Apathy style theory question - raise or fold to donkbet?

[.KeviN.]

If it has to be one choice every single time it regardless of everything, I'm thinking the right choice is to raise because....

1) Some of those times we could have a good hand or even a monster
2) Some of those times we could have any number of outs to improve
3) Some of those times we can just take down the pot with our raise
4) Some of those times (if we are allowed to actually think now on the turn) we can take it down with a dbl barrel
5) Some of those times we can just shut down after the flop call.

I dont see how folding every single time, regardless of what we have (even the good hands) can ever be a winning play.

If the players catch on to what I'm doing, and I HAVE to stick to this strategy I'm just gonna switch tables and try my luck somewhere else.

[ama0330]

My 25nl/50nl answer is turbofold. So many times they just overcall the raise. If nothing else this is just UBER tilt inducing.

Example hand: You have mid pair decent kicker. Villain donks, you raise, he overcalls, and goes LALALA CHECK-CALL CHECK-CALL ALL THE WAY HOME with tpnk.

I would only raise here if I was doing so for value, and only if I would feel pretty okay with committing to the hand.

[misterwigs]

I have nothing to add to the discussion (I like raise) but I wanted to see if I could resuscitate this thread and hear a bit more from Grunch.

[Barrin6]

I like to have a coin by my side and each time this situation comes up, I flip the coin

tails=raise
heads=fold

[bilbo-san]

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I'm saying that raising *should be* less -EV than folding.

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Folding can't have a negative expectation. Ever. The EV of folding is always zero.

[ikestoys]

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I'm saying that raising *should be* less -EV than folding.

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Folding can't have a negative expectation. Ever. The EV of folding is always zero.

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Unless you have money invested already, which you obviously do already. So your ev of folding is -4.5BB

[Grunch]

I'm sorry everyone, I neglected this thread. Got swamped at work after I posted this, couldn't post for like a week, and forgot all about it. Next time something like this happens feel free to PM or AIM me.

PBJaxx was right -- the point here isn't whether or not one of these actions is good and the other one is bad. Clearly, if you do the same thing 100% of the time without regard to your opponent, your cards, stacks, the board texture or the position of Mercury, you are playing terribly.

The point is just to think about this. There was a lot of speculation as to "if my opponent is tag, I do X, if he is a donk, I do Y," and that also wasn't exactly the point. Although it does speak directly to the point, which I will not tease you with any longer. The thing that I was trying to get people to think about was typical betting tendancies. What does a 1/2 PBS donk bet typically mean? We don't see these very often, but they are conspicious. They happen often enough that it's a good idea to think about what is happening, so we know how to react. Other major considerations are the fact that the pot is raised (by us, no less), the opponent limp-called PF as opposed to coldcalled, and we have position thru the whole hand. Given all these things, what can we discern about our opponents holdings, how much he likes them, and what kind of fold equity we have or need?

On a bigger level, figuring out the meaning of this bet also shines a brighter light in to the mind of our opponents. And this really must be our ultimate goal; to know our opponent. Once we can know our opponent, he can never beat us. The rest is just bell curves and patience.

My answer to my own question would be to raise 100% of the time. And in fact, in practice I raise close to 100% of the time in the real world. Why? Because in my observation nobody 1/2 donks with a hand they love -- at least, they dont love it yet. There are 2 main categories of hands that make this bet: draws and marginal made hands like underpairs. In both cases the key to us selecting the most +EV hand (assuming we have nothing, which is true 65% of the time) is understanding our fold equity in these spots.

There's a very important subcategory within marginal made hands that we have to pay special attention to: Naked Aces. Considering that the oppponent limp-called preflop, the chances that he has this hand are greatly increased. In fact, when someone limp-calls OOP preflop, my range for them is instantly weighted heavily toward a weak Ace. There's something unique about marginal Aces in the universe of marginal made hands. Opponents of all ilks just love them. At least, they hate to fold them. No matter who you're talking about -- calling stations, nits and TAG sharks -- if they came in to this pot by limp-calling a naked Ace and they hit an Ace on the flop, you'll need the jaws of life to pry them out of the pot. This is where board texture plays a critical role. If I get a limp-caller and an Ace comes, I'm just done unless I myself can beat a weak Ace. It's just not worth it. I know this goes indirectly against something in this month's magazine, but that's the way it is.

Now assuming the opponent doesnt love his hand, there must be some balance of action we can take which will convince him that we weren't screwing around preflop. Of course folding won't convince him of that, but if you selected fold 100% then you either averse to variance or you dont think we have fold equity.

If you're averse to variance, I say to you this: variance is the fuel in a gambler's fire. You need to learn to love it, or at least develop a healthy respect for it if you are going to win the maximum in this game.

If you don't think we have fold equity, I say to you this: You actually might be right. One of the big reasons I posted this thread was to get a wide population of opinion as to whether the opponent here generally has a strong or weak hand. I'm of the opinion that this is a marginal hand or a draw, but I could well be wrong. I wanted to hear some more thoughts on this.

[Grunch]

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Folding can't have a negative expectation. Ever. The EV of folding is always zero.

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Unless you have money invested already, which you obviously do already. So your ev of folding is -4.5BB

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This is a common misconception, and one that's hard to shake. Folding has an expectation of zero. It's not negative, because once you put money in to the pot, it's not longer your money. It belongs to the pot.

Like a calculus student trying to learn derivatives for the first time, this can be difficult to swallow. Look at it this way. Your actions preflop when you put the money in the pot had an expectation. If you now try to assign an expectation based on the money you put in earlier streets, you're double-dipping, EV-wise.

[Grunch]

Here's another way to think about it. If you fold, your stack doesn't get smaller. You don't lose 4.5 BBs by folding. Those 4.5 BBs aren't yours to lose.

[FishSticks]

Grunch - good post, especially the naked ace stuff.

I do feel this is very situational and board/opponent specific, but in general I think that if it's a bad player who kind of likes a marginal hand and he's just telegraphing his hand strength, it might be unwise to overestimate our FE (he IS bad in the first place after all).

The bet/3bet mantra has been driven into plenty of set miners, so if villain is more taggy/reasonable, bluffraising can be bad too - ESPECIALLY given that if we just call it's unlikely these kind of guys are going to fire multiple barrels with a pocket pair they decided to stab with one time hoping to push out whiffed overs. Obv. in your post it was raise or fold only, but I think it's worth mentioning.

If the villain is laggy/spewy and just stabs at tons of pots and will limp/call a far wider range than pocket pairs and suited aces (you know those 40/5/2 kind of guys), then bluffraising seems like a solid move.