JTs settle a disagreement with DeathDonkey

4 players, I raise. 2 overcards and a good flush draw. Yea, you give away your hand, but with 4 players in the flop +EV by raising is pretty good. There's no guarantee when another spade comes everyone isn't checking it anyway, unless it's a big spade that makes someone a pair.

With 3 players I almost always call, but with 4 I'm probably a random 2:1 on raise:call.

[ QUOTE ]
Id probably call too, its almost borderline to where I raise, but Id really like 1 to 2 more players in before I prefer raising.

[/ QUOTE ]

Exactly how many people do you have at your short handed tables? There's already 4 in this pot...

[jason_t]

[ QUOTE ]
I like a call here.

[/ QUOTE ]

As do I, and I learned this from you back in August and again in one of your recent magazine articles.

[jason_t]

[ QUOTE ]

1) As pots become larger it becomes more and more valuable to take "free" (why don't we call them cheap?) cards. This pot is already a pretty fair size.

[/ QUOTE ]

This makes absolutely no sense. As the pot gets larger draws become "cheaper" because the total expectation is higher.

[disjunction]

[ QUOTE ]
I raise this all day, every day.



[/ QUOTE ]

Heh, I do too, but I can barely remember the last time I had a chance to do it. This situation comes up all the time in the lower limits but at the 10/20 and even the 5/10 I think, it only seems to happen every few thousand hands. Strange.

[The Bryce]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]

1) As pots become larger it becomes more and more valuable to take "free" (why don't we call them cheap?) cards. This pot is already a pretty fair size.[ QUOTE ]

This doesn't make sense. The value of a free card decreases with every person in the pot and with the number of outs you have. With many people in the pot and lots of outs, the value of a free card is pretty low.

Raise now or call.. doesn't matter much. There are 13 sb in the pot. Something like 5-6 of those are "yours". A raise now makes you something like 1.5sb. Waiting to raise, not sure, but it's not much more or less than this. Most of the money you'll make this hand is already in the pot.


[/ QUOTE ]

This makes absolutely no sense. As the pot gets larger draws become "cheaper" because the total expectation is higher.

[/ QUOTE ]

[/ QUOTE ]

Grah, stuff like this makes me so angry when I'm posting record slides. I want to yell at you guys, but it's probably a reasonably complex point. Think! If calling increases in value as you add bets to the pot then the value of seeing the same amount of cards for cheap also increases as you add bets. If you raise for a free card when you're getting exactly the odds to peel the flop you've basically gained nothing. Getting cheap cards in large pots basically equates to the EV happy dance. Peeling does get cheaper in big pots, but free cards get way better than peeling. What's better, 10:2 or 10:3? Can we also see how the bet saved in a 20:2 vs 20:3 example is more valuable than the previous one? Yes we can.

[Dan BRIGHT]

I dont understand why we wouldnt wnt to PUSH OUR EQUITY EDGE on the flop if we think there wil bet at least one caller between us and the sb. Or maybe whether anyone calls in between is th issue entirely?

[stoxtrader]

i'd like to hear deathdonkey explain a raise.

I think a raise is +EV for sure. I think a call is MORE +EV.

I'm certainly not positive, and this is always situational. This one is close otherwise two good players would not disagree anyways.

[Nate tha\\\' Great]

[ QUOTE ]
i'd like to hear deathdonkey explain a raise.

[/ QUOTE ]

If this were a court of law, the raise would be the defense, since it's the correct play from a strict equity POV, and the call would be the prosecution. So the burden of proof is on you. [img]/images/graemlins/smirk.gif[/img]. Why just a call?

[ALL1N]

[ QUOTE ]
Think! If calling increases in value as you add bets to the pot then the value of seeing the same amount of cards for cheap also increases as you add bets. If you raise for a free card when you're getting exactly the odds to peel the flop you've basically gained nothing. Getting cheap cards in large pots basically equates to the EV happy dance. Peeling does get cheaper in big pots, but free cards get way better than peeling. What's better, 10:2 or 10:3? Can we also see how the bet saved in a 20:2 vs 20:3 example is more valuable than the previous one? Yes we can.

[/ QUOTE ]

So this is your logic:
-calling increases in value as the pot gets larger
-therefore, taking a freecard increases in value as the pot gets larger
-therefore, as the pot gets larger, taking a freecard becomes more valuable than calling.

The truth is that the value of freecarding vs calling is the same regardless of pot size, since it deals with only the bets which go into the pot, and not our probability of winning the pot.