nl 50 floating and stats

[IsaacAsimov]

Full Tilt Poker
$0.25/$0.50 No Limit Hold'em Ring Game
5 Players
LegoPoker Hand Converter (http://www.legopoker.com/hh)

<font color="black">Stack Sizes</font>
Hero (BTN): $50
SB: $50.25
BB: $76.95
UTG: $71
CO: $64.55

<font color="black">Preflop:</font> 5http://legopoker.com/hh/images/club.gif 5http://legopoker.com/hh/images/diamond.gif ($0.75, 5 players)
UTG folds, CO folds, <font color="red">Hero raises to $1.75</font>, <font color="red">SB raises to $6</font>, BB folds, Hero calls $4.25

<font color="black">Flop:</font> 9http://legopoker.com/hh/images/club.gif 8http://legopoker.com/hh/images/diamond.gif 9/images/graemlins/heart.gif ($12.5, 2 players)
<font color="red">SB bets $10</font>, Hero calls $10

<font color="black">Turn:</font> 9http://legopoker.com/hh/images/club.gif 8http://legopoker.com/hh/images/diamond.gif 9/images/graemlins/heart.gif [3http://legopoker.com/hh/images/club.gif] ($32.5, 2 players)
SB checks, <font color="red">Hero bets $20</font>

Villain has been 3-betting me lightly a lot preflop. Naturally he is sitting to my left so I decide to make a play on villain when he is OOP to regain table respect. Villain is 21/15/3.75 over 819 hands.
Analyze my play.

[orange]

check the turn.

your hand has good showdown value. its close, but by betting this turn, your essentially turning your hand into a bluff. you can sometimes get him to laydown worse hands (ie. 77), but overall, i think his range is AK and the like alot.

[VPIP100]

Looks good to me, standard? You probably have the best hand.

[allinonadraw]

I think you played it fine...I'd rather bet the turn and take it down here than check and face a pot-sized bet if paint hits on the river.

[IsaacAsimov]

If I check the turn I am inducing a bluff on the river a lot of the time, which I can only call if I hit the 5.
Checking the turn kinda defeats the idea behind the whole play. I didn't call preflop for set value, because I don't think villain has a hand (no implied odds).
The reason why I don't think he has a hand here, is because he has definetly been 3 betting me lightly, so his range is way wider than AK and the liking.

[allaboutmyfetti]

I usually bet the turn here as well ... nicely played if your read was rgiht. just out of curiosity, who was villian in this hand?

[Antinome]

How do we calculate the EV of a bluff blocking bet that almost certainly is not a value bet?

If we check, we hit 8% of the time, fold to a bet 80%? of the time, and see a showdown 12%? of the time, which we win 3/4 times. Or are we heroically calling the river bet?

It seems to be this is like giving Villian tons of fold equity on top of what would otherwise be a 50/50 proposition. I prefer OP's line.

[matrix]

[ QUOTE ]
check the turn.

your hand has good showdown value. its close, but by betting this turn, your essentially turning your hand into a bluff. you can sometimes get him to laydown worse hands (ie. 77), but overall, i think his range is AK and the like alot.

[/ QUOTE ]

[AliasMrJones]

[ QUOTE ]
Villain has been 3-betting me lightly a lot preflop. Naturally he is sitting to my left so I decide to make a play on villain when he is OOP to regain table respect. Villain is 21/15/3.75 over 819 hands.

[/ QUOTE ]

#1, these stats are pretty close to mine and I'm TAG and wouldn't do this with crap if that's that you think his RR is.

#2, I've stopped worrying about "table image" when people RR me, etc. and I think my winrate is improved because of it. There are very few, if any, real bullies at uNL and most of the time you're just spewing money by trying to make bluffs or play back with less-than-premium hands.

[IsaacAsimov]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
check the turn.

your hand has good showdown value. its close, but by betting this turn, your essentially turning your hand into a bluff. you can sometimes get him to laydown worse hands (ie. 77), but overall, i think his range is AK and the like alot.

[/ QUOTE ]

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't udnerstand the players advocating the check. As I said it defeats the reasoning of my play. My plan was to steal the pot on the turn no matter what card hit(if a 5 hit I may have checked behind). Villain is restealing the pot from me too often on the river if I check behind here.
As Antinome hinted, I am not planning on checking the turn and making an heroic river call. If I am reading villain right he probably doesn't have much showdown value so he will most likely bluff the river to take the pot.

[Leviathan101]

I like it.
It looks like a button steal, so a light reraiser pops it here with a reasonably wide range that includes a lot of broadways. Most hands missed that flop, maybe only A9, T9s (yea thats pretty light reraising I think) and PP can continue here. I'm pretty sure you're beat if he calls/raises on turn, so I would give up on river. I also bet the turn here in order to prevent a river bluff on a ton of different scare cards.

I like the play assuming the player can fold whiffed hands. You might also fold out 66 and 77 which would be very good for you. You may fold out 22-44, but you probably arent getting more money out of them anyways.

[SmallPotJeff]

[ QUOTE ]
If I check the turn I am inducing a bluff on the river a lot of the time, which I can only call if I hit the 5.

[/ QUOTE ]

That's the big question. If you can't call a $20 bet/bluff when paint hits the river, then why do you feel confidant putting $20 in on the turn?

Think of it this way, if you check and call his river bet, you're putting about the same amount in the pot as you would if you bet/bluffed turn, but this time the pot is bigger and you're more likely to get money from a hand you beat. The only major downside to checking is giving the villain a free card, a chance to spike his ace, etc.

If you think he's likely to bluff when he misses, I say check behind turn, check behind river if he checks (if you win you'll make just as much as you would if you had successfully folded him out on the turn), and call a reasonable bet (&lt;=$25) as long as the river isn't an Ace.

The one case in which I advocate a turn bet is where you can't call a river bet (you think he'll almost never bluff the river, or he'll bet more than you can call), and there's a good chance you can get him to fold now but will be outdrawn by the river.

[IsaacAsimov]

@ SmallPotJeff

Nice analysis. What I was thinking about when I said that I don't want to call a river bet was that a) I don't want to be giving villain a free card with a hand like AK and b) a lot of scare cards can come where I will have to rethink calling a river bet by inducing a bluff.

[Bonesy]

I agree with what you are saying. I do think though that some villains will be encouraged to bluff the river. Further the board is reasonably drawy and the pot is good sized. I would be happy taking this pot down vs AK,AQ,AJ type holdings and maybe knocking out 77's and 66's . I'm just not sure why turning the hand into a bluff is bad here especially for players who would not be inclined to pick off river bluffs with this holding.

[Antinome]

I think the right answer is that it is OK to bet an amount that is equal to the fold equity that Villian gains on the river times the percentage chance he will bluff adjusted for the chance we will improve and the fold equity we have on the turn. That's my gut feeling.

One simplified answer at a boundary condition occurs when Villian will bet 20 100% of the time on the river, we are 50/50 versus his range on the turn, and we will never call a river bet unless we improve (8%), we will always win if we improve, and villian will play nearly perfectly against us on the turn if we bet.

EV(check)=.92(0)+.08(32.5+40)=+5.8

We lose nothing if we check, and win a pot of at least 72.50 when we hit.

EV(bet)=.50(32.50)-.46(20)+.04(32.50+40+?)=16.25-9.2+2.9=+10

Half the time we win the pot right away. we had the best hand. The other half the time, most of the time we lose our 20 turn bet, but occasionally, (.08*.50) we hit our hand.

In that simplified case betting is better. We simply fold too much on the end. However, at the other end, if villian will never bluff:

EV(check)=.50(32.50)-.50(0)= +16.25

And checking is better.

There has to be a crossover point in Villian's bluffing frequency somewhere that makes one strategy better than the other. x=bluff frequency

EV(check)=EV(bet)=(.92)(.5 + x)(0)+(.92)(.5 - x)(32.50) + (.08)(.5 + x)(72.50)+(.08)(.5-x)(32.5)=10 =&gt; x=.34

So if all those assumptions and calculations are right, if Villian bluffs more than 34% we should bet, otherwise we should check.

Obviously needs adjusting for actual equity vs. his range, and for turn fold equity but I think the basic idea holds.