A234 - Mixed emotions, Stars 15/30

[jlocdog]

Taking into account flow of the game and reads, flop bet can go either way. The turn bet is what turns this hand into a disaster. You put yourself in a position to having to call 2 BB on turn where you are likely chasing a quarter. C/c turn.

And preflop shouldn't be much of an issue. This is a raise /

[franknagaijr]

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I also disagree with wackjob's advice about not raising preflop. This hand has a hard time scooping? What? Have you heard of the wheel? .

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This remark set me to thinking, and it took a little bit to crunch the numbers for this hand. If anybody's curious or disagrees with the stats, I'll go into more detail.

With this hand, the chance of hitting any low over five cards is 55%. If you discount any backdoor lows, that's 47%, and any low is obv the nut low, with some chance of quartering. That's a nice fallback cushion.

If we consider the high draws of this hand, and really only consider the wheel, or the nut flush as viable highs, that combination is worth 13.3% over any five cards (9.5 wheel, 3.8 flush). That number drops if you ignore backdoors (7 wheel, 2.8 flush) although I didn't work out how many of the discounted backdoor combinations had enough other draws going to keep you in the hand, so it's between 10 and 13%. You can factor in the weak flush , freak quads for another couple percent, and I would assume (without running the calcs) that the value numbers for two pair, trips and boats are pretty low, less than 1% expectation for the high. Best case scenario, this hand is worth about 16% of the high side.

Given the manner in which the low equity outweighs the high, it stands to reason that this is much better multi-way hand than heads up hand, and we really don't mind keeping as many people in the hand as possible to increase chasing odds.

This made me think that I disagreed with BBartlog, until I reread the specifics. In this context, I agree with the raise. If both players call the raise, you've helped justify any of the various backdoor chases, and if either player drops, you have increased the chances that any two pair or trips that you flop will hold up. You're still the underdog for the high heads-up, but your fold equity has certainly increased.