I thought this was fairly straightforward

[LegallyBlind]

[ QUOTE ]
But when I get the additional bit of information of him moving all-in on the flop, then I am convinced enough that he has aces that I can fold.

[/ QUOTE ]

does he ever take a different line on the flop? I would think your playing for set value with this line since you have to know based on preflop action, that a flop push is coming virtually 100% of the time.

[Robk]

This hand was played fine imo. My two main criticisms of the replies in this thread are: 1) people underestimating the chances the bb holds AA and 2) people underestimating the chances the bb checks on the flop.

I read the preflop situation this way, and maybe I don’t understand the nature of these games. But with QQ or less it seems to me that the BB is much better off calling preflop than reraising with these stack sizes, him being out of position, and 2 opponents who could have big hands. (Right or not, I see many players who play this way.) I think that weights his preflop range almost exclusively toward AA and bluffs. With some opponents maybe there is a chance of a sort of semibluff with AK but again with the BB being out of position it seems very unlikely to me.

Samo is getting about 1800:350 to flop a set. That gives playing for set value alone an ev of about 1800/8.5 – 350*7.5/8.5 = -90 dollars. A significant error to be sure, but one mitigated by image factors, and by the possibility of tilting the bb.

But with the pot so large, even a small chance of the BB giving up gives Samo +ev on the hand. If the BB checks and folds 10% of the time on the flop, Samo’s ev is .1*715 +.9*(-90) which is roughly -$10. While people keep repeating that the BB will “never” check the flop, he will do it sometimes and even if its only a very small % of the time it easily gives samo +ev. If the BB did in fact reraise with garbage, does he really have a profitable bluff here? Wouldn’t he expect samo to go with the hand almost every time after calling the reraise preflop and with a 9 high board? One other possibility is that some players will give away their hand with a small bet size here, so he doesn’t have to check the flop.

So under what I think are very reasonable assumptions this is the best way to play the hand. The last thing I want to point out is how bad the BBs flop bet was was (based on Sams strategy.) I think checking is clearly correct here with AA. Depending on what we know about BB that can change the hand entirely. But samo’s logic is consistent here: if BB would push this flop with AA then he must think there is no way samo is getting away from any kind of hand. And if he believes that then he wont be continuing on his bluffs.

[fanmail]

At first I was thinking this fold is awful like other people are saying. But then I started to dig a little deeper. What is samoleus' range to 3-bet and then call 50BB's preflop with? I don't know what that is, but I would assume its not all that wide, maybe TT-AA, AK. Villain shoves a pot size bet in on the flop knowing he is probably getting called by lots of hands in that range and he's not worried. That should tell hero he is probably behind. I'm not certain this reasoning is what sam is using, and I could be way off. But that's how I see it.

[revlis87]

Sam,

I was the other player in the hand. I am surprised to see someone thinks i play well because most of my friends think I'm awful. Anyway, onto the hand...

We have a problem here because I am 80% sure that it wasnt the BB that re-re-popped to 500 but it was the UTG limper. I don't use PT, if you do perhaps you can check on this. IF it was the BB it changed a LITTLE bit but I still think its a decision you have to make preflop, especially for 500 BB. And I don't really care a whole lot about "forum quality" but FSU player should REALLY get off your cock on this one and post his reasoninng on being basically the only one who is smart enough to agree with you.

[MDMA]

First of all, people has to realize a few finer points about what the 4-bet is, and what kind of effects on the game it has. It can definately be a bluff, there's no doubt about that.

How will the 4-beter react when he gets called preflop? Well, basically by putting 3-beter on a very strong hand, prob QQ+ like 98% of the time and if 4-beter is bluffing, he's very well aware that because of that fact, it's VERY likely that he would get called if he pushes on a ragged flop. How does that change things? Well, basically it makes what some people has said in this thread completely untrue; e.g a 4-beter "very often following through pushing on any flop". No, a 4-bet that was a bluff is VERY often gonna checkfold flop nearly regardless of how it comes, since by getting called 3-beter has pretty much declared that he has a really good hand to play here, there is no such thing as a "continuation bet" after it gets 4-bet preflop, and a lot of people doesn't seem to realize that here; it just doesn't work like when you raise or 3-bet preflop and most of the time just follow up, this of course because of what I said, a 4-bet getting called preflop is NEARLY ALWAYS a very, very big hand.

Also, for the idiots thinking in ways of "if you call preflop you have to call flop because nothing has changed" are obviously not understanding anything; these are the same guys reasoning that you have to call river as well if you called turn and "nothing changed". It's bad reasoning and most already knew that; some didn't.

Ironically, because it would be such a bad bluff to "continuation bet" on a ragged flop after getting one's 4-bet cold called, since you'd expect to get called very often because of the preflop 4-bet caller nearly always having a big overpair, most likely kings or aces, that is also why samo decided to fold.

E.g, Samo knows that 4-beter knows that he shouldn't nearly ever "follow through" on the flop because of the fact that samo SHOULD be very likely to call nearly all of the time, and when he STILL fires, knowing this, samo expect it to be aces nearly all of the time and thus folds.

Obv if this is QQ he's gonna fire too, but that isn't really of any interest since I believe samo's analysis was that by most people, and this player in particular obv, that preflop 4-bet is either gonna mean aces or a bluff a near 100% of the time. This probably is a fair assumption, since most people (and in samos analysis, obv also this guy) reasons that overrepresenting/4-beting QQ here would be a big mistake, and he'd expect them to only cold-call, and I think he's correct in that assumption as well.

The problem for me w/ this post is basically that's impossible to discuss; obv, math clearly suggests that you'd be EXTREMELY exploitable since in this case, (as a friend said), you could make a 4-bet w/ any 2 in BB in this spot profitable. This is not about a long-term ev+, or something that would ever be used in some optimal game-theory based strategy for poker which lies years ahead; it's simply a matter of how samo believes this guy, and most human beings, would reason in the first occurrence of this spot between these two players ever.

It's not something that is meant to work longterm; it won't because of what I said about making 4-beting any two a profitable play; it's about samo deciding, in what I like to refer to as a first and only time scenario (basically if we would imagine this scenario would occur only ONE time ever and never repeat itself, which decision would we take that ONE single time?) and we'd have to make a decision, how this particular villain is thinking in this exact hand; not trying to balancing this longterm or anything like this, just this one hand, in this very moment of decision. As you notice, it becomes impossible to discuss because of the lack of "longtermness"; it's actually much more like Taylors post a while ago, something you cannot put into terms of poker theory; a feel, a sense of what most humans/players would do the first time they were put into this scenario.

Because of this fact, discussion is useless; instead just ask yourself, if this situation would happen once, and only once, how often you you think samos decision that the guy does have aces given how the hand played out is going to be correct, strictly result-orientated? It's impossible to discuss further than that as I see it, since we cannot attack the question scientifically w/ math and/or other forms of science.

Samo is basically trying to go one level further than what is normally done thinking-wise, e.g taking it to a level which seems very reasonble (e.g knowing that 4-betor knows samo is a huge favourite to call flop w/ his hand range and still fires, samo reckons him to have aces nearly all of the time) but which also theoretically get's exploitable beyond belief when analyzed in terms of correct poker theory (as w/ 4-beting any 2 totally destroying this), and because of this fact, it cannot be discussed really. It's something that you can do and be right in doing, but not something I would ever try to write a post about, since it's basically impossible.

I'm not so sure this post made much sense to anyone, and basically it wasn't meant to do. Why? Because, as I said, this hand is impossible to discuss in other forms than just a feel for human nature and tendencies regarding a problem/situation when put in a vacuum. Against a perfect opponent, you cannot ever do this fold profitably, not long-term, not short-term, not ever.

Against a normal, sane and rational player with human flaws and a generaly healthy way of thinking about poker, I am however positive that if I had only one chance to play this hand in my entire life, I would definately be inclined to make the fold. This is what this hand is about.

[revlis87]

MDMA...

Your reasoning is VERY poor. It is made even worse by the fact that this is party 5-10, i.e the most straightforward game on the planet. I have logged prob over 200k hands at this game and will tell you that a 4-bet is a bluff MAYBE 1% of the time AT BEST. I simply think your reasoning is giving WAY too much credit to the opponent in this spot.

Also, I'm not going to mention names here but the reasoning you describe as poor regarding "nothing has changed" is some reasoning that I have heard personally when talking to players that do not post on this forum but destroy 25-50 + online.

So, while I appreciate your contributions to the forum (sincerely) in terms of theoretical stuff, these games play a lot differenty than you give them credit for...

And just out of curiosity, what fgames do you play and one what site? Never knew your SN or anything...

[PoppinFresh]

[ QUOTE ]
MDMA...

Your reasoning is VERY poor. It is made even worse by the fact that this is party 5-10, i.e the most straightforward game on the planet. I have logged prob over 200k hands at this game and will tell you that a 4-bet is a bluff MAYBE 1% of the time AT BEST. I simply think your reasoning is giving WAY too much credit to the opponent in this spot.


[/ QUOTE ]

I'm not going to get too involved in this as I'm not sure about this one way or the other, but I think you are way off here if you think that a 4-bet at party 5/10 is a bluff 1% of the time.

4-bet bluffing does happen, and players do give up postflop when they are called and it looks like their opponent is certainly going to the felt

[Luckyz]

4-beter maybe puts samo on 99-TT, AJ+ using position on CO and trying to steal from samo knowing CO doesnt have much, no?

[AlcateL]

MDMA I like your analysis, as always however I still think you have to call here, sorry.

[pocketjesuits]

Interesting hand. However, I think that to make this fold correct you need to have more information on your opponent. But gathering that information requires establishing a significant history with the opponent, which in turn changes his reads on you.

I think people are giving an unknown opponent a bit too much credit here. There are alot of hands he could be overplaying that are worse than KK. He might have simply decided that there is no way he's folding a QQ/JJ/TT overpair for one pot-sized bet against an opponent like sam, who has presumably been very aggressive pf in his limited sample with villain (villain may misinterpret this as overall recklessness of sam). There are also alot of hands that he can be 4-bet bluffing with that he will continue with on the flop. I totally disagree that 4-bets are rarely bluffs, especially against aggressive preflop players like sam. A 9-high flop always has an open-ended straight draw. He could have connected with a pair on the flop(say 98s, 65s), figures he still has 26% equity even against an overpair, and push hoping he has enough fold equity to make it worthwhile.

Now if, say, you had played with this opponent a good deal before and just changed your screename so he didn't have any reads on you, I could agree that this is the best line against some opponents.


I have two questions:
1) Do you call if the flop is two-tone?
2) Do you push if checked to?

I assume the answer to both of these is yes.