Home game Short-handed PL0/8 dilemma

[Phil153]

You are correct about SB not making a mistake, but as you say it's so close as to be irrelevant.

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You need to answer 4 questions and link the answers together to know what to do.
How often am I ahead? If I’m ahead, what’s my equity?
How often am I behind? If I’m behind, what’s my equity?
Worrying about monsters places undue focus on only one of those questions

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Not quite. This is only true when everyone is all in. This is closer to it:

1. How often am I ahead? If I'm ahead, what is the line on the next two streets that will make me the most profit?
2. How often am I behind? If I'm behind, what is the line on the next two streets two streets that will lose me the least money?
3. If my hand strength changes on the the next card, will I know, and how do I minimize my losses/maximize my profits?

Then you need to link those answers together to know what to do. [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]

1. When ahead: I think CO's most likely hand hand is 2 pair or a set. Given that's he's a skilled TAG, we have to think of the line that will net the most money. Pot raising here will likely cause a fold. Min raising will probably get more money in but reduce a river bet or payoff. Flat calling will miss out on $9 now but may be offset by a river payoff. On half of all rivers we'll still be holding the nuts without having tipped of the strength of our hand.

2. When behind: Sometimes CO will have the JT straight (likely with redraws), and we want to keep the pot small. Thus calling is the best option and raising could turn out to be very expensive with 180BB stacks.

3. River: If a flush, trips, or higher straight possiblity (half of all cards) comes on the river and we're bet into, the lack of information is likely to cause mistakes. This factors in to lower our "effective" equity somewhat. Raising the turn is favored here as it will define hands better and intimidate opponents making river bets more readable.

SB: If SB has a draw, we want to charge him. If he has a weak hand like 2 pair or a lower set (or if he shares a flush/straight draw with CO), having him call anything is preferable to a fold. This is a question of the frequency of SB's hands and his propensity to call. I lean towards flat calling to keep him in. This is because a) if he has a weaker hand, we may make more money on the turn and river and b)The E.V. of him calling a draw is neutral anyway and c)we're not making money out of CO anyway on scary rivers, so having SB catch his draw shouldn't have negative implied odds.


So I don't know gergery. After going through all of this I think min raising might be the best option after all as: it gets money in when we have a likely equity edge; makes potential profit from SB's possible draw - assuming he is on a good draw; and makes our river decisions easier by intimidating opponents.

This all depends on how strongly we read CO for JT and how willing SB is to take the worst of it. It's certainly close.

[Godfather80]

Thanks for discussing this hand. I've learned a great deal. Both the SB and CO folded in the actual hand. Interestingly, the CO folded J[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img]T[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img]5[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img]5[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img]. Note that CO had a better redraw than I did when he folded.

When we talked about it after the game, he said that I was one of the few players he could make this laydown to. His reasoning was that he knew I had JT but felt that I also needed to have a good redraw in order to raise over him like I did. CO was scared that I would have a higher club flush redraw than he had and therefore he would be drawing worse than dead.

When I told him what I had, he was unhappy with the way I had played it, but he could NOT come up with a better line when put in my shoes. He said it should have been clearer to me that he also had JT. In the end he's probably right, but the presence of a loose SB made this a difficult read.

Thanks again.

[Phil153]

Godfather - it looks like the suits are incorrect in the OP. You say in your second post that you "don't want to see 7 clubs, 9 hearts," etc. Now you say that CO had better redraws. Was there a club missing in the OP?

[Godfather80]

[ QUOTE ]
Godfather - it looks like the suits are incorrect in the OP. You say in your second post that you "don't want to see 7 clubs, 9 hearts," etc. Now you say that CO had better redraws. Was there a club missing in the OP?

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You are absolutely right. I'm sorry. Stupid home game with no hand histories. The Queen on the flop was a club. The king of clubs makes me a boat, so I don't mind seeing that. And the J of clubs is in my hand. That makes 7 clubs I don't want to see (assuming CO has 2).

[Phil153]

My apologies too, should have picked that up earlier. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

In this case I think you should just call the turn - given the depth of your stacks and your read on CO. The extra flush draw adds so many combinations that you're in trouble vs a lot of hands. It's also far less likely that CO would make this play with naked top two or set. If you raise here you'll sometimes be reraised, and end up taking the worst of it with a deep stack. Other times you'll be facing tough river decisions after putting quite a bit of money in.

Best line is to call the turn, keep the pot small and bet a safe river IMO.

[gergery]

You raise fair points.

In general tho, I think you’re thinking too much about your hand, and not enough about what he thinks about his hand and what he thinks about your hand. And not fully considering stack size and position. I stand by raising in this instance. And FWIW, in general if it’s a close decision aggression is my preferred default.

-g