Good High Hand from Small Blind facing a Raise

[ericicecream]

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For this month’s on-line magazine article, I came up with a simple point count system to estimate whether or not Hero should see the flop with a particular starting hand.

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Wow, Buzz...that's a fantastic article! Thanks for sharing your insight.

[getfunky]

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Mark Tenner and Lou Krieger, both surely better poker players than I am, advise in their book, “play any hand totaling 40 points or more” – and KQQT is a forty point hand, even though it’s a rainbow.

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Since you brought up this book I have follow up question to it. With a good high hand, they advise sometimes raising many limpers or even reraising when there's been a raise and many callers, deducing that the deck is rich in high cards. Then they say it's easy to get away from the flop.. huh? You 3-bet a multiway pot, now the pot's quite large and your supposed to get away from a mediocre flop like 2 pair vs a flop with a flush draw and a baby on board? I guess I favor keeping the pot small and looking for great flop otherwise taking an early exit. It seemed inconsistent because in other places they advise against the weakness of high draws and sets - but to me when the pot becomes large, you shouldn't be making many borderline folds. Wouldn't the pot size dictate looser calls, especially on the flop.

[TMTTR]

It is unfortunate that I don't have the time, energy or wisdom to do the math as Buzz has, but here is my additional reasoning for calling with this kind of hand from a blind and when I am fairly confident that I won't be raised again:

This hand is easy to get away from. Far easiers than getting away from hands that become mediocre two-way hands (e.g., (AT)36) that always seems to have some potential on the flop.


With this kind of high only hand, it is easy to fold a flop that does not fit your hand. Assuming that Buzz is right and we get a flop fit about 23% of the time, I will only be putting more money into the pot 23% of the time -- and much of the time I put that money in I will be doing it when I am significantly ahead or have substantial implied odds...

[Niediam]

Buzz,

You have given us a good reason not to RAISE the hand preflop... but you cannot tell if the hand is +/-EV without knowing an approximation of how many bets you will win on average when a favorable flop falls.

[Habib Marwan]

i think you owned me pretty hard.. thanks

[Buzz]

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With a good high hand, they advise sometimes raising many limpers or even reraising when there's been a raise and many callers, deducing that the deck is rich in high cards.

[/ QUOTE ]Get Funky – Depends on the individual players, of course, but it probably is generally true that the deck is rich in high and middle cards when there are more participants than usual. Thus it does make some sense to raise with a good high card only hand, especially if your opponents expect you to have some other type of hand when you raise. This particular hand, however, does not qualify as “good” in my humble opinion.

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to me when the pot becomes large, you shouldn't be making many borderline folds.

[/ QUOTE ]That seems good sense to me. [ QUOTE ]
Wouldn't the pot size dictate looser calls, especially on the flop.

[/ QUOTE ]I wouldn’t phrase it exactly like that, but yes, if you’re getting better implied pot odds, I agree you should be more likely to call. When you think the pot size will become large if you connect with the flop, you should be more prone to call than when it looks like the pot size will be small.

Compare what you estimate you will win at the showdown with what you estimate you will lose henceforth, starting from when you make the comparison. (As I am using the word, “compare” means “divide”). Sometimes it’s not easy to make those estimations, because unless you have peeked, you never know for certain what cards your opponents hold, and unless you’re in last position, you don’t know how many of them will continue on the current betting round, let alone future betting rounds. And if they do continue, you don’t know for certain whether or not they’ll check/fold, check/call, raise or re-raise on a later betting round.

You’re in the small blind and will have to act first henceforth. You get a discount on your first bet, but then you’re out of position the whole rest of the hand. Depends on who your opponents are, of course, but strong poker players can put a lot of pressure on you after you check. At a tough table, you’ll often be looking at a double bet when it gets back around to you. The disadvantage of acting first is more subtle in limit-Omaha-8 than in Texas hold ‘em, because when everybody has four cards, somebody is more likely to have more of a match with the board. But unless you have a pretty good match with the board yourself, it’s tough to take the heat, whether your opponents are being too liberal with their bets and raises or not.

I believe you played correctly when you folded this hand to a raise in the small blind.

Buzz

[Buzz]

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With this kind of high only hand, it is easy to fold a flop that does not fit your hand.

[/ QUOTE ] TMTTR – What constitutes a flop fit? (rhetorical). I have a fairly clear idea in my own mind and I imagine you probably also do. However, I’m not sure to what extent we agree.

For example, I know people who would continue with KQQTo after a flop of 9[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img],9[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img],8[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] hoping, I suppose, for either (1) a queen plus anything but a nine or ace, or (2) a non-club jack plus another non-club. Maybe their thinking is neither that detailed nor that far ahead.

Maybe they’re just hoping the turn will be a queen or a jack – and that if it isn’t, they still have a chance at a queen or jack on the river. But then when they miss (741 to 249 against or roughly 3 to 1 against) they’re looking a two pairs (queens over nines) and wondering if they should call a bet on the river or not.

If I got there, I’d be wondering too. The trick, in my humble opinion, is to avoid those difficult decisions.

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Assuming that Buzz is right and we get a flop fit about 23% of the time,

[/ QUOTE ]Well… I believe about one time out of four is what it is for me, but you might have a different idea of what flops are playable with this hand. [ QUOTE ]
I will only be putting more money into the pot 23% of the time

[/ QUOTE ]In other words, from the small blind, you’re losing what it costs you to complete the small blind + call the raise 77% of the time [ QUOTE ]
-- and much of the time I put that money in I will be doing it when I am significantly ahead or have substantial implied odds...

[/ QUOTE ] You won’t be significantly ahead very much. Less than 5% of all possible flops make (1) straights or better, or (2) three of a kind plus a decent straight draw.

Out of the 4078 flops I thought might be playable for me, 3312, or about four out of five are (1) a bare trips with no straight or straight draw, (2) a bare kings over tens two pairs, or (3) a bare straight draw. Category (2) flops and some category (3) flops are rather skimpy.

Only about one per cent of possible flops are really great for Hero, and I’d say maybe about half of the 4078 flops I called favorable are already on the skimpy side. Depends on what we mean by skimpy.

We can extend the number of flops Hero will play above 4078/17296, but if we do, they get even skimpier.

I suspect TQQK-rainbow may be very playable in high-only-Omaha, especially if the game is pot-limit-high-only-Omaha. Maybe it’s also playable in pot-limit-Omaha-8. I don’t know.

There are many high-card-only hands that are playable in limit Omaha-8. However, in my humble opinion, KQQTo is not one of them.

Buzz

[Buzz]

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you cannot tell if the hand is +/-EV without knowing an approximation of how many bets you will win on average when a favorable flop falls.

[/ QUOTE ]Niediam – Agreed. In this situation, there have been two limpers and a pre-flop raise with BB yet to act behind Hero. Assuming BB calls the raise, Hero will have four opponents who each will have contributed $6 to the pot, and it will cost Hero $5 more to see the flop. I don’t think the dollar discount amounts to very much after there’s a raise. But I’ll concede whether to fold this hand (or any hand) before the flop depends on Hero’s opponents. Hero stands to make a bunch of bucks when he connects and his opponents chase along with losing hands.

Are all these guys going to stupidly hang in there when the flop is more favorable to Hero than to them? I suppose it’s possible. However, I think it’s more likely that opponents on the $3/$6 level who know the game will continue with a flop fit and fold without one.

I can come up with scenarios where Hero makes money with this hand. If Hero plays poker well enough relative to his opponents after the flop, Hero can make money with this hand. I don’t think I could make money with this hand against a table of opponents as skilled as I am, but maybe Mark Tanner could, and maybe you could too.

Buzz

[niss]

While I agree that you can get away from a missed flop easily, I don't think it's one of those situations where a miss = lose the least, while a hit = win the most. A flop that hits this hand may be more likely to get no action.

[driller]

The odds of flopping a set or better (with one pair) are slightly better than flopping a set with a pp in holdem. The odds against flopping a set or better in holdem with a pocket pair are 7.5:1.

I'm fairly new to o8 and even though I'm a slight winner, it could very easily be due to luck instead of skill. At first I used Tenner and Krieger's starting hand recommendations, but lately I've been looking for ways to reduce my VP$IP. Hopefully your point count will help me do that until I can improve my post flop play.