GigaBet razz play

[Andy B]

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Tournament - HORSE - Razz - Level VIII (270/540), Ante 54

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I think Stars does this just to taunt me.

[ACPlayer]

A tournament strategy subthread here -- in Hero's situation when playing stud games (razz, 8/B, stud hi) I am usually not in much of a hurry to make a move as I know that I will have a future bet that is pretty good (that is the bet when I go all in for the ante getting 7 to 1 with a random hand is a pretty good bet). Note that in a full table the antes are only a bit less than hero's stack.

THoughts from tournament specialists please.

[2461Badugi]

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I found he won 30% of the time, whereas he was putting in 423/1143 = 37% of the money.
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My conclusion is that the play was, as I initially thought significantly cEV-.

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By your numbers, -26 chips. Less than half an ante. If the bringin plays it gets worse, but this is Razz, not Stud/8. The bringin isn't going to play anything close to 5% of the time against a reraise, even if he thinks Giga is nuts. Most players will correctly fold A2 here.

[betgo]

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I found he won 30% of the time, whereas he was putting in 423/1143 = 37% of the money.
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My conclusion is that the play was, as I initially thought significantly cEV-.

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By your numbers, -26 chips. Less than half an ante. If the bringin plays it gets worse, but this is Razz, not Stud/8. The bringin isn't going to play anything close to 5% of the time against a reraise, even if he thinks Giga is nuts. Most players will correctly fold A2 here.

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His expected win is .3 * 1143 = 343 chips. He is investing 423 chips, so the expected net loss is 80 chips, assuming the bringin never plays.

[Gigabet]

I don't play razz enough to know the exact math behind individual plays, and obviously, I didn't have time to figure it out while I was at the table.

I just know that the situation itself is easy to figure out on an instinctual level. Regardless of how bad my hand matches up against your raising range, with 4 free cards, I am never going to be making a significant mistake by isolating you.

I know the bring in will never play in that spot(Almost never, I guess. He will play the few times he wakes up with a decent high hand and thinks the game is straight high stud.)

So my thinking was something like this....if I isolate, I could be giving up a very small amount in long term equity.

If I choose not to isolate, I am certain to be giving up a small amount in long term equity.

[SGspecial]

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I don't play razz enough to know the exact math behind individual plays, and obviously, I didn't have time to figure it out while I was at the table.

I just know that the situation itself is easy to figure out on an instinctual level. Regardless of how bad my hand matches up against your raising range, with 4 free cards, I am never going to be making a significant mistake by isolating you.

I know the bring in will never play in that spot(Almost never, I guess. He will play the few times he wakes up with a decent high hand and thinks the game is straight high stud.)

So my thinking was something like this....if I isolate, I could be giving up a very small amount in long term equity.

If I choose not to isolate, I am certain to be giving up a small amount in long term equity.

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How did you find your way into a HORSE tourney anyway? Betgo didn't specify if this was the final table or not. If it was, and I'm the bring in with two bike cards in the hole, I am calling 100% of the time. You guys can discuss whether this would be an expert or donkey play.

[betgo]

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I don't play razz enough to know the exact math behind individual plays, and obviously, I didn't have time to figure it out while I was at the table.

I just know that the situation itself is easy to figure out on an instinctual level. Regardless of how bad my hand matches up against your raising range, with 4 free cards, I am never going to be making a significant mistake by isolating you.

I know the bring in will never play in that spot(Almost never, I guess. He will play the few times he wakes up with a decent high hand and thinks the game is straight high stud.)

So my thinking was something like this....if I isolate, I could be giving up a very small amount in long term equity.

If I choose not to isolate, I am certain to be giving up a small amount in long term equity.

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Yeh, as I said, I thought it was a good situational play, but, as you said, you were not familiar enough with razz to realize that the math was not with you.

[Gigabet]

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The bringin probably plays like 5% of the time. The bringin should play maybe 20% of the time.

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I don't understand how you think the BI should play 20% of the pots in that spot when I am thinking that it would be incorrect for the BI to play even 5% of the time in that situation.

Is there a key Razz concept that I am missing? It doesn't seem reasonable that my judgement on how frequently the BI is to play here could be so far away from how frequently he really should be playing(I am also assuming that your numbers are correct, while mine are just "educated" guesses.)

If he is making his decision on whether to play using the strength of his hole cards as a deciding factor, then I do not understand how hands match up against each other in a fundamental manner.

Is it something along the lines of a resteal on a later street? Even if his hole cards are A2, all other As and 2s are live, so he cannot possibly think that he is ever ahead.

Because he is relatively certain that he is never ahead when he calls my raise on 3rd st, he cannot ever guarantee himself a showdown(on 4th st.) unless he improves and I brick out.

Not only do I have to brick, but I have to brick in an obvious manner. If I pair one of my hole cards, I will still bet 4th and he will still have to fold a good percentage of the time in the face of that one bet, or on 5th, when that blanks off as well.

Its pretty clear that he won't be getting nearly enough showdowns to make calling the correct play on 3rd. He should be folding to a 4th st bet nearly 50% of the time(he probably won't be folding that much, but he should be, considering that I still have enough for a bet on the big bet st...implied threat.)

He could 3-bet on 3rd st. to set up for a free card play, except that I do not have enough chips for that to work. I think that he knows I am calling all 3bets, with the intention of getting AI by 5th.

Even if I were a little deeper, 3betting 3rd still seems flawed for the BI. The pot still will not be large enough to price him into a call on 4th st the times that he bricks out on that st. 3betting doesn't even guarantee that he will be able to call when 4th goes brick brick.

So unless I am missing a key detail, there is no way that the BI "should" be playing 20% of the hands in this spot,(based on the strength of his hole cards) when it appears as if he cannot even play A2 profitably.

[betgo]

If the bringin knows you are reraising with anything (and I am obviously raising with anything), then he should call or reraise any two cards 6 or lower.

A29 versus A2J is 62-38. If the bringin has 2 wheel cards and his cards are live, he can know that he is at worst slightly behind and usually ahead of the 9. So in this situation, the bringin should play.

If the bringin has 2 cards 6 or lower, and the cards are not especially live, it is borderline, and probably a fold, not knowing how loose you were reraising.

Maybe the bringin should play about 5% of the time. In practice, some people will be intimidated by the reraise, but some may play overly loose, so I would expect the bringin does play about 5% of the time.

[Gigabet]

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How did you find your way into a HORSE tourney anyway? Betgo didn't specify if this was the final table or not. If it was, and I'm the bring in with two bike cards in the hole, I am calling 100% of the time. You guys can discuss whether this would be an expert or donkey play.

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It wasn't the final table, but if it was the final table, it would be incorrect for the BI to call with 2 bike cards in the hole. Most payout structures start doubling each spot with 3 players left. So getting to that bubble is relatively important.

If this table were set up as the final table, with a normal payout structure, the BI would have to play this situation relatively tight. While he is in a comfortable situation relative to the other players at the table, only one person has him covered and he has at least a 2 to 1 lead over the next closest to him. His situation compared to the ante blind structure is not that favorable.

He cannot put 10% of his chips in play knowing that his equity in the pot isn't even close 33%. Even if he believes he can gain a little equity by freerolling me, by betting the pot dry side, his position in the tournament isn't secure enough to put chips in the middle knowing that the situation is -cev, especially when the chips in question are a meaningful part of your stack.

Beating the all in player doesn't really help your situation, as he is very short anyway and the bubble that you will break doesn't create a significant jump in prize money.

In the unlikely scenario that you beat both players, and bust both, the money that you make will double in that individual situation, but your equity isn't going to double.

Before the hand started, your equity was approximately 20% of the prize money left, maybe a little lower, but close enough anyway. Assuming you bust both players, your equity is now approximately 30% of the prize money left.

Unfortunately, the players you busted took some of that money away, so you now have 30% of something that just decreased in value. Because neither of the players involved in the hand really stood to threaten the BIs place in the tournament, win or lose the hand, busting them for the sake of busting them just gives them the money that they were going to get anyway, just a little sooner.

Because 1st gets such a large percentage of the prize money, taking unnecessary risks at inconsequential bubbles is, well, unnecessary.

If you are the chip leader, then I would call with two bike cards, because your frequency of getting first place is not going to change by much whether you win or lose the hand.

However, for the player in question, if he loses the hand to me, his frequency of getting first place just changed dramatically. If he loses to the all in player, he is in essentially the same boat as he was before the hand, but with a few less chips(which add up to real money at this stage.)

The thing is, the 10 or 12% of the time that the BI will win the showdown against both players, his approximate value in the tournament will not increase a significant amount, simply because your situation in the tournament isn't really that much different than before.