insane push or standard?

[Todd Terry]

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I think a push is pretty good in this spot. I also vehemently disagree with people who say that calling the flop is better than raising. I mean, you have lots of equity, but like zero implied odds to calling and hitting. You have an opponent who should have a very very very narrow range, and playing very aggro on this flop is very scary to him, since you can easily have a str. or set, or 2 pair or something. I vote for good (almost mandatory) jam.

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wow i would argue to the death about a raise on the flop here being ridiculously bad. what is the purpose of it again? OP defends it with, well I'll take the pot down on the flop a lot. Can anyone else reinforce this? It seems like an extremely weak point.

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1. Villian could easily have 2 overcards (AK, AQ), in which case a raise will take down the pot. Villian's bet on the flop means nothing, he would make a c-bet here OOP against a single opponent 100% of the time.

2. A raise, like all raises do, puts pressure on your opponent and forces him to make a difficult decision. Always a plus.

3. You have a huge draw here, and should not be afraid to get all your chips in the middle on the flop, especially if you can do it first with some fold equity, which raising here allows you to do, because if you get reraised it will be for around what the reraise here actually was rather than a shove given the depth of the stacks. Big draws play much better when you can see both cards rather than playing them 1 street at a time.

4. If you always call with draws, your call becomes a signal that you have a draw, making it less likely you'll get paid off if you hit it.

[Cornell Fiji]

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D,
Here's my thought process.
1. Villain has a very very small range (like TT+/AK)
2. Board is very scary to villain (he can't have hit it, and we obv could have).
3. Even if I can't get villain to fold, I have 40% eq.

Given all that, I'm raising the flop fully intending to keep firing away. because there is just no way an overpair can stand 2-3 streets of pressure with this board. and even if he is either good enough or bad enough to not fold, I'm still going to win almost half the time.

If I call, I am very rarely getting more money out of an OP if I hit, and I'm often not going to be able to call a turn bet at all, since I have zero implied odds (I mean really, how are we getting action from an OP with a 4 straight on board) and if the turn blanks my equity basically halves.

Thats my justification.

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My last reply was written before this post.

I just want to go on record as disagreeing that we can't get value when the board comes 4568x. He has AA and there is no reason for an UTG raiser to have a 7. We can definitely value bet and keep him in. Regardless, I would rather get some but not full value when I hit than get my money in as a 60/40 dog with little fold equity (I just think that a donk would rather tell his friends about losing with AA in the WSOP than have to actually lay down his aces)

[ImOnWheels]

I think the assumption that the pot can be taken alot here with a push is shakey if you don't know your opponent. However I think I play it the same preflop and make the same raise after he leads out on the flop. His reraise reeeeally polarizes his range to big pairs..mostly being QQ+ considering the size of the PF raise. The decision then becomes can this guy lay a big pair down and you just don't know the answer to that until you come over the top again.

[Cornell Fiji]

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CF. He limped UTG.

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sdjkfhalskjdfhalskjdh.

I think MLG might be right then :-). AK is back in his range, as is AQ and mid pairs. Also its easier for us to rep suited connectors and harder to get value when we hit.

Yea... I don't mind the flop raise with the intention to 4-bet shove if need be.

[Todd Terry]

There's 11K in the pot when Temp pushes for 25K more. Assuming an overpair where he is a 60-40 dog if called:

EV(push) = 11000p + (.4(36000) - .6(25000))(1-p)

where p = probability Villian folds to a push

EV > 0 if p > .05

Which means that if the probability of Villian folding an overpair is greater than 5%, shoving is a +EV play. Which means you have to shove, because with a random player I think it's well above 50%.

[bluesbassman]

I like the raise on the flop fine, but I'm just skeptical hero has much fold equity if he pushes over the re-raise. And is 40% showdown equity sufficient to push?

Seems to me the hand went like this on the flop:

villain bets: "I raised pre-flop with a good hand, and I continue the aggression."

hero raises: "I hit that flop big. You didn't."

villain re-raises: "No, really, I probably still have the best hand. And I'm not going to let you draw out on me without risking your stack."

[Cornell Fiji]

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There's 11K in the pot when Temp pushes for 25K more. Assuming an overpair where he is a 60-40 dog if called:

EV(push) = 11000p + (.4(36000) - .6(25000))(1-p)

where p = probability Villian folds to a push

EV > 0 if p > .05

Which means that if the probability of Villian folding an overpair is greater than 5%, shoving is a +EV play. Which means you have to shove, because with a random player I think it's well above 50%.

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You should realize that while this proves that the shove is +cEV it does not prove that it is the maxEV. (Although I believe and I think every other poster so far agrees that once the flop gets 3 bet that the shove is indeed maxEV)

[Temp Hutter]

SB had AA and made the call after several minutes of contemplation. After the cards were flipped up the entire table was shocked that I did not have a set or 78 suited. But at least I had outs.

The turn came K and the river was one of my ten outs, a 3.

The SB was a favorite when he called with AA, but I am certain I would have found a fold there. Anyway, I doubled up.

[bluesbassman]

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There's 11K in the pot when Temp pushes for 25K more. Assuming an overpair where he is a 60-40 dog if called:

EV(push) = 11000p + (.4(36000) - .6(25000))(1-p)

where p = probability Villian folds to a push

EV > 0 if p > .05

Which means that if the probability of Villian folding an overpair is greater than 5%, shoving is a +EV play. Which means you have to shove, because with a random player I think it's well above 50%.

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Yes, but this assumes $EV = cEV. I understand making aggressive moves to build a big stack, but is this sufficient EV? Maybe I'm just too weak-tight.

[DLizzle]

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D,
Here's my thought process.
1. Villain has a very very small range (like TT+/AK)
2. Board is very scary to villain (he can't have hit it, and we obv could have).
3. Even if I can't get villain to fold, I have 40% eq.

Given all that, I'm raising the flop fully intending to keep firing away. because there is just no way an overpair can stand 2-3 streets of pressure with this board. and even if he is either good enough or bad enough to not fold, I'm still going to win almost half the time.

If I call, I am very rarely getting more money out of an OP if I hit, and I'm often not going to be able to call a turn bet at all, since I have zero implied odds (I mean really, how are we getting action from an OP with a 4 straight on board) and if the turn blanks my equity basically halves.

Thats my justification.

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well I'm a little closer to not hating it, but still don't like it. There are two points I wanted to make:

1. Our difference in opinion comes from the fact that you believe he will lay down a big pair enough times to make a bluff good, I don't. (edit: before anyone tells me to review the math that someone just posted about them only having to fold 5% of the time to make it good, let me reinstate that I am talking about the beginning of your bluff, the first flop raise. The push is an example of a +EV play that you had to make because you made a mistake earlier in the hand imo.) kind of funny rereading the thread because uclabruinz said this in one or two lines in the very first reply. OP did not include a read, and early in the ME it's safe to say that there is a good chance this player is not very skilled.

I hate to make generalization like this, but I mean you making a 125bb deep semibluff against an unknown with what is a big pair a huge percentage of the time, in the 2nd level of a tournament notorious for its bad play. Take that for what you will, but one thing I'm certain about is that this is far from standard and probably much closer to insane.

2. 'He has AK/AQ or whatever so we can take it down with a raise' is bad thinking. Flat calling the flop will accomplish the same thing basically. I doubt many people are firing another barrel with AK on the turn here. It's not like there is a lot of chips in there for you to take down anyway. This point is not in response to MLG though because he didn't say that, just to most other people with this opinion.


edited again to take out a point that made no sense. If anyone read before edit, I said that i didn't think a player that would 3bet a big pair on this flop would fold it to a shove very often, which didn't make sense in the context since I was talking about our first flop raise. I will say however, that though the math says he needs to fold 5% of the time, I think its closer to not a shove than people think.