Time to fold that full house.

[Erpel]

$0.25/$0.5 No Limit Holdem
7 players
Converted at weaktight.com

Stacks:
UTG ($116.68)
UTG+1 ($24.27)
MP ($48.37)
CO ($100.59)
BTN ($123.03)
Hero ($149.38)
BB ($70.92)

Pre-flop: ($0.75, 7 players) Hero is SB
UTG raises to $2, 4 folds, Hero raises to $7, 1 fold, UTG calls $5

Flop: ($14.50, 2 players)
Hero bets $8, UTG calls $8

Turn: ($30.50, 2 players)
Hero bets $25, UTG calls $25

River: ($80.50, 2 players)
Hero ($109.38)?

These are the beginners tables at Party, which are pretty soft. This villain is 21/10/2.1, pretty passive preflop and pretty aggressive post flop. The two times I have seen him 4bet was 1) headsup and 2) in a min-raise battle with KK (checked database - just remembered little/no 3/4 betting PF). Post flop his aggression frequency for all streets are 40-50%, so he's obviously sometimes betting without a strong hand, his fold-tos are in the 40-60% range and his went to showdown is at 20% so he likes settling hands through aggression/folding before showdown.

All of the above is almost completely unimportant. He raises 4bb from UTG and then calls a properly sized 3bet where he will end up being in position. His range is very very narrow here imo. You could argue that due to the stack sizes he could profitably call the 3bet with any pocket pair or suited connector, but I don't think this particular villain would have spotted that. Even for the pre-flop call I think his range has to be around 99+, AJ+. When he calls the flop I think that narrows his range to pretty much QQ+, AJ+ and if I'd had any sense I'd have slowed down already on the turn. The only hand realistically in his range that I beat on the turn is AK - and with the K on the river even that hope is gone.

Anyway, as I got further into the hand I forgot about pre-flop and flop and that he couldn't have played TT, AT, KQ, KJ, KT, QT, JT or QJ this way really. I thought that surely my full house beats SOME combinations he'd have gotten here with and that I had some equity in the hand.

On the turn I saw that I had improved to a full house! No straights can foil me now and I decided to commit - I bet 25 because he had 100 behind and I figured that 75 into 80 on the river would be appropriately sized. This can be referred to as falling in love with your hand or getting married to the hand. Realistically looking at the ranges now - I wasn't ahead even on the turn when I decided to commit.

On the river I wasn't happy. I saw the king and knew that I had something like the worst possible full house. But it's still a full house I thought - I could beat any straight, two pair or A-rag hand. I didn't reflect enough to note that the chance of him holding a hand I could beat having called a preflop 3bet and a flop bet was near zero. What I did briefly reflect on was that with the deep stack I now had about 10% of my bankroll on this table and that I couldn't allow that fact to make me play scared - if I couldn't play a hand like this unafraid then I shouldn't be on this table in the first place. I then briefly considered that I had ACTUALLY decided to commit on the turn already. And I only have to win 1 time in 3 to be breakeven and surely he has worse more than that. Thus, I should shove.

So, I shoved and went from a tidy profit for the day to a tidy loss.

I post this in part as penance to help me remember and in part to remind other beginners - there is a difference between absolute hand strength and relative hand strength.

On the turn I probably cannot say for sure that I am beat - a full house is not that weak. But on the river check/fold is the correct play.

[Fnord]

ZZZZZZZZZZZEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

[Erpel]

ZZZZZZZZZZZEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

I'm sorry I don't catch the reference. Upon analysis this hand does look familiar though - I'm repeating something?

[Muzzard]

Theorem 1: The Full House Theorem
Nobody is capable of folding a full house on any street for any sized bet, ever. Don't fool yourself into thinking they can. I'm not even referring to NUT full houses (eg. board reads 29522, if your opponent has the loan 5, they will almost always call allin; if they folded, it was likely do to timing out or a misclick). Remember: full houses aren't too common, and after all, you might be bluffing!

[Erpel]

Theorem 1: The Full House Theorem
Nobody is capable of folding a full house on any street for any sized bet, ever. Don't fool yourself into thinking they can. I'm not even referring to NUT full houses (eg. board reads 29522, if your opponent has the loan 5, they will almost always call allin; if they folded, it was likely do to timing out or a misclick). Remember: full houses aren't too common, and after all, you might be bluffing!

Ah ok, that does ring a bell. I'd like to think that if I wasn't playing a bit tired I'd have caught the range implications and folded my full house on the river. Even on the turn the only hand I realistically thought I was beating was AK and I think my river shove (which could have been a check/call just as easily) was predicated more on me thinking that "I can't play scared" than me thinking I was ahead.

I've folded a boat before, no doubt. It's a rare thing to do but the few times I've done it I wasn't pot committed and I was almost certain I was beat.

[wellrounded08]

I almost feel out of place posting in this thread, what with fnord muzzard and erpel. But it's the beginner forum. The reason I am commenting, is that this hand is great to look at the ABCD Theorem. And how you narrowed down his range so much by the river you knew you had to be beat.(however you played it, you obviously had him pegged for a better hand pretty quick.) I say this because I'm just comming into realization and understanding of it, and I thought I'd point out how effective it was in this hand.(not that you guys didn't know that, but maybe someone else didn't.+ I just wanted to say it.)

[misterthou]

So, given the range of QQ+, AJ+ we're obviously crushed on the river. If we expand his range, hypothetically, to TT+,AJ+,KTs what would be good action on the river? We have 30% equity against this range in an $80/160bb pot. Obviously not push, but c/c, b/f? Is it at all correct to throw in a blocking bet here?

[wellrounded08]

Assuming he's a strong player, wouldn't KT be a raise on the flop?<--That's a question. not a comment in the form of a question.
Then again, AA QQ AQ and AJ all look like a raise on the flop to me(silly micro-stakes fish, what do I know? SO with my very limited knowledge, I would almost HAVE to put him on AK on the turn...I would loose alot of money pretty quick at these stakes I fear...

[Erpel]

Couple of points of clarification. Fnord is a guru and I'm a beginner that writes long posts stepping carefully and painfully slowly through my thought processes, which perhaps makes them understandable to other beginners.

For this hand I didn't use ABCD theorem in full - and you almost don't have to. Before the flop we have a 3bet pot at a low stake where part of my read of this opponent is that he does not take 3 or 4 betting lightly. The opponents range is limited by 1) Raising UTG - if he followed Renton's guide http://www.flopturnriver.com/Small-S...y-Preflop.html that would mean he is raising 99+, AJs+, AQo+ and KQs. I shorthanded that to 99+, AJ+. This gives us based on his preflop raise a very narrow range of hands - and if we assume that he calls the 3bet with all of them it's still narrow on the flop.

99 has no equity.
TT would possibly be making a mistake to call the flop and definitely make a mistake to call the turn - we have to assume he wouldn't make that mistake.
KQs gives a middle pair (two pair on the turn) with a gutshot. It's not really a hand that would be pleased to be calling bets on both streets - that said it probably would still call. KK is much the same.
QQ, AA, AK, AQ and AJ are all happy to call both flop and turn bets.

Upon proper range analysis the only hand in the opponents range that he can show up on the river with that we beat is KQs - and that's only 3 card combinations. AA is 1, KK is 3, QQ is 3, AK is 6, AQ is 6 and AJ is 6. And it's assuming that he won't have folded KQs to our preflop 3bet, which he is likely to have done - a 3bet range can be heavy with AA/KK/AK hands and a KQs hand is easily dominated and thus also often folded to a 3bet. Similarly - if he had raised KT UTG preflop he would/should have folded it to the 3bet - so he can't be playing it on the flop.

On the flop he may very well have raised AA, QQ, AQ and AJ - but he'd probably call them at least some of the time to let me hang myself. We can modify the hand combinations summed up above - halving those four to 1/2, 3/2, 3 and 3 - add in 3 for KK and 6 for AK - gives us 14 hand combinations that beat us. Chance of KQs being folded pre or post flop would reduce it to about a third - that is 1. So that's out of 15 adjusted hand combinations 14 beat us, we beat one - and of the 15 fully two fifths are AK.

As described above - I don't think we can expand his range to include KTs or TT on the river. KTs would have to fold preflop imo - we can call it maybe 1 out of the 3 possible hand combinations that he continued with and that's a bit optimistic. TT is severely priced out on the turn. He calls a $25 bet to win $50 immediately and perhaps $75 on the river - that's ideal implied odds of $25 to win $125 - he would need more like 7 outs for that to be profitable and he only has 4 - and that's 4 outs to a straight which he has to consider might not even be the nuts. TT is priced out completely on the turn and fold is the only correct play there.

A blocking bet on the river is just throwing money away imo.

As for how ranges can say very clearly that I'm beat here - I still shoved the river. Careful thought out analysis is one thing - making the right decision in the moment is something else. We go through the careful analysis like this so that we correct our mistakes and hone our instincts - because in the moment instincts is what we act on. Stop to think when possible.

[Deanglow]

just call preflop
bet more on the flop
turn is nice
shove the river

[Erpel]

just call preflop
bet more on the flop
turn is nice
shove the river

Hmm, this is largely true. Preflop should be a call rather than a 3bet because I'm out of position with very deep stacks. The opponents ranges are already quite narrow because he was UTG raiser and that's not changing much and I'm really just juicing the pot while neither a strong favourite or underdog to his range.

Typically flops that are draw heavy are good to bet big on. I'm not quite sure why I bet small here, but I suspect I was afraid that I wasn't actually ahead - I should have made my commitment decision here and bet bigger. I guess I could argue that I did make the commitment decision here and intended the flop bet as a 'string him along' bet while not worried about being outdrawn. While seemingly spurious this argument could have some merit as evidenced by the A making me the full house to beat his likely AK holding - so he'd bet or call because he'd improved, but he'd have improved to a second best hand. The flop bet doesn't really fold out any hands (except 99 and lesser pocket pairs) and gets fairly minimal value as a value bet - it doesn't actually accomplish much.

Yeah, I like the turn too as played.

However, I'm fairly certain that shoving the river is -EV. The villain is not 3 betting, 4 betting or calling 3 or 4 bets lightly - preflop is pretty passive. Postflop he seems to fold marginal spots and basically never calls down crap - by the turn call I know with a high degree of certainty he has fairly solid equity with a hand like AK or AQ most likely. I think 95+% he's not folding AA, AJ, AQ, AK, KK, QQ to a river shove so I'm not folding out better. And the worse hands in his range by the river boil down to hands like KQs, TT, QJs, JTs where they are unlikely to have made it this far because it would have been a mistake to do so that I think it's unlikely this villain makes and if they were in his range by the river I would expect folds on at least KQs and QJs giving me no value on my shove. What do you think his range is by the river and what are you hoping to accomplish by shoving? Calls by worse or folds by better? Where's the money coming from?

[ATOTHEC101]

LOL literally every post i see you make erpel is about 2 pages long, it makes my eyes bleed.

[d0zer]

LOL literally every post i see you make erpel is about 2 pages long, it makes my eyes bleed.

Erpel

Straight

Joined: 16 Mar 2008
Posts: 192
WPP: 370

Dude must have a BA in creative writing er somethin'