Pty 10/20 Weak fold?

[Magikist]

No it's not fuzzy reasoning.

No it's not blindly spewing off two more bigs bets.

His hand range is typically very wide.

This is just one factor to consider among many.

If you want to make it more quantifiable, go right ahead. You will may be suprised at how meaningless of an exercise** it is. Or maybe you wouldn't, which is why you didn't do it in your original smart-ass response.

** refering specifically to the exercise of "quantifying" the edited scenario excerpted in my original post. "quantifying" all of the variables associated with 3-betting this flop c/r may be slightly less of a waste of time.

[Subfallen]

Heh, nice post. Have it your way then.

[Spy Dog]

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In a 5-handed game against any reasonably tricky/decent player, you usually need to be seeing a showdown w/ AK on an 8c7h2c flop.

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CONTRADICTS

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3-betting also gives you a lot of flexibility. It gives you a chance to take a free card on the turn and induce a river bluff, or you can take a free card and fold unimproved.

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If 3-betting the flop lets you see a free showdown, than you save half a bet against a pair, as opposed to calling down.


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How much are you saving if he caps the flop, as many do with a draw.....?

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In addition, you can't always rely on players to continue betting the river with their bluffs, thus costing you another half of a bet.

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You only lose a half of a bet if you know he will quit betting on the river with a bluff 100% of the time. But, if we knew that he kept betting on the river 100% with a made hand then we can make a good fold, right? In reality, our passive play looks like a draw and villian will be encourage to bluff us out on the river more than 50% of the time with his busted draw, thereby making the passive approach a superior line.

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If you are constantly losing initiative to a flop c/r from a BB defender on a board like this with AK, you are playing losing poker. Calling down is only the best option against a minority of players at the 10/20.


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Overplaying overcards against aggressive players is a worse approach. You have a mediocre showdownable hand on this flop and a villian who is willing to bet for you. Calling the flop checkraise also saves us a raising opportunity if you improve.


In addition, if we think villian is drawing on this board, which is a reasonable assumption then why would we ever take a line that includes giving a free card on the turn?

I know you are a fairly solid player, but I think your approach to this type of hand is way off.

[kapw7]

Well we raised UTG and we can assume that BB is a strong solid TAG player who probably has stats on me as well. Anyway, what I am trying to say is that he more likely knows that I am on a very limited range of hands.

If I call down it's like telling him "look I have AJ+ and I missed, so you can value bet your 44, but don't bluff a missed draw because I am going to SD"

And I dare say (God help me) that against this guy you have a small advantage for raising for info.
If we just call the flop then he is going to bet (correctly) any turn card 100% of times. If we 3-bet then I think he will be more selective on his betting and we can make a somewhat better decision on the turn.
If we 3-bet and he caps then it is more likely that he has a strong draw than a weaker hand like a single pair of 7s etc

As for the free card I said that we have the choice but not that we will take it every time. However if a straight or flush card falls (including A[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img]) I can't see why we should bet that turn.

[Magikist]

In his response, Kap addressed some of the points I would have made here.

First of all, I'd like emphasize the point that in my original post I qualified my statement by stating only that 3-betting the flop is only sometimes correct.

Again, my statement that we should be seeing a showdown against a BB defender on an 872 flop is qualified by the term usually. There are some clear turn-river combinations on this board that oblige you to fold the river unimproved.

But like anything, the type of player the BB is, the nature of your previous interactions with him, and your table image are all the most relevant factors to consider here.

That's why if he's the type of player to cap with a draw or a pair, or you've had repeated interactions with him where he doesn't respect your 3-bets any more, you should be much less inclined to 3-bet his c/r.

Your analysis of villain's busted-draw bluffing tendencies on the river if we take a passive call-down approach is oversimplified. First of all, you assume a generic villain. In reality, not every player will interpret our line as a draw.

While I'll concede that a good percentage of the time he will continue bluffing, this does not make always calling down the optimal play. Especially if you've called down with ace high against this player before, my experience is that players are capable of giving up. A line I've encountered more frequently is when they check the turn after you've just called their flop checkraise. This puts you in a very difficult spot that you could have avoided by 3-betting. Again, I also want to emphasize the fold equity you gain on the turn when you 3-bet preflop against many opponents if your image is good OR if they are sufficiently bad. Preventing them from seeing the river with initiative when they are betting with a worse hand is important.

Finally, checking behind on the turn is giving the opponent an illusory free card. When heads up, free cards are not the taboo they are when multiway. If you were going to check behind on the river unimproved anyways, but instead check behind on the turn and call a river bluff, the results are the same. Many players will be induced to bluff the river after a turn check. If you check behind on the turn to a semi-scare card they may not bet the river with a better hand, giving you a free showdown. In addition, players who would have folded to a turn bet are more inclined to bet a worse hand on the river.

You simply can't argue that adopting exclusively one line in a very common scenario is superior to utilizing several different options, each tailored to the opponent and the current game conditions. To assert this would be to have zero conception of the advantages of employing game theoretical counter-strategies.

I am not arguing that 3-betting is always good, or that calling down is never good. Each one has its place. There are meta-game benefits from each of them, although I prefer to remain more on the aggressive side so I usually opt for the 3-bet in close calls.

Mainly, you want to discourage opponents from thinking they can take a pot away from you on low flops. You don't do this by calling down. You do this by punishing their bluffs. AK does not have a vastly superior equity advantage over random hands if both hands are going to showdown. It does, however, have a vastly superior equity advantage on flops they both miss, which is what happens the majority of the time. Against many opponents, a flop c/r on this board is going to be a bluff/semi-bluff probably half the time. Calling down permits these hands to catch up and punish you for not protecting your equity advantage. Calling down also encourages opponents to exploit you by A) value betting you with anything, and B) pushing draws with impunity.

** Also, just calling the flop to reserve a turn raising opportunity is a good point, but not an overriding factor. C'mon, how many 10/20 players bet out on the turn into PFR when an A or K falls? Not many, and the ones that do are usually doing so with the intention of folding to a raise or 3-betting it. I think the best times to call the flop and raise the turn is when you have a good image and you DON'T hit, because it's a very strong move that can get made hands like 44 or K2 to fold (never mind bluffs), and there are many bad cards that fall on the turn for those hands.