ 17 outs there's not much you could do at that point as he's got the odds (1.7:1). It's actually 16 outs since you've got a 9, but he can't know that, lol. It was just one of those unfortunate flops that helped you but left just too much trouble out there. It's a hard one to lay down, but you ran into the 2 worst cards that your opponent could've had at that point. I doubt he'd have folded regardless of your play. I think just calling his turn bet and hoping for a "safe" river card would've been about all you could do Sad

Riddim · Posted: Mon Mar 27, 2006 1:47 pm Post subject:

I see no reason whatsoever for just calling his raise on the turn. There is only one holding in the entire deck over which you're not a big favorite, Qs9s. Even when your opponent has the biggest possible draw, KsQs, you're a favorite once the blank hits on the turn (you were actually a small dog on the flop). I think that the bad play in this hand comes from your opponent, who is a favorite against anything but a set or the nut flush draw on the flop.
If I'm in his spot I usually play my hand as fast as I can, because I don't want to go from being a favorite on the flop to being unable to call a big bet on the turn. In addition to that, playing the hand fast on the flop might leave you all-in as a huge (2-1) favorite against somebody overvaluing his TPTK without a flush draw. You'll also want to drive out a naked nut flush draw if possible.

The only thing I think you could have done differently is your bet on the turn. With three people in the hand I'd probably throw out a pot sized bet or bigger, since the odds will improve greatly for the people 3rd and 4th to act if the BB just calls your bet.

matt2411 · Royal Flush Joined: 07 Jan 2006 Posts: 559

You should always bet at least 3/4 of the pot when there are draws on the board, people do not distinguish between the 2 for the most partm someone who chases with a 2/3 pot bet will chase with a 3/4 the pot bet, and if someone wants to draw, make it a little more expensive getting you paid off more in the long run. You gave him correct odds to call and outdraw you. and even if he were on just a spade draw he still had odds because of implied odds on the river. in fact even at upper limits i still like to bet 80-90% of the pot to really punish any donkey who wants to chase, because most will fold on the turn anyhow.

what ENDED UP HAPPENING is you induced a semibluff.... since he had such a big draw he wants to make the pot a little bit bigger... which was his 1st mistake, because he gave you the chance to reraise. If he were an astute player he would have smooth called you getting a great price to outdraw you. But as amateurs do... they raise when they have draws, opening themselves up for reraises, and when he gave you the opportunity to do so, you took it. Removing all pot odds and implied odds on the equation.

You got all your money in as a 3-1 favorite while giving him 2-1 pot odds with no implied odds and he did not have the pot odds to do so.

So...your all in play was +EV his call was -EV.

But heres what would have happened had you bet a little harder.

bet 80% ($6.5) of the pot, hes going to call here, pot is now about so pot is now 34.

turn gives him the open ended straight and flush draws, he check calls you. you now again bet 80% ( $28 ) of the pot . if he smooth calls hes still getting decent odds with implied odds factored in, and if he minraises and you push the pot is going to be 222.5 (34+your 28 + his 56 + your 28 to call + the 76.5 you have left) and hes going to have to put in the remaining 76.5 because hes now getting 2.91-1 pot odds, which is close enough to 3-1. and theres also a chance you could have AJ in his eyes, so he may think he has the 19 outs, giving him better odds than he needs to break even. Which in the end would have hurt you.

believe it or not, your weak betting gave him worse odds, and he called with -EV and lost. Had you played it better by betting harder you would have played it perfect..... but he would have been correct in calling, so you're SOL there.

but in the end no matter what -- i think hes calling to the river. Had he just called the turn bet in either situation you probably could have gotten away from it or minimized losses, but i dont think he would have in either situation. If hes going to make that terrible call on the turn like he did, hes going all the way no matter what you do, unless you massively overbet or something.

1 SIMPLE fix to this solution is to always sit with the full 100 BBs. this way theres no way in hell anyone is going to call getting 1:1 pot odds unless they are a complete donkey. having your full buy in helps you in so many ways, many people dont understand, it raises implied odds when you hold PPs because you can completely double through -- for a max of 200, and COMPLETELY destack someone, and your all in move is that much more threatening giving them zero odds to call.

CrazyJoeDavola · Straight Flush Joined: 05 Oct 2005 Posts: 393

Excellent reply Matt, just wondering about your 2.91 pot odds. Since he can't know he has 1 of the nines I'm figuring 15 outs is where he's at (originally thought it was 17 but didn't discount the 2 spades in the A's & 9's) the 4-A's/4-9's and the 7 remaining spades, that should yield pot odds of ~2.1. Or did I miss something?? At any rate your critque was very informative, especially about having enough BR at the table to keep the pot odds in your favor against speculative draws.

matt2411 · Royal Flush Joined: 07 Jan 2006 Posts: 559

Riddim · Posted: Wed Mar 29, 2006 1:24 am Post subject:

I wouldn't say that his call all-in on the turn is that horrible, he was about 2.1-1 to make his hand and got about 2-1 odds on his money. The bad play is the call on the flop, where he should've raised.

matt2411 · Royal Flush Joined: 07 Jan 2006 Posts: 559

if he figures he is up against a set with all outs available to him, he is 29.55% chance to make his hand and win.

29.55 is 3.38:1 (i kept it at 3:1 because i was too lazy to use a probability calculator at the time)

i dont know where you got 2.1:1 from.

he is receiving 2.1:1 pot odds on a 3.38:1 call.

Riddim · Posted: Wed Mar 29, 2006 4:06 am Post subject:

Actually, the numbers come from PokerStove, I've just converted percentages to odds. By the way, 29.55% is a lot lower than 3.38:1, it's 2.38:1. It seems that you've added 1 somewhere along the way.

70.45:29.55 = (70.45/29.55):(29.55/29.55) = 2.38:1 or x:y = (x/y):(y/y)
The actual percantage for making the hand is around 31%, making the odds 2.14:1

matt2411 · Royal Flush Joined: 07 Jan 2006 Posts: 559

underestimating your odds will make sure that you are always making +EV calls. Playing poker is the easy part, reducing variance to zero, ensuring you always make a profit and have a healthy bankroll is the real trick of poker.

learn it, live it, love it.

Riddim · Posted: Wed Mar 29, 2006 8:36 pm Post subject:

Yeah, it never hurts to err on the conservative side when it's a close call, but if you're constantly mistaking 2:1 for 3:1 you'll end up making a lot of bad folds. Good luck reducing variance to zero and always making a profit.

matt2411 · Royal Flush Joined: 07 Jan 2006 Posts: 559

My variance is virtually zero as it stands right now.

I avg ~$300ish per night . I usually have 20 winning days for every losing day, and i haven't had 2 back to back losing days in a row since mid January.

and there is no such thing as a bad fold, unless odds are **overwhelmingly** in your favor to call. Folding is the *ONE* thing which can turn a losing player into a winning player.

theres this thing in business called ROI, and WACC which stand for Return on Investment and Weighted Average Cost Of Capital. These numbers dictate whether it is significant enough of a return to invest their money in, based on time spent, and what they could better spend their time/money on.

When multitabling you have limited time and effort as to which decisions you want to concentrate on. So 3% might be enough for you, but 3% ROI for me is crap, because that 3% return will do nothing but increase my overall variance to unacceptable amounts.

If you do the math (and yes ive done the math to such extensive amounts as to what my threshhold is... i spent roughly 7 hours figuring out the ROI which my game requires) you will find out that there is a critical element as per how many BBs you have in your bankroll, and how to maximize profit, how many hands you can play per night, how much time you have to make each decision, and how to reduce variance to almost nothing because the threshhold of ROI is at a certain level you will be making a significant enough return so that variance is almost zero (based on the EV of your starting hands and flops). That being said, I have nothing more to say regarding this particular discussion.

KidKash · Pair Joined: 09 Mar 2006 Posts: 24 Location: El Mirage, AZ

Heres the deal, You were a dog pre-flop, and yes you were a dog on the flop as well, The only mistake that i can see is that your opponent did not reraise and push you on the flop, rather he made his move on the turn which was the only point that he was behind. You were just plain unlucky all the way around - you were unlucky to have flopped a str8 while he turns out to be a favorite. I would most certaintly have played the hand the same way - and lost. Frankly he flopped a monster and there is nothing you can do about it.

KidKash · Pair Joined: 09 Mar 2006 Posts: 24 Location: El Mirage, AZ

By the way - good job Matt! your right on with your evaluations of roi. please dont sit at my table Smile

	Full Tilt Poker is licensed by the Kahnawake Gaming Commission. © Copyright 2004 - 2005 FullTiltPoker.com., All Rights Reserved