Typical spot and a quiz

[soah]

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why? what would you have done? 88 is the best hand here fairly often and it looks like a lot of people would be folding some better hands to a push... I'd rather fold pf than to fold on a relatively safe board like this one... and calling isn't all that great either when you have cards to dodge and aren't 100% sure which ones they are, nor do you know anything about your opponent's bluffing frequency on the turn.

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um calling is infinitely better. your argument is calling leads to tougher decisions so his play is reasonable - thats stupid.

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thanks for putting words in my mouth, but that actually is not at all what I said

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maybe not, but what he's getting at is that the hand is not so difficult to play on the turn and river that you can't play it profitably

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it's not a matter of difficulty, it's a matter of letting him see the turn in a huge pot when he has outs... suppose he has some smaller pair, that gives him two legitimate outs but he can also bluff at an ace or king... and when an ace or king comes your equity vs his range is tiny and you have to fold, so that basically gives him 10 outs to work with. Given that you don't know his tendencies at all, there is no plan you can make which isn't going to involve you sometimes folding the winner or sometimes getting the rest of your money in while crushed... even if the decisions you make are pretty good, they have to be good enough to overcome the ev you give up by risking being outdrawn.

[Josh.]

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why? what would you have done? 88 is the best hand here fairly often and it looks like a lot of people would be folding some better hands to a push... I'd rather fold pf than to fold on a relatively safe board like this one... and calling isn't all that great either when you have cards to dodge and aren't 100% sure which ones they are, nor do you know anything about your opponent's bluffing frequency on the turn.

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um calling is infinitely better. your argument is calling leads to tougher decisions so his play is reasonable - thats stupid.

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thanks for putting words in my mouth, but that actually is not at all what I said

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maybe not, but what he's getting at is that the hand is not so difficult to play on the turn and river that you can't play it profitably

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it's not a matter of difficulty, it's a matter of letting him see the turn in a huge pot when he has outs... suppose he has some smaller pair, that gives him two legitimate outs but he can also bluff at an ace or king... and when an ace or king comes your equity vs his range is tiny and you have to fold, so that basically gives him 10 outs to work with. Given that you don't know his tendencies at all, there is no plan you can make which isn't going to involve you sometimes folding the winner or sometimes getting the rest of your money in while crushed... even if the decisions you make are pretty good, they have to be good enough to overcome the ev you give up by risking being outdrawn.

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f you're saying he'll bluff 10 cards but check 36 of them, then that sounds like a pretty compelling reason to call and not shove

[soah]

after you call the flop, what's your plan for the rest of the hand? what cards do you call a push on, what do you do if he checks to you?

[Josh.]

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after you call the flop, what's your plan for the rest of the hand? what cards do you call a push on, what do you do if he checks to you?

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i probably fold a lot. if i turn a draw ill usually call or shove. but i think he checks a lot

[0evg0]

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after you call the flop, what's your plan for the rest of the hand? what cards do you call a push on, what do you do if he checks to you?

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i probably fold a lot. if i turn a draw ill usually call or shove. but i think he checks a lot

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what other hands are you coldcalling the flop lead with?

seems like you are turning your hand face up when you do this and begging villain to 2-barrel since the only plausible hands you could be coldcalling are sets/T9/AK? and of course you're doing that not even like 50% of the time (or at least shouldnt be doing it anywhere near 50% of the time)

[Josh.]

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after you call the flop, what's your plan for the rest of the hand? what cards do you call a push on, what do you do if he checks to you?

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i probably fold a lot. if i turn a draw ill usually call or shove. but i think he checks a lot

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what other hands are you coldcalling the flop lead with?

seems like you are turning your hand face up when you do this and begging villain to 2-barrel since the only plausible hands you could be coldcalling are sets/T9/AK? and of course you're doing that not even like 50% of the time (or at least shouldnt be doing it anywhere near 50% of the time)

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who says i can't have AA, KK, QQ, JJ?

[soah]

there's ~$1400 in the pot after we call... assuming he has two overcards, he has 27% equity... which is nearly $400 in equity. So if we KNOW that's what he has and both players play "perfect" on the remaining streets, then calling instead of pushing costs us almost $400... even if he has something with fewer outs, he can still bluff at those cards... if you factor in things like him improving to a flush draw and shoving turn, or just randomly deciding to bluff for whatever reason, we could end up losing this pot in one form or another at least 1/3 of the time... so calling instead of pushing when we're ahead could be as much as $500 worse on average.

If we're behind on the flop, then shoving it in and getting called loses us about $1300 on average (~10% equity saves us $400)... if we call and call all-in on the turn when we hit an 8 and fold otherwise, then our EV is about -$330 (this is assuming you're against a range of 99+ and ATs, btw)

So basically if I did all the math right, then calling is $500 worse than pushing if you're ahead, and pushing is $1000 worse than calling if behind.... which means that if we're ahead 2/3 of the time on the flop, then it doesn't matter which line we take. In order to be ahead 2/3 of the time we'd need to be against a range of something like 22+, 54s+, AJo+, A8s+, KQs (13% of total starting hands). This might be a little too loose... but not too far off.

this also doesn't take into account some stuff like how half the people responding to this poll would fold a T or 9 to a push, and obviously the assumptions about how often you get bluffed out are just rough guesses... but the point is that I don't see how pushing can be called ridiculous or terrible, at worst it's a small mistake imo, none of the options are really that great.

[Josh.]

i don't know. maybe you're right. i'll try to run my own math later and i'll see if we agree. also, check pm

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there's ~$1400 in the pot after we call... assuming he has two overcards, he has 27% equity... which is nearly $400 in equity. So if we KNOW that's what he has and both players play "perfect" on the remaining streets, then calling instead of pushing costs us almost $400... even if he has something with fewer outs, he can still bluff at those cards... if you factor in things like him improving to a flush draw and shoving turn, or just randomly deciding to bluff for whatever reason, we could end up losing this pot in one form or another at least 1/3 of the time... so calling instead of pushing when we're ahead could be as much as $500 worse on average.

If we're behind on the flop, then shoving it in and getting called loses us about $1300 on average (~10% equity saves us $400)... if we call and call all-in on the turn when we hit an 8 and fold otherwise, then our EV is about -$330 (this is assuming you're against a range of 99+ and ATs, btw)

So basically if I did all the math right, then calling is $500 worse than pushing if you're ahead, and pushing is $1000 worse than calling if behind.... which means that if we're ahead 2/3 of the time on the flop, then it doesn't matter which line we take. In order to be ahead 2/3 of the time we'd need to be against a range of something like 22+, 54s+, AJo+, A8s+, KQs (13% of total starting hands). This might be a little too loose... but not too far off.

this also doesn't take into account some stuff like how half the people responding to this poll would fold a T or 9 to a push, and obviously the assumptions about how often you get bluffed out are just rough guesses... but the point is that I don't see how pushing can be called ridiculous or terrible, at worst it's a small mistake imo, none of the options are really that great.

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Maybe the math is sound, but is your logic right?

Villain will probably fold all worse made hands than 88, so if you are called, the made-hand-value of your 88 is worthless... If opponent folds to your shove, the made-hand-value of your 88 is worthless too. So if you shove 88, you're effectively bluffing without many outs.

So you'd rather shove a hand with some equity, like AK, than 88. In your range are a lot hands like AK KQ, so there's no reason at all to bluff with 88.

Just call, use your position, try to see a cheap showdown. Don't be afraid to let your opponent bluff you once in a while; that's poker!

[Albert Moulton]

2.1:1 pot odds if you call.

You need 32.2% equity to call with +EV.

If villain has a range as narrow as TT-AA,AK here, then all three are a call since all three options have ~40% equity.

Qh9h has 43.8% equity.

JhJd has 39.8% equity.

JdTd has 43.5% equity.

I'm surprised the poll folds Q9s so much when it has a slightly higher equity vs TT-AA,AK.

But, if that is villain's likely range, then all three are a call given the pot odds.