Can you Ace my quiz?

[sam h]

Fold
Call
Reraise
Fold or Reraise

[PBJaxx]

Okay,

I just kind of skimmed through this after posting my answers. There seems to be a fair amount of disagreement on number 4. I am a firm believer that Raise>Fold>Call here. I saw someone say "easy 5/10 rule." First of all, you should read dbitel's recent post on implied odds necessary for set value. Most importantly, though, your opponents raising range is the first thing you need to consider before you even think about applying a 5/10, 3/7 rule, etc.

Pokey, I definitely understand your concern with position. Position is king in NL, but I think you are making some incorrect assumptions here. With villain number two, there should be a very large disconnect between villains raising range, and his 3-bet calling range. In general, we are not building a pot oop, we are winning a pot without having to play a speculative hand oop.

Another assumption you made is that we will cbet 100% of the time. I really don't want to start this conversation up again, but when I 3-bet with marginal holdings and get called by a smart player, I am not c-betting very often, TBH. That aspect of post-flop play dramatically effects my pre-flop play compared to a player that cbets ~100% of the time.

Anyways, very good thread.

[pokerpudii]

I am just learning, but help me out here on hand 1… Just trying to do the math first then I will work on the other part…

OP says range is AQ+ and 88+. I am assuming we are using Sklansky’s Groups so that includes the following hands and the percentage of time he has them if you have an AQ (have to reduce the probability of AA etc…)

Group 1

AA – 4.08%
KK – 8.16%
QQ – 4.08%
JJ – 8.16%
AKs – 3.77%

Group 2

TT – 8.16%
AQs – 2.51%
AJs – 3.77%
KQs – 3.77%
AK – 11.30%

Group 3

99 – 8.16%
TJs – 5.44%
JQs – 3.77%
JKs – 5.44%
ATs – 3.77%
AQ – 7.54%

Group 4

88 – 8.16%

I may have made some errors on the math, but I think they are close enough.

Which hands “dominate” us? AA, KK, QQ, AKs, AK which are 31.39% of the time.

Which hands are coin flips? JJ, TT, AQs, AQ, 99, 88 which are 42.69% of the time.

Which hands are we ahead? AJs, KQs, TJs, JQs, JKs, ATs which are 25.96% of the time.

Being out of position, seems to me this would be a fold as most of you have already stated.
Please tell me if the math portion of this is relatively correct…

[sam h]

[ QUOTE ]
Okay,

I just kind of skimmed through this after posting my answers. There seems to be a fair amount of disagreement on number 4. I am a firm believer that Raise>Fold>Call here. I saw someone say "easy 5/10 rule." First of all, you should read dbitel's recent post on implied odds necessary for set value. Most importantly, though, your opponents raising range is the first thing you need to consider before you even think about applying a 5/10, 3/7 rule, etc.

Pokey, I definitely understand your concern with position. Position is king in NL, but I think you are making some incorrect assumptions here. With villain number two, there should be a very large disconnect between villains raising range, and his 3-bet calling range. In general, we are not building a pot oop, we are winning a pot without having to play a speculative hand oop.

Another assumption you made is that we will cbet 100% of the time. I really don't want to start this conversation up again, but when I 3-bet with marginal holdings and get called by a smart player, I am not c-betting very often, TBH. That aspect of post-flop play dramatically effects my pre-flop play compared to a player that cbets ~100% of the time.

Anyways, very good thread.

[/ QUOTE ]

Exactly. Against many opponents with this PFR profile, you will make money reraising here almost automatically. Even if you check-fold all flops that don't contain 3s or aren't 3 really low cards, you should be in good shape as long as he folds enough preflop.

[joseki]

Honestly, I call w/ 33 because it can't be that big of a mistake and flopping sets is so damn fun. Also, I'm pretty sure I'm due for a set.

[zaphod]

[ QUOTE ]
This was a quiz that tested your knowledge of Implied / Reverse-Implied Odds. Now I'm know genius and have only recently begun thinking about these concepts deeply.

I tried to create a quiz that hid which concepts I was trying to emphasize to see how people would respond. At the same time, I think it’s quite interesting how implied odds and reverse implied odds can have a counter intuitive logic.

Implied odds has a significant effect in all rounds of play. Although people often take them into consideration when figuring out how to play a draw, this concept is often over-looked preflop.

Some player simply think about the strength of their hand versus their opponents range. Instead it’s more beneficial to think how the hand is likely to play out (implied odds) given the relative strength of your hand vs your opponents range. Let’s see how this can be applied to the hands I posted.

Hand 1: FOLD. You are behind compared to his range. You have poor Reverse Implied Odds, even if you hit your Ace you’re likely to be behind or splitting the pot. It’ll be hard to get value out of your hand, since you’re OOP.

Hand 2: CALL. You have GOOD Implied Odds. If you hit your set, then you’re likely to be up against a strong hand by your opponent. Therefore, you can stack him.

Hand 3: RERAISE. Since it’s 6max, I think a reraise is the best play. However, I think the next best play is to fold. It’s hard to play hands oop against strong opponents. But since you’re hand is so much stronger than his range and since he plays a lot of Aces, you have good implied odds. The point of the reraise is to win it there or take control of the hand on the flop.

Hand 4: FOLD. You have Poor Implied Odds. Even though your hand is stronger than his range. It’ll be hard to play this hand oop against the opponent if you don’t flop a set. At the same time, even if you do flop a set, you’re unlikely to get paid-off since most flops miss your opponent.

Why it can be hard to grasp. You fold AQo and call with 33 against a strong range. You ReRaise with AQo and fold with 33 against a loose range.

[/ QUOTE ]


My answers:

1) Fold.

2) Fold or call. What does "aggressive smart post-flop style" mean? Will he be able to lay down an overpair to aggresion? If i have reason to belive that i will frequently get his stack if i hit, i call.
In practice i would probably call anyway..
3)Reraise.

4) Fold or rereaise. I know i should be reraising more often, but i usually just folds. It depend on the kind of opponent(is he folding often to reraises?). If i have folded to most of his button raises lately, this might be a good time to reraise, as his loose range makes it unlikely that he will be able to call.

[thedustbustr]

in hand 4, a reraise fairs much better if we have 88 rather than 33, if he is a typical "i'll call you lite and outplay you postflop" type of lag.

[mark_foley]

If calling is right in hand #2 what non-pair hands are we calling with in this spot?

[SynZen]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]

Well you have to re-raise from the blinds with hands other than your BPP. AQ (sometimes) is a good candidate. You dominate a large proportion of his range. You hit top pair top/good kicker 30% of the time. You shouldn't mind going to the felt with those hands, with so much of your stack in preflop.

[/ QUOTE ]

So, we shouldn't mind stacking ourselves with these speculative hands because we're pot-committed preflop, but we should reraise preflop in order to pot-commit ourselves postflop? This line of reasoning strikes me as circular, risky, and typically unprofitable.

Think of it this way: if we smooth call against this aggressive opponent and check to him on the flop every time, he's going to c-bet, and his c-bet would be about as large as our preflop raise. Now, which is better: committing that money to the pot preflop when we know very little about our hand other than that it is speculative, or committing that money POST-flop when we know we've got something worth chasing?

Similar line of reasoning: our preflop raise knocks out some of the more speculative hands that we fare VERY well against (moreso with AQo than with 33, here), whereas those hands will commit the same amount of money just about 100% of the time on the flop if checked to. Is it better to let our opponent escape with a $3.50 loss when he's got A4o, or would we rather get him to spend $10 on the same hand by letting him c-bet uselessly?

We're not getting all the money into the pot preflop (well, we'd BETTER not be -- that would be a huge mistake), so we're going to have to play our hand postflop. Against a savvy and aggressive opponent who has position, I'd rather have as little money in the middle as possible before I have to decide if I want to go to war.

I guess I'm still not convinced of the efficacy of reraising preflop OOP with speculative hands, especially heads-up against smart and aggressive opponents.

[/ QUOTE ]

Well I certainly understand your concerns here, but I think re-raising is definitely the right play for hands 3 and 4. The problem is, a smart aggressive player wouldn't have that wide of a range. Or, if he did he would almost never lose a large amount with a hand like A4o.

The reason for re-raising isn't for value necessarily, we should have huge FE here. If he calls that should dramatically change the range of hands that you put him on. See by just calling you give him a huge information advantage, hes going to have a much better idea of what you have then you will of what he has. When you combine that with the positional advantage it doesn't really matter that you are well ahead of his range (in regards to the AQo).

Now re-raising with 33 is a little different. Here we aren't really that far ahead oh his range, but I think there is a good amount of fold equity here, and think it is important to maintain a re-raising range that isn't completely transparent. The set potential will make up for some of those times that you actually get called by a real hand, and I think there is certainly enough FE to make re-raising +EV.

Now I wouldn't say this if he had a tighter range, but if hes going to raise with things like 79s, I think you have to come over the top with this hand every time. If you are going to assume that this guy is going to call you really light, then I think it would be wrong to say that he is a smart aggressive player. People that call 3-bets with garbage and then try to "outplay" you post-flop, are either world class players that can read you like a book, or far more likely they are called "fish".

[Chubbers]

HAND 1: FOLD - OOP and likely dominated
The UTG who has a raising range of (88+, AQo+), raises to $3.50. It's folded around to the Hero in the BB who has A[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] Q[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img].

Do you Fold? Call? ReRaise?

HAND 2: CALL for set value. Fit or fold the flop.
The UTG who has a raising range of (88+, AQo+), raises to $3.50. It's folded around to the Hero in the BB who has 3[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] 3[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img].

Do you Fold? Call? ReRaise?

HAND 3: Re-raise. You're ahead of most of his range here.

The Button who has a raising range of (22+, A8o+, A2s+, any suited...single...double gap suited connectors), raises to $3.50. It's folded around to the Hero in the BB who has A[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] Q[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img].

Do you Fold? Call? ReRaise?

Hand 4: Call for set value.

The Button who has a raising range of (22+, A8o+, A2s+, any suited...single...double gap suited connectors), raises to $3.50. It's folded around to the Hero in the BB who has 3[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] 3[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img].

Do you Fold? Call? ReRaise?