Razz - Thin value bets on 6th and 7th

[Praxising]

[ QUOTE ]
i know other posters have said this, but RAISE THIRD. villain could have anything given his position and by just calling he gets the chance to outflop you on fourth.


[/ QUOTE ]Why would raising deny villain the chance to outflop the OP? Do we think he might fold? I like the limp for disguising the hand, and varying play. And, if raised, it actually makes the 4th street call correct. NH, roggles.

[Merton0806]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
2. he will call on fourth when you catch good and him bad (given the fact there was only a single raise on third)

therefore by just calling third you enable him to make a mistake on fourth ( which actually happens in this hand).

[/ QUOTE ]

Do I hear an echo?

[/ QUOTE ]

gutted. must have typed out our posts at the same time.

[Merton0806]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
i know other posters have said this, but RAISE THIRD. villain could have anything given his position and by just calling he gets the chance to outflop you on fourth.


[/ QUOTE ]Why would raising deny villain the chance to outflop the OP? Do we think he might fold? I like the limp for disguising the hand, and varying play. And, if raised, it actully makes the 4th street call correct. NH, roggles.

[/ QUOTE ]

say villain raised with kq4 and catches a 5 on 4th
whilst we called with our 346 and catch a j o 4th. he bets and we fold. tell me, is folding correct in this spot?

[Praxising]

[ QUOTE ]
say villain raised with kq4 and catches a 5 on 4th whilst we called with our 346 and catch a j o 4th. he bets and we fold. tell me, is folding correct in this spot?

[/ QUOTE ]I'm not much of a fan of the theory that there are "correct" or "incorrect" moves in poker. I see where you are with this hypothetical. You can also set up a hypothetical in which raising gave villain the odds for a "correct" call if he bricked 4th and then goes on to win the hand. Even Sklansky doesn't suggest always raising 3rd, after all, and on this short board the chance that villain has a brick in the hole is higher than normal.

I'd call a brick in this case, the OP might, also. See, I can take that raise I saved myself on third and just apply it here. Then he thinks I'm weak and playing "incorrectly." All good things for getting him to come along when he should fold.

[RustyBrooks]

Actually I think Sklansky does always recommend raising a person in steal position if you have a 3 card hand.

"When you are in a situation where somebody else is raising andmay be trying to steal the ante and you find yourself with any kind of playable 3 card hand, such as a 3-card-8, it is imperative that you re-raise him so that so that he does not have 2 different ways of winning the pot [...]"

There's more but I leave it to you to read the rest. It's on page 107 in my edition, 2nd page of Third Street Play.

Beyond the immediate considerations for the hand, there is an important meta-game consideration. Re-raising this guy shows that you'll play back at him and he'll think twice about stealing, and will instead start value-raising there with real 3 card hands and throwing away his worst hands.

Some people steal so rarely that taking a raise line as a defense is a bad idea, however, heads up, with the worst 8, you are not much of a dog to his best possible hand (you're a 60:40 dog vs A23) so the times that your opponent actually has a legitimate hand, you are not taking much the worst of it.

This is a fact that seems to surprise a lot of people. Heads up any playable 3 card hand has about the same chances on 3rd st, disregarding dead card (which can change things considerable. If you have 678 and there are two 8s and a 6 on the board, guess what, it's now nearly 50:50). People act like A25 is the nuts vs xx8 but it just ain't, on 3rd.

Now, that A25 is probably going to be much easier to play on later streets. You'll have better chances at drawing, you'll draw to stronger hands, you'll know where you're at vs the 8 and he'll be guessing, etc, etc. This is a common occurrence in poker, where the hot-and-cold equity indicates that 2 hands are of equal strength but one is much easier to play than the other. A classic example is AK vs 22

[Praxising]

[ QUOTE ]
Actually I think Sklansky does always recommend raising a person in steal position if you have a 3 card hand.


[/ QUOTE ]I haven't looked up your quote, but presuming this is a steal on a five-player board is, to me, an unwarranted assumption.

[RustyBrooks]

He doesn't say "the player definitely needs to be stealing". It actualys says "if your opponent MAY be stealing". As the only remaining low card on the board except you, this is a steal kind of a lot. In fact there is only about a 20% chance he has a 3 card 8, and if he doesn't, he'll probably bet often anyway.

[SGspecial]

[ QUOTE ]
I'm not much of a fan of the theory that there are "correct" or "incorrect" moves in poker. I see where you are with this hypothetical. You can also set up a hypothetical in which raising gave villain the odds for a "correct" call if he bricked 4th and then goes on to win the hand. Even Sklansky doesn't suggest always raising 3rd, after all, and on this short board the chance that villain has a brick in the hole is higher than normal.

[/ QUOTE ]
It's understandable that you would chafe at the terms "correct" and "incorrect" for plays in a poker game, because that implies a concrete definition of right and wrong, which may not always be true. They really mean "+EV" and "-EV" but saying "correct" and "incorrect" instead is just part of poker-speak at this point, so I would try to get used to it. If you're at least a decent player and a villain completes 3rd st. in a position they would likely steal from, then the more +EV play is to raise them. It won't work out better every time, but what play does?

This brings up another interesting point about the suggestion that by manipulating the pot size and keeping it small, hero can profit by the villain's mistake if villain will call 4th st when the cards break badly for him. While it is often an incorrect call (-EV) for the villain without proper pot odds, it represents a very small amount of +EV for the hero. If the hero can gain more information on 3rd st by raising, or can induce the villain to make bigger mistakes on later streets, hero may gain a LARGER EV by raising even if it prevents the villain from making one kind of "incorrect" play on 4th st.

[RustyBrooks]

Also, villain only gets to make the calling mistake if he actually has a hand. If he bricks 4th and had no hand on 4th, he will not make the calling mistake. So if villain steals much at all in cases like this, you are not really introducing many chances for him to make a mistake. I think I've put that poorly, but maybe you see what I mean.

[adanthar]

I'm convinced that "calling third instead of raising so that people can make a mistake and call fourth with a brick" is the most misunderstood concept in razz at this point.

Here's some really basic math: In this particular hand, there are 2.3 SB in the pot when the action is on hero on 3'rd. You have two options:

1)put in 2 bets and then both almost always see fifth
2)put in 1 bet and then see fourth with the best hand

If you just call third, on fourth, there are four outcomes - you brick/he doesn't, he bricks/you don't, both do, neither do. So, by calling third as a 2:1 favorite on average or whatever you are, you've already said "my skill edge is so huge that I'm not only passing up winning an extra 1/3 SB in Sklansky bucks right now, I'm also gonna fold (quite possibly the best hand and certainly one with lots of equity) 1 in 4 times, giving up ~2 SB in Sklansky bucks when I do." The same thing happens when you both brick fourth and he catches much better on fifth, so you can toss some more equity out the window there too.

In other words, every time you do this, you hand the villain a small bet out of your pocket in a limit game where, if you're really good, you might average that much over 25 hands.

Meanwhile, the same guy who thinks he has such a huge edge on his opponent here is also asking whether a bet with a made 7 into a guy who wa clearly drawing/will always call with an 8 and even some nines is thin.