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Old 02-12-2007, 07:54 PM
MarkGritter MarkGritter is offline
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Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: Eagan, MN
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Default Re: 2-7 EV question.

It's most appropriate to think of this problem in terms of hand ranges rather than the particular hands you guys held... let's try to describe a simple set of competing strategies:

Say that you are drawing to 8532x. With a 4, 6, or 7 you bet/3-bet, pat, and bet the river. With a 9 or a T you bet/break and bet the river if you hit, check/call if you are pat. Let's say that you will also snow with a K about 25% of the time, playing it like a 4. There are 3 bets already in the pot when you bet.

What then is your opponent's best strategy with a 97632? Since you bet you have one of 18 cards (4444666777 999TTTT K)

10/18 of the time he is behind and ought to draw
7/18 of the time he is ahead and his raise will induce a break
1/18 of the time he is ahead and his raise will induce a 3-bet to which he should not break

It looks to me that freezing is the best strategy, and it's not even close. 10/18 of the time he loses 2 BB and the rest of the time he makes 5BB (3 in pot + 2 additional bets if he bets when you check a 9 or T.) This averages out to +1.11BB.

Raising nets him -1.7BB to -1.5BB (not -2) when he is behind but letting you break your 9 or T costs him, so that he only earn about 3.1-3.2 BB in those cases. The average works out to +0.36BB.

For comparison, just breaking all the time earns the BB only +0.27BB.

(Of course, this is a very simple model, and SB may have a significantly better strategy...)

Fiddling with the parameters a bit:

If the stub has 38 cards instead of 42 then just breaking is superior to raise/breaking (assuming the # of outs has not decreased) but it is still much worse than freezing.

If you never snow with a K, freezing is only worth +0.88, but it's still much better than the raise.

Freezing is still better if you check/fold your 9's and T's.
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