Conflicting strategies in Harrington on Cash Games, Vol. 1?

[J. Sandwich]

See Part Four: Tight-Aggressive Flop Play Heads-Up, Various Flops and How to Respond. The 2 hands with conflicting strategies begin on pages 253 and 260.

In the first hand, I raised w/ Kings and the flop comes AT4 (rainbow). In the second hand, I raised w/ Tens and the flop comes A93 (rainbow). In both cases, I have a pocket pair on a flop with no big draws, but w/ the pocket kings, I'm supposed to be terrified (Bet 20%), yet w/ the tens, I'm supposed to make a move (Bet 80%).

What is different in the two scenarios that's causing the strategies to differ? In both cases, I understand that I should be worried about the Ace, but should I be that concerned in the first hand that my opponent could be holding pocket tens or AT that I bet only 20% of the time? Even if he's on a straight draw, shouldn't I price him out?

The hands just don't seem that different to me for the strategies to completely flip. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

[jyms]

With no draws on the board, your only fear with KK is either your opponnet holding an A or a small pocket pair that could draw to two outs for free. With TT your fears are the same but also any J,Q, also has 3-6 outs it could draw to to beat your TT.
Your basically trying to get an opponent to fold their equity.

I bet on either hand if I don't think my opponent will put anymore money in the pot without improving.

[Pascal]

The first KK hand is a typical example of a Way Ahead/Way Behind spot. Villain is either:

- way ahead (Ax, 99, 33) and you are drawing to 2 outs
- way behind (anything else)

There's no real point betting because what are you going to achieve? He rarely calls with worse so all you do is make him fold when you are way ahead and call when you are way behind. Checking flop with the plan of not folding on the turn/river unless he does something which portrays a massive hand like pot/overbetting turn is a good plan.

In the second hand, you can bet to collect dead money because as well as way ahead/way behind there are hands which are in the middle, as any K/Q/J is an out. You'll also find yourself in more awkward spots on the turn or river where a card like a K/Q/J falls and he bets.

[Carroters]

This really doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me either.

With KK on AT4r we are actually not doing horribly when called assuming our opponent can have stuff like JJ and some Tx, maybe the odd gut shot as well as his Ax stuff. I agree a smallish bet here makes sense, but betting 20% of the pot is just weird for a few reasons. Firstly it's likely to induce action some % of the time which means if raised we really need a plan. This means unless we have reads either that (A) this villain is likely to react aggressively to a tiny bet and we're happy bet/calling, or (B) this villain is passive and isn't going to be attacking this flop vs a tiny c-bet; then we're potentially making a load of mistakes with this sizing. Secondly, it's not very coherent with the rest of our range from a balancing point of view (but this may or may not be a problem.) Basically we don't expect a 1/5th pot to get fold equity very often when we have air.

So I don't like his suggestion in hand one unless we have some info re: the inducing thing.

On the second hand we should usually bet for a couple of reasons. Firstly, lacking reads as to how much our opponent will be bluffing turns/rivers if we check we're turning our hand face up and potentially placing ourselves in a situation we're likely to make mistakes by checking, and remember a c-bet will usually be +EV on this board with any hand, so that seems fine. Secondly, we bet for protection - there are combos of KQ QJ KJ etc that have plenty outs vs us so we want to make these hands fold. We'd also like, if possible, to get called by 9x sometimes if he can have it. Given these are the things we're trying to achieve here a bet of 80% of the pot is awful and makes no sense at all! We can protect vs hands with overs etc by betting half the pot - I doubt we get peeled here by KJ for instance with this size and if we do he's making a mistake. So betting 80% rarely if ever folds out a better hand (maybe like JJ sometimes but that's reaching) is more likely to fold out 9x, and burns lots of extra money the times he has Ax which he's never folding. This size is just awful.

This book is pretty old, and I think you have the right idea questioning stuff that looks suspicious to you. I think a bet of around 1/2 pot in each case is a big improvement on these bizarre size suggestions.

[Carroters]

The first KK hand is a typical example of a Way Ahead/Way Behind spot. Villain is either:

- way ahead (Ax, 99, 33) and you are drawing to 2 outs
- way behind (anything else)

There's no real point betting because what are you going to achieve? He rarely calls with worse so all you do is make him fold when you are way ahead and call when you are way behind. Checking flop with the plan of not folding on the turn/river unless he does something which portrays a massive hand like pot/overbetting turn is a good plan.

In the second hand, you can bet to collect dead money because as well as way ahead/way behind there are hands which are in the middle, as any K/Q/J is an out. You'll also find yourself in more awkward spots on the turn or river where a card like a K/Q/J falls and he bets.

Also, agree with some but not all of this. Checking is also viable in the KK hand. Again it turns us face up and a good opponent will play very well here, but it isn't bad per se. My default will be to bet here but it very much depends on the opponent and what I know. We can get called by worse andwe leave our range un-capped and non face up. That said, there;s far more reason to bet the TT hand which I don't think you should ever check. We need to protect a bit more, turns and rivers are harder to play etc etc.

[Stacks]

Carroters, I'm assuming that (Bet 20%/80%) is an indication of how frequently we should be looking to bet versus check behind in this spot, rather than having anything to do with betsize.

[jyms]

That's what I thought. And I play both of these almost the same although for different reasons, depending on opponent more than my hand.

[DoubleJ]

In the first hand, I raised w/ Kings and the flop comes AT4 (rainbow)

Read pp253 again

First off the flop is AT4

Secondly, his point about the A isn't that you should be "terrified"; it's just a pain in the arse coz if Villain has an A, he's ahead, and if he doesn't he thinks you have it, and either way it's hard to make $$$ with your KK, esp. as you're OOP.

Carroters, I'm assuming that (Bet 20%/80%) is an indication of how frequently we should be looking to bet versus check behind in this spot, rather than having anything to do with betsize.

Stacks is correct. % = frequency, not bet size.

[Stacks]

Read pp253 again

First off the flop is AT4

Secondly, his point about the A isn't that you should be "terrified"; it's just a pain in the arse coz if Villain has an A, he's ahead, and if he doesn't he thinks you have it, and either way it's hard to make $$$ with your KK, esp. as you're OOP.

OOP on that flop, I feel we should certainly be cbetting with KK. It's probably better than the alternative of check/calling, check/deciding.

[Carroters]

Ahh that makes much more sense although I can't say I'm a fan of assigning arbitrary frequencies to spots like that. If it's good to bet in that TT spot, and I think it is, then it's good 100% of the time not 80%. I guess you might want to vary your play like this very rarely vs someone you play all the time. Most often though, online and live, such a degree of balacne is totally unnecessary and costs you EV; you'll be making a mistake 20% of the time by checking 20% of the time IMO.

[jyms]

OOP on that flop, I feel we should certainly be cbetting with KK. It's probably better than the alternative of check/calling, check/deciding.

Yea, having someone who's behind that won't put money in the pot without improving makes this an easy bet. The only way I don't bet is if I think villan is stupid enough to bluff at it, but then I would have to give him more bluffs than Ax's