25NL 98s Flopped Straight on Monotone Board

[Bodhidharma]

BB was a solid player: 22/12 after 200 hands. The fact that he didn't push on the flop me made me think he had to have flopped a flush. He would have raised TT+, AK so that narrows his range. I'm just making sure I'm not being to nittish here.

Ultimate Bet - No Limit Hold'em Cash Game - $0.10/$0.25 Blinds - 5 Players - (LegoPoker HH Converter (http://www.legopoker.com/hh))

SB: $28.39
BB: $23.11
UTG: $4.94
Hero (CO): $25.79
BTN: $39.72

Preflop: Hero is dealt 9/images/graemlins/club.gif 8/images/graemlins/club.gif (5 Players)
UTG calls $0.25, Hero calls $0.25, BTN calls $0.25, SB folds, BB checks

Flop: ($1.10) J/images/graemlins/heart.gif Q/images/graemlins/heart.gif T/images/graemlins/heart.gif (4 Players)
<font color="red">BB bets $1.10</font>, UTG folds, <font color="red">Hero raises to $5.00</font>, BTN folds, <font color="red">BB raises to $14.10</font>, Hero folds
Uncalled bet of $9.10 returned to BB

Pot Size: $11.10 ($0.44 Rake)

[relativity_x]

ummm, a few things first. This is not a monotone board. You have the sucker straight. Secondly, if you're going to play this hand, raise to 1.25 to eliminate the btn limping and to ensure you'll have position throughout the hand.

Other than that, I'd say you played it well. the 3bet on the flop was needed to see where you're at. His 4 bet let's you know you're toast.

[holdme]

an overlimp is okay imo, good considering utg's stacksize. this is not a monotone board? also villain could still have a draw, but i gotta think calling is -ev, given your thought process, although folding doesn't feel right.

[greggg230]

Eh, it's tough.

His range is pretty broad here. He could easily be on a draw here (Ah or Kh). If you're sure he would have raised TT+ pre-flop, then I'm leaning towards a fold.

[relativity_x]

I think the biggest thing here is that our hand is not improving.

If he has any Axh/Kxh, he has a gutshot/open ender plus flush. I think it's an easy fold given his strength on the flop.

[ReptileHouse]

Not a monotone board? Huh? It's all hearts. That's as monotone as it gets.

I don't mind pre-flop calling. I'll raise it often for the reasons you state, among others, but this hand plays well multiway, so just calling sometimes is OK. If UTG limp/folds pre-flop often, then I raise it all day, though.

You're not raising the flop to see where you're at. Get that notion out of your head right now. It will lose you money. When you flop a straight, you're raising for value against worse hands. Period.

Nit: villain 3bet, not 4bet. Hero made the first raise. If hero pushes, that's a 4bet.

Bet/3bet is a strong play from BB, that's for certain, especially in an unraised pot. He's not bluffing. But is he "value betting" a worse hand? A set is unlikely, as he'll raise pre-flop with those pretty much always. Two pair hands, however, are very possible, although probably towards the bottom of his range. QT/QJ/JT type hands would definitely lead here and an aggro player might 3bet them. Pair+flush draw type hands, especially if they include a straight draw like KhJx are a HUGE part of his range for this play.

Whether you should fold or push depends on how likely you think villain is to fastplay his strong draws. He has no reason to believe you're anywhere near as strong as you are, as well.

By the way, that you're considering folding a flopped straight is a pretty good indicator of why playing strong draws aggressively, as well as strong made hands, is a winning play.

Bottom line, though, is that this is just a math problem.

The question we have is how often does villain need to have a flopped flush vs. a weaker made hand or strong draw for this to be a fold?

Let's take {QT,QJ,KhT,KhQ,KhJ,AhT,AhJ,AhQ,Ah9} as an approximation of a solid draw or two pair range for villain. That's probably a bit on the strong side since some of those would raise pre-flop, but including them actually makes the range stronger for villain, and being a bit pessimistic in our assumptions here is probably good just to be on the safe side. According to pokerstove, 98 has 71.9% equity against that range on this board. Villain is pot commited at this point, so push+call is a pot of 46ish.

We're drawing dead against a made flush, so that part of the equation is easy. We need our EV when he doesn't have a flush to be greater than $23 since that's what we'll lose when he has a flush. Let 'x' be the chance he has a flopped flush.

.72 * 46 * (1-x) &gt; 23

That works out to right about 30%. So if villain flopped a flush more than 30% of the time, we should fold. That's giving villain a ton of credit.

Note that this is quick math while I'm at work, so apologies in advance if I n00bed something up in it.

[relativity_x]

yes, I guess you're right. It is monotone. I generally think of monotone as dry, but I guess in the logistics they're not the same. The fact is that board is very wet. All kinds of things that beat us, and we have the worst of it besides one/two pair, which I doubt the villain plays this way.

edit:
[ QUOTE ]
So if villain flopped a flush more than 30% of the time, we should fold. That's giving villain a ton of credit.

[/ QUOTE ]

what in the hell does that have to do with anything? How can someone say if he flops flushes more than 30%?

[dimeetrees]

its less than 1% to flop a flush...think about it.. Theres a lot u beat here.

[ReptileHouse]

It's quantifying the data. The whole question here is whether villain has a flopped flush or not. If he doesn't, it's a clear call. If he does, it's an obvious fold. We don't know which it is, so we have to assign probabilities to each and make our decision based on the EV according to those probabilities.

Equations like this are how to think about poker. It's math and numbers. We do it here on the forums because it's too fast to do more than rough approximations at the tables. By working it through in detail here, we hone our instincts and learn to recognize common situations and make the right plays at the tables even when we don't know the exact numbers right then. When it's close, we work it out afterwards and if still unsure, we post the hand and get feedback.

[dimeetrees]

im a donk who pays off flopped flushes if i flopped a streight, just because its 1% to flop a flush and i dont run into it often enough to show a loss.

[Bodhidharma]

[ QUOTE ]

You're not raising the flop to see where you're at. Get that notion out of your head right now. It will lose you money. When you flop a straight, you're raising for value against worse hands. Period.


[/ QUOTE ]

I was obviously raising for value. Likewise thats what villain appeared to be doing as well when he reraised.

I'm not too familiar with pokerstove put aren't you leaving out a large number of hands in his range?

Also, aren't you ignoring the betting pattern? Is it not more likely that BB would be pushing with a hand like Ah9 and AhT? Put yourself in his shoes. What hands are you pushing here and what hands are you 3betting? I'm not defending my fold I'm just wondering how villain's line changes his range. Then again, he could be 3betting a hand like Ah9 but based on my read on this guy it seems out of line.

[WHITEBOYAEHS]

grunch....

raise preflop....limping blows. sorry bro

you dont beat much but at nl25 you actually might so get it in and have a rebuy ready....thats all i can say. too many crackheads in the game these days to fold a made hand like that

[WHITEBOYAEHS]

[ QUOTE ]
im a donk who pays off flopped flushes if i flopped a streight, just because its 1% to flop a flush and i dont run into it often enough to show a loss.

[/ QUOTE ]

amen! you cant fold this come on

[ReptileHouse]

The betting pattern makes it a more interesting question, for sure. Strictly based on odds, a flopped flush is massively unlikely. With this betting pattern, however, the odds of it being true in this particular instance go up significantly. How significantly is the question. In order to make to correct decision, we need to quantify things, which is where the above calculations come in. Pokerstove will become your best friend for stuff like this. I can't recommend it strongly enough.

As to villain's range in the stove numbers, I included the majority of what's reasonable, I think. I left out made flushes because we're considering those in the other part of the calculations. Which hands did you have in mind?

An interesting piece of that, by the way, is that if we include more made hands (sets, other two pair, overpairs) into villain's range, your equity improves. If we include more pure draws, your equity also improves. If we include more combo draw type hands, your equity doesn't change much at all. That is, the range given is slightly biased against you.

Since villain's 3bet is pot commiting, I'm not sure how much difference there really is between a 3bet and a push. For some villains, probably quite a bit, for others, none at all. W/o a specific read, I hesitate to put much significance in that.

For myself, if I make a 3bet in villain's situation here, it's a push, as that's not all that much of an overbet. Against a decent player, I'm semi-bluffing with a TON of hands here, precisely because my fold equity is so huge against a massive portion of your range. I'm also pushing most (maybe even all) of my made flushes here because another heart on the turn or river will either counterfeit my hand and/or kill my action. Out of position, it's harder to control when and how money goes into the pot, so I'm much more likely to fastplay everything. I mix up my play by fastplaying my big draws as well as my made hands. The result is exactly the situation you're in here. You have a very, very strong hand, but still are in a really crappy spot. This is why fastplaying big draws is so amazingly effective against thinking opponents. Now will this guy do that? Good question.

In the end for this specific hand, I suspect that he actually has a flush pretty close to 25-35% of the time and you can fold or call and it's pretty marginal either way, so it doesn't much matter what you do in the long run. Flip a coin and go with it, or just trust your gut and do whichever.

The more important thing to look for here is how to analyze situations like this and quantify things. The more you can put dollar values on decisions, the more effective you'll be at exploiting small edges.

[Khon]

Tough one, assuming you're right and he raises TT+ he can basically have:

K9 - 0% to win for you
Any flush - 0% to win for you

Even if he doesn't have those though, either the ace or king of hearts both make it a 50/50 thing regardless of what kicker he has.

Only hands you're really ahead of are QJ,QT and JT, and I think he would shove those to try and push out naked draws.

Overall I'd say fold this, you're just not ahead often enough.

[Bodhidharma]

Thanks for a very comprehensive and helpful post Reptile. This helps me understand this hand better.

[dimeetrees]

[ QUOTE ]
The betting pattern makes it a more interesting question, for sure. Strictly based on odds, a flopped flush is massively unlikely. With this betting pattern, however, the odds of it being true in this particular instance go up significantly. How significantly is the question. In order to make to correct decision, we need to quantify things, which is where the above calculations come in. Pokerstove will become your best friend for stuff like this. I can't recommend it strongly enough.

As to villain's range in the stove numbers, I included the majority of what's reasonable, I think. I left out made flushes because we're considering those in the other part of the calculations. Which hands did you have in mind?

An interesting piece of that, by the way, is that if we include more made hands (sets, other two pair, overpairs) into villain's range, your equity improves. If we include more pure draws, your equity also improves. If we include more combo draw type hands, your equity doesn't change much at all. That is, the range given is slightly biased against you.

Since villain's 3bet is pot commiting, I'm not sure how much difference there really is between a 3bet and a push. For some villains, probably quite a bit, for others, none at all. W/o a specific read, I hesitate to put much significance in that.

For myself, if I make a 3bet in villain's situation here, it's a push, as that's not all that much of an overbet. Against a decent player, I'm semi-bluffing with a TON of hands here, precisely because my fold equity is so huge against a massive portion of your range. I'm also pushing most (maybe even all) of my made flushes here because another heart on the turn or river will either counterfeit my hand and/or kill my action. Out of position, it's harder to control when and how money goes into the pot, so I'm much more likely to fastplay everything. I mix up my play by fastplaying my big draws as well as my made hands. The result is exactly the situation you're in here. You have a very, very strong hand, but still are in a really crappy spot. This is why fastplaying big draws is so amazingly effective against thinking opponents. Now will this guy do that? Good question.

In the end for this specific hand, I suspect that he actually has a flush pretty close to 25-35% of the time and you can fold or call and it's pretty marginal either way, so it doesn't much matter what you do in the long run. Flip a coin and go with it, or just trust your gut and do whichever.

The more important thing to look for here is how to analyze situations like this and quantify things. The more you can put dollar values on decisions, the more effective you'll be at exploiting small edges.

[/ QUOTE ]

Nice post, getting into the details is pretty good for this situation.

[Jouster777]

Villain was BB so his range prior to the flop action is ATC. We just have to ask what hands does villain play like this from ATC? Since he gets to the flop with all suited heart hands as possible I think its a big part of his range. If you stove this you can include (best case) or exclude (worse case) all the semibluff hands.
Worst case equity = 30%
Best case equity = stove crashed before I finished but semibluffs are all combo draws so we are always way less than 50% equity

As someone said above...he let you know you are toast, fold.

Edit: not really ATC as TT+ and AK were excluded

Board: Th Jh Qh
Hand 0: 30.653% 24.68% 05.97% 22727 5495.50 { 9c8c }
Hand 1: 69.347% 63.38% 05.97% 58352 5495.50 { Ah9h, Ah8h, Ah7h, Ah6h, Ah5h, Ah4h, Ah3h, Ac2c, Ah2h, K9s, Kd8d, Kh7h, Kh6h, Kh5h, Kh4h, Kh3h, Kh2h, QTs+, JTs, 98s, 9h7h, 9h6h, 9h5h, 9h4h, 9h3h, 92s, 8h7h, 8h6h, 8h5h, 8h4h, 8h3h, 8h2h, 7h6h, 7h5h, 7h4h, 7h3h, 7h2h, 6h5h, 6h4h, 6h3h, 6h2h, 5h4h, 5h3h, 5h2h, 4h3h, 4h2h, 3h2h, K9o, QTo+, JTo, 98o }