IRC Poker Quiz #5 - True/False Edition

At Full Tilt $100 capped NL with $30 starting stacks, preflop it folds to the SB who open shoves. Over an extremely large sample, you've seen him do this with about 20% of hands.

A call is +EV with T9s, true or false?

Come discuss this in the IRC Chat Room, everyone is welcome except iopq because he's gay.

I don't see how a call can be +EV... without looking, I don't think we beat anything he's holding in a PF, AI situation.

Factor in the startings stacks though, let someone else take a crack at it...

False. W/o doing any real work we need a little less that 50% equity to make the call and we need a mid-stength pp or high broadway ace to call.

Originally Posted by spoonitnow

At Full Tilt $100 capped NL with $30 starting stacks, preflop it folds to the SB who open shoves. Over an extremely large sample, you've seen him do this with about 20% of hands.

A call is +EV with T9s, true or false?

Come discuss this in the IRC Chat Room, everyone is welcome except iopq because he's gay.

Hmm... I read this and honestly don't really know how to figure it out, and since all I see in chat when I'm in there is non-poker related chat (but I don't go in very often)... I'm going to put some thoughts down and let you guys tell me I'm out in left field.

Ok, so SB has a 20% range for his open shoves, according to stove means 66+,A4s+,K8s+,Q9s+,J9s+,T9s,A9o+,KTo+,QTo+,JTo... now I doubt that range a little and would probably modify it some... say any pair, A9s+, KT+, ATo+, maybe QT+, suited connectors to 98.

I still think that might be a little wide, but that is a range to start with at least. Now... we have T9s. So we're behind the pairs, the highers SCs and probably behind a bit with AQ+, KQ+, probably on roughly equal footing with the rest of the range...

(I'm at work so I don't have time to stove it all).

So we are pretty well behind a fair amount of his range. We have to put in our stack to call to double up... so that means we have to win at least 1 out of 3 times or better to break even, or 33% of the time... of which we are behind a fair amount of his range...

I think the answer is false, without the time to do the math I don't think we are ahead of enough of his range to make it profitable... but then again, I'm not that good at the math as I am a casual player who hasn't taken the time to expand his game much...

Originally Posted by spoonitnow

everyone is welcome except iopq because he's gay.

are you hitting on me?

Originally Posted by Monty3038

Originally Posted by spoonitnow

At Full Tilt $100 capped NL with $30 starting stacks, preflop it folds to the SB who open shoves. Over an extremely large sample, you've seen him do this with about 20% of hands.

A call is +EV with T9s, true or false?

Come discuss this in the IRC Chat Room, everyone is welcome except iopq because he's gay.

Hmm... I read this and honestly don't really know how to figure it out, and since all I see in chat when I'm in there is non-poker related chat (but I don't go in very often)... I'm going to put some thoughts down and let you guys tell me I'm out in left field.

Ok, so SB has a 20% range for his open shoves, according to stove means 66+,A4s+,K8s+,Q9s+,J9s+,T9s,A9o+,KTo+,QTo+,JTo... now I doubt that range a little and would probably modify it some... say any pair, A9s+, KT+, ATo+, maybe QT+, suited connectors to 98.

I still think that might be a little wide, but that is a range to start with at least. Now... we have T9s. So we're behind the pairs, the highers SCs and probably behind a bit with AQ+, KQ+, probably on roughly equal footing with the rest of the range...

(I'm at work so I don't have time to stove it all).

So we are pretty well behind a fair amount of his range. We have to put in our stack to call to double up... so that means we have to win at least 1 out of 3 times or better to break even, or 33% of the time... of which we are behind a fair amount of his range...

I think the answer is false, without the time to do the math I don't think we are ahead of enough of his range to make it profitable... but then again, I'm not that good at the math as I am a casual player who hasn't taken the time to expand his game much...

We're putting in 29 to win 60, not 29 to win 90. We need way more equity than you think.

Originally Posted by iopq

Originally Posted by spoonitnow

everyone is welcome except iopq because he's gay.

are you hitting on me?

I knew you wouldn't mind.

calling is +ev because the blinds are 12/24, we're calling 6 to win 54, snap call.

ok our equity versus his range is like 35 percent. We need almost 3-1 and we are not getting close to that. Assuming i'm reading the question correctly it will cost us 29 to call. our call will make the pot have 60 bucks in it. We will be getting around 2-1 on a call. When we loose 65 percent of the time we loose our 30 bucks. When we win 35 percent of the time we get the whole 60 bucks.

I can,t remember the formula to figure out the ev of a call but it would surely be -ev

oh i forget this is a capped hand. I don't even know how that game plays

Originally Posted by nish81

What's $100 capped NL? same as 100NL?

Equity against top 20% of hands is 36.3%, even if he's bluffing a bit still probably isn't high enough to make a call +ev. So false

That just means it's $0.50/1.00 blinds NLHE except that you can only put $30 into the pot in one hand.

Edit: Also, no one has gotten it right yet.

Has anyone used stove yet?

I think the idea is that SB shoving 20% of the time does not = top 20% of Pokerstove hands.

I'm not sure where to take it from there though..

My complete answer:

There is 1.5 BBs in the pot, and the SB shoves 29.5BBs, making the pot 31BBs. We have 29 BBs and if we call th pot will be 60BBs, meaning we need 48% equity to break even. Stove says we have ~38% equity vs. around the top 20% of hands.

False.

Pretending its $30 stacks each after posting blinds to make it easier (ie cheating!), is it:

we have 36% equity (roughly) vs top 20% of his range, therefore:

(0.36*31.50) - (0.64*30)
11.34 - 19.2
= -$7.86
so its -$EV call. so false.

i feel im missing something tho. Then again, id be shoving a ton if BB was gonna call with T9s.

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This x marks where you are at.

[x]

I'm scared of IRC, everytime I go in there Chelle tells me she's going to fuck my dad in the ass.

Originally Posted by bigspenda73

I'm scared of IRC, everytime I go in there Chelle tells me she's going to fuck my dad in the ass.

And that's why I absolutely love this woman.

The 20% of hands matters, everyone is assuming he shoves the top 20%, that's clearly not going to be the case.

We need 48.33% equity to make a call profitable. So yeah, a call can be +EV. It can also be -EV.

Doing some quick math the best I can see it to be is a even EV. And thats putting him on ATC.

Originally Posted by spoonitnow

This is the box [].
This x marks where you are at.

[x]

At least you didnt write a red x. i bloody hated them at school!

The easy answer is, it depends which 20% of hands he's shoving. If it's top 20% we can't call, if it's bottom 20% we obviously can. Since we have a large sample, we could just plug a range consisting of all the hands he's shoved into pokerstove and see if we have enough equity. Or if we remember enough of the hands where he's shoved and been called we can guess at what kind of hands he shoves and stove against that.

Failing that, we have to guess, and the obvious starting point is what he's doing the other 80% of the time. If he's folding 80%, then we can assume the 20% he's shoving is the top 20% (with a bit of mixed-strategy fuzziness) and we should fold. (You can only call a shove with T9s vs a push/fold opponent with <12bb stacks).

If he's raising 20%, shoving 20%, and folding 60%, and showing premium hands when he raises, we might expect his shoving range to be the second 20% of hands which is almost-but-not-quite breakeven. Etc.

TL;DR: 'shoves 20%' isn't enough information, we need to know or guess which 20%.

spoon im gonna assume this is full ring because you play fr

if it gets folded around, we can assume that there are less aces and broadways out, and more in the deck, because the more aces/broadways are out, the better chance that someone will vpip prior to the sb turn to act.

if it does get folded around, it must mean that nobody has a playable hand, which leaves the sb with a higher chance of a premium hand. so 20% isn't really the top 20% of hands, it's actually alot tighter. maybe like the top 10% or something like that, which makes this call -EV.


imo.

Originally Posted by ryokan

Pretending its $30 stacks each after posting blinds to make it easier (ie cheating!), is it:

we have 36% equity (roughly) vs top 20% of his range, therefore:

(0.36*31.50) - (0.64*30)
11.34 - 19.2
= -$7.86
so its -$EV call. so false.

i feel im missing something tho. Then again, id be shoving a ton if BB was gonna call with T9s.

you need villain to be shoving as a bluff quite a bit before this cll becomes anywhere near EV

Originally Posted by amir is cool

bunching imo

Very good guess, but in hold'em it doesn't change enough for this particular scenario for it to be forced -EV.

Originally Posted by tpb221

Doing some quick math the best I can see it to be is a even EV. And thats putting him on ATC.

Why would you ever put him on any two cards? If in a 100bb 6-max game a 22/18 with a 38% attempt to steal open raises from the button, do you assume he has any two cards there also?

Originally Posted by XxStacksxX

We need 48.33% equity to make a call profitable. So yeah, a call can be +EV. It can also be -EV.

Just because I like busting your nuts, this isn't entirely true either because of the rake. Bam.

Originally Posted by tunah and others

it depends

This is correct. When folded to, a significant portion of people would shove something like K5s or J7s, but they would be much less likely to shove something like QQ+. A portion of people wouldn't even shove 22, instead opting to open limp with small pocket pairs.

The point of this example is that hand-reading isn't as simple as reading numbers off of a chart, and even if you have something like a HUD then you should still keep notes about how players play specific hands preflop.

My first thought was that this reminds me of Sklansky-Chubukov hand rankings. Especially the capped bit - basically with capped $30 SB would be +EV open shoving any hand with a SC number above 60 - or in other words this range: 33+,A3s+,KTs+,A7o+ (16% of hands)

However, while that is unexploitable it might not maximise EV. It doesn't make it invalid to consider, as he could have developed this strategy based on SC hand rankings. The fact that he open shoves 20% of hands certainly indicates that some adjustments have taken place. Let us first make the most obvious adjustment - he's observed that people fold way more often than they should to counter his strategy and as a result he opens a wider range, including the hands with a higher SC number. Let his range be: 33+,A2s+,KTs+,A4o+,KQo (19.9% of hands)

Against this range T9s has 40.89% equity. Not enough.

However, let's tweak his tactic a bit further and see if that changes anything. First and most obviously he doesn't seem to get full value out of his premium hands, so it seems fair to suggest that he would play his premium hands differently some of the time to ensure that he gets more value out of them. I will tweak his range to play 99+, AK, AQ, AJs as an open fold only 50% of the time and buffer his open shoving range with the next set of hands ranked by SC numbers to get back to 20%.

New range is: AcAd,AcAh,AdAs,KcKs,KdKh,KhKs,QcQh,QcQs,QdQs,JcJd, JdJh,JhJs,TcTd,TcTh,ThTs,9c9s,9d9h,9d9s,88-22,AcKc,AsKs,AdQd,AhQh,AcJc,AhJh,ATs-A2s,K9s+,QJs,AcKh,AcKs,AdKc,AdKs,AsKc,AsKh,AcQd,Ad Qh,AhQc,AhQd,AhQs,AsQd,AJo-A3o,KJo+

And T9s has 42.49% equity. Still not enough, but there are still adjustments that could be made to SBs strategy that could end up making T9s profitable. So yeah, I guess I'm repeating everyone else in saying that it's not a question of how many % he open shoves but rather a question of exactly which hands he open shoves.

Another hand range I tried was saying that he plays any hand with an SC above 90 (55+, A9s+, ATo+) differently than open shoving it and padding the range further with SC hands ending with T9s having now 43.29% equity.

The funny thing is that the $30 capped restriction makes it a much different game. Essentially it makes it a short-stacking strategy game where any suited connectors are never profitable to play on implied odds. High card value rules. And T9s doesn't really have enough high card value to play against any reasonably competent strategy for the game.