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"Live" Cards

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  1. #1

    Default "Live" Cards

    As a hold em player who cut his teeth on the 1-5 stud games in the local cardroom, I am always aware of the probability that my cards might be live.
    I mostly find this valuable with position preflop and in deciding how to proceed with drawing hands postflop.
    Preflop with position, I am more likely to come into the pot (even a raised pot) with small pockets or medium suited connectors if there are callers. This is not only because I'm getting good pot odds to take a shot at hitting my hand, but also because I think the probability of hitting might be good. Say I'm in the cutoff with 44. I know that UTG didnt raise w a 4 in his hand and I can reasonably assume that the two middle poistion callers don't hold a 4 either. Actually - with all of the usual caveats about texture of the game, size of the raise and so on, I might sooner call with 44 here than with 88, since I could put middle position callers on a hand like 8-9 suited. The same reasoning allows a player to easily muck nice overs, even suited ones, in the same situation.
    Postflop, I'll factor the liveness of cards into decisions; a four-flush or OESD
    does not have the chance of hitting if I can reasonably put others on a similar draw based on their actions. Even if I think I'm drawing to a better hand, I can lay these draws down if the chances are that the outs are in other player's hands.

    Any insights?
  2. #2
    I think any edge you can gain by doing this is going to be extreemely small and not really worth the effort.

    You can't possibly put raise callers on 89s in your example with a degree of accuracy which is good enough to warrant folding 88 preflop, or even letting it affect your decisions post flop. You's have a hard enough time putting them on any suited connector never mind specific card values. Its not worth it.

    Where it does come into play is in tournaments where you may have to push your chips in with "any two cards". Trying to ensure you have live cards (like 75) here will make a difference because the last thing you want is to be dominated.
  3. #3
    Ignoring reads, playing a hand in a raised pot in Hold'em is largely based upon the Gap Theory (ie. You need a stronger hand to call a raise than you need to be the raiser). You don't really consider the "liveness" of your cards simply because the only ones you see are the ones you're dealt. If it's folded to someone in MP and they raise, they could just as easily be doing it with 10,10 as they could with AA. If you have KK you're either a huge favorite or a huge dog, but either way you're going to play it. Now if someone raises in front of you in a Stud game with (x,x)A and you have (K,7)K with two other people showing a K, you might very well fold.

    In Hold’em, outside of a tournament setting, you don’t evaluate the strength of your hand in terms of how “live” your cards are. Because you cannot see any other cards, you typically assume that all your outs are live. Instead you put your opponents on a range of hands and evaluate your hand in comparison.

    The fact that Hold’em is a community card game, whereas in Stud you’re playing individual hands, changes your strategic considerations. For example, in Hold’em you have the concept of “tainted” outs. A tainted out is simply a card that makes your hand but gives your opponent an even better one. Obviously this concept doesn’t apply to Stud. Similarly, the idea of “live” cards isn’t very applicable to Hold’em although there are some exceptions.
    TheXianti: (Triptanes) why are you not a thinking person?
  4. #4
    there is one spot. if you have AK for example, and theres been some action ie a raise, a call, and a reraise over the top, you can safely assume that at least one ace is gone. this could affect your decision to call, even if you suspect that the all in bettor has only JJ.
    'If you think a weakness can be turned into a strength, I hate to tell you this, but that's another weakness. '

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