25NL A8s: How much can I raise here?

[Res-Judicata]

Few plays in poker are cut and dry. Fortunately, this is one of them. There are no need for calculations or what not, you have 3rd nuts here.

Raise as much as you think someone holding a 7 will call.

Only 7x and Ax (and the very strangely played KK I guess) will call you because anything else is just playing the board.

[Nick C]

[ QUOTE ]
Few plays in poker are cut and dry. Fortunately, this is one of them. There are no need for calculations or what not, you have 3rd nuts here.

Raise as much as you think someone holding a 7 will call.

Only 7x and Ax (and the very strangely played KK I guess) will call you because anything else is just playing the board.

[/ QUOTE ]

It's not really as simple as what you put in bold. Villain has $21.70 left after making his $0.25 river bet. I can do what I really did, which was raise to $2, and count on (at least) getting called by 7x pretty much always. Probably I could raise a little more than that and still pretty much always get called by 7x.

Anyway, though, for the sake of argument, let's say that we know Villain has 7x and my raise to $2 is the most that he will always call (and let's also assume that he'll never reraise). It's still approxmiately just as good to push if he'll call that push 1 in 12 times, and if he calls it more often than that, then our expectation for a push is better than our expectation for the additional $1.75 he'll always call.

Edit: Of course, a complication is that sometimes villain in fact will have Kx or 99 or something, and surely he's not calling a push when he has those hands.

But, anyway, I was trying to illustrate that picking the amount he'll always call is not necessarily the way to maximize expectation.

[matrix]

Push....

I'd mess with his head and wind my timer down and then push

he's a donk - if he has a full house (the naked 7 or KK) he's calling often enough to make it profitable in the long run, much more profitable I think than a value bet. He might also think you are bluffing and call if you push as well.

[Nick C]

[ QUOTE ]
Push....

I'd mess with his head and wind my timer down and then push

he's a donk - if he has a full house (the naked 7 or KK) he's calling often enough to make it profitable in the long run, much more profitable I think than a value bet. He might also think you are bluffing and call if you push as well.

[/ QUOTE ]

So this "reverse" timing tell actually works?

When someone winds his clock down on me and then pushes, I pretty much just assume he's got the nuts (or close to the nuts), but I suppose not everyone interprets a long pause followed by a push this way.

[Res-Judicata]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Few plays in poker are cut and dry. Fortunately, this is one of them. There are no need for calculations or what not, you have 3rd nuts here.

Raise as much as you think someone holding a 7 will call.

Only 7x and Ax (and the very strangely played KK I guess) will call you because anything else is just playing the board.

[/ QUOTE ]

It's not really as simple as what you put in bold. Villain has $21.70 left after making his $0.25 river bet. I can do what I really did, which was raise to $2, and count on (at least) getting called by 7x pretty much always. Probably I could raise a little more than that and still pretty much always get called by 7x.

Anyway, though, for the sake of argument, let's say that we know Villain has 7x and my raise to $2 is the most that he will always call (and let's also assume that he'll never reraise). It's still approxmiately just as good to push if he'll call that push 1 in 12 times, and if he calls it more often than that, then our expectation for a push is better than our expectation for the additional $1.75 he'll always call.

Edit: Of course, a complication is that sometimes villain in fact will have Kx or 99 or something, and surely he's not calling a push when he has those hands.

But, anyway, I was trying to illustrate that picking the amount he'll always call is not necessarily the way to maximize expectation.

[/ QUOTE ]





I consulted my friend, long serving White House Press Corps reporter Helen Thomas for some insight. She's even better at poker than she is at being ugly. She opines:

"Young Nick C gets it wrong when he says:

[ QUOTE ]
[F]or the sake of argument, let's say that we know Villain has 7x and my raise to $2 is the most that he will always call (and let's also assume that he'll never reraise). It's still approxmiately just as good to push if he'll call that push 1 in 12 times, and if he calls it more often than that, then our expectation for a push is better than our expectation for the additional $1.75 he'll always call.

[/ QUOTE ]

because this Villian won't call 1 out of 12 times. Only exceedingly obtuse Villians would this 1 out of 12 times. But what do we know about our Villian?

[ QUOTE ]
Villain is 25/4/0.9 over 92 hands, and the main thing I knew about him was that he didn't suck. Or he didn't suck much compared to me, in any case.

[/ QUOTE ]

And what kind of players call a 10X pot size raise on a board that reads K77AA while holding a naked 7? Really sucky ones. I bet George Bush would call it. Whoops, that's off the record. I assume Nick C would never make this call because, well, he's just not that sucky. But if Villian doesn't suck compared to Nick, he will call this only about 1 in 10,000 times. Because of a misclick. And that would make Nick's EV 1/5 of a penny. Hoped that helped! Vote Gore!!!"

Thank you, Helen, as always. Give Tony my best.