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LawDude

10-01-2009, 08:12 PM Post subject: here's another one

#1 (permalink)

Full House

Join Date: Feb 2009

Posts: 940

You see, yes, I am constitutionally capable of doing it. Chopper was even around to see this one.

Villain was 48/2/.8 over 52 hands. I also had specific reads on the guy-- he was playing like a classic fish (as his stats indicate), calling down too many hands and hitting some river suckouts, which was tilting another player at the table.

In any event, here's the hand.

PokerStars Limit Hold'em, $0.50 BB (10 handed) - Poker-Stars Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

Preflop: Hero is MP3 with Q

, K

2 folds, UTG+2 calls, 2 folds, Hero raises, 2 folds, SB calls, BB calls, UTG+2 calls

Flop: (8 SB) 5

, 10

, 2

(4 players)
SB checks, BB checks, UTG+2 checks, Hero bets, SB raises, 1 fold, UTG+2 calls, Hero 3-bets, SB calls, UTG+2 calls

Turn: (8.5 BB) Q

(3 players)
SB checks, UTG+2 checks, Hero bets, 1 fold, UTG+2 calls

River: (10.5 BB) J

(2 players)
UTG+2 checks, Hero bets, UTG+2 calls

Total pot: $6.25 (12.5 BB) | Rake: $0.30

Results below:
UTG+2 mucked 9

, 9

(one pair, nines).
Hero had Q

, K

(one pair, Queens).
Outcome: Hero won $5.95

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Scrimmage

10-01-2009, 09:31 PM

#2 (permalink)

Straight

Join Date: May 2006

Location: Saskatoon, Canada

Posts: 127

I'm very new to limit so please forgive me if this is a stupid question

The bets you made on the flop, were you attempting to put more money in as you had a read that villain had air and was a calling station, or were you doing something else there?

If you could explain your play on the flop that would be really helpful to me.

LawDude

10-01-2009, 09:54 PM

#3 (permalink)

Full House

Join Date: Feb 2009

Posts: 940

This isn't a stupid question. This was an excellent flop for KQs, and my preflop raise caused the players acting after me to fold, so I have essentially "bought the button" and will act last on later streets. Further, it's checked over to me.

Now, at this point, I might well fire a continuation bet even if I missed completely. That's a bet that is designed both to take down some pots where other players missed the board, and also buys you some more callers when you actually hit a flop.

But here, I didn't miss the board. I flopped the second nut flush draw and 2 overcards. This means that I can almost certainly win the hand if one of 9 remaining diamonds hit, and I also may win the hand if I pair my king or queen (6 other cards). That's a total of 15 "outs". (I also have a "backdoor" straight draw, i.e., a possibility of hitting running cards to make a nut straight, but that's not very important to this discussion.)

When you have 15 outs, you are a favorite to win a hand by the river. (There is about a 6 in 10 chance that I will hit one of those 15 cards on either the turn or the river.) Now I may not actually be a favorite here, because some of my outs may be "dirty" (if someone already has a pair and a king or a queen, or 2 pair, or a set; there's a slight possibility that someone has Ax of diamonds and my flush outs are bad, I could be beaten on the river after making my hand on the turn if an ace hits or the board pairs, etc.). But even if I am not a favorite, I am close to one.

The way this gets expressed mathematically is in terms of "pot equity", i.e., if you ran the hand over and over again with random cards, the average percentage of the total amount in each pot that I would win. But you don't have to understand the math to understand that I am probably a favorite to win this hand.

As a favorite, I don't mind getting bets into the pot, as long as I don't scare too many players off, because I want to get paid off big if one of my outs hit.

So in this situation, the continuation bet (which I said, I would probably put in anyway even on a bad flop) is mandatory.

Now, I get check-raised from the small blind. This could mean lots of things. Perhaps he made a huge hand on the flop and I am not a favorite. Perhaps he is betting to protect a not-so-huge hand and wants to drive other people out of the pot. (He could have flopped top pair or even middle pair, or have a medium sized pocket pair.) In this case, I am a favorite. Perhaps he just thinks I am continuation betting with nothing and wants to take the pot down by seizing the aggression and driving out his opponents by making them call 2 bets on the flop. Perhaps he also has a flush draw, but a weaker one, or flopped a straight draw with 34. (This would be sweet because we are huge favorites over those hands.)

The key concept is that unless we know from our prior reads that SB only does this with an absolute monster hand, we are still likely a favorite over the range of hands that SB check-raises with. And even if SB has that monster, we still almost certainly have plenty of "outs" to beat him with.

The next notable thing is that UTG+2, the fish that I identified, calls the small blind. So if small blind was trying to take down the pot with aggression, he failed. But this also means that we aren't going to take down the pot with aggression either. UTG+2 has already called 2 bets cold on the flop. Even if we re-raise and SB caps, UTG+2 is calling those bets as well. He's in for the long haul. But since we know UTG+2's stats and reads, we aren't that afraid of him because we know he makes loose calls with bad hands.

So we are very likely still a favorite to win this hand, despite SB's check-raise and despite UTG+2's call. Further, we are acting last. This means if we 3-bet and SB doesn't 4-bet, we are going to get a chance to check the turn and get a free trip to the river (if we want it), which reduces the potential cost of playing our hand out and trying to hit our draw. We also know that UTG+2 is going to call and could have plenty of hands that we are going to crush if we hit our draw. So if our 3-bet drives SB out of the pot, it's fine. We are heads up against a fish.

If our 3-bet, however, does not drive SB out of the pot (as is likely), that is also fine, because we are getting 2 to 1 odds (the bets of SB and UTG+2) on a hand where we are probably an absolute favorite and certainly stand a very substantial chance of winning. Plus, if we draw out, we are likely to get additional bets from UTG+2 on the later streets. This is important because it gives us even greater implied odds, i.e., the odds adjusted to take into account the likelihood that someone is going to "pay off" our winning hand on later streets.

Thus, we 3-bet the flop. The rest of the hand plays itself. Any questions?

Scrimmage

10-01-2009, 10:11 PM

#4 (permalink)

Straight

Join Date: May 2006

Location: Saskatoon, Canada

Posts: 127

Very clear and helpful answer. Your description of the hand was insightful. Thanks

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