suited-connectors, LP against 2 super-loose aggressive (crazy) players

[GrumpyB]

Hi, I’m a beginner, I’ve worked my way through Harrington on Hold’em books 1 and 2 and now I’m picking up experience on the micro no limit tables. I’ve been reading this forum for some time, but I haven’t spotted this question before so here’s my first post as. [Sorry – it’s a long one!]

Monday to Friday I grind away, play tight, and get a little bit ahead. Then Sunday night, the tables get invaded by super-loose, super aggressive (or maybe plain crazy) players – who call to the river with K7o and no draw on board – and I loose!

Now this isn’t a real hand; just one I’ve invented to illustrate my problem.

You’re in late position with suited connectors (87). Everyone limps, the pot grows to 0.50 and it’s 0.10 to call (as I say – I play the micros). You fancy seeing a cheap flop hoping for a straight or flush draw and the button and blinds join you to get 0.90 in the middle.

Great! Two cards on the flop match – giving you nine outs for a flush. Everyone calls until a super-loose, super aggressive player a couple of seats to your right puts in 0.30c. A probe bet – a bluff after so much weakness or checking value of a medium pair? Who cares, with nine outs and 0.30c to call the pot of 0.90c you accept. The next two limpers fold, then a limper calls sucking in a second. There’s 1.80 in the pot now when another super-loose aggressive player (SLAP) who called first time round raises to 1.00.

It gets back round to the first super-loose aggressive player who puts in the extra 0.70 (pot now = 3.50) and with nine outs [lets just assume a flush will be enough] you drop the extra 70c. There’s 4.20 in the pot and you’ll be last to act against two crazy people.

If I’ve done my sums right, there a 19% chance (9/47) that you’ll hit the flush on the turn, but four times out of five you’ll miss it. Now first SLAP calls, second SLAP raises 1.00. With good pot odds there goes another dollar (pot = 6.20). First SLAP now decides to raise to 3.00! Second SLAP calls; 11.20 in the pot so there goes another two dollars. You have now invested almost half your stack (4.10) into a pot of 13:20 hoping for a flush on the river (8/46 = 17.4%).

Now what confuses me is that even though I have gone with the pot odds at every step along the way, it still adds up to a negative expected value. Taking rough figures: 20% of the time you make the flush on the turn and win the pot of 4.20 (less 1.10 which was yours, so you’re up 3.10), 15% of the time (19% x 17.4%) you make the flush on the river and win a pot of 13.20 (4.10 of it was yours, so up 9.10). The rest of the time (65%) you lose your 4.10 stake to something like Queen high (amazing no-one hit a pair). So the EV = (0.2 x 3.10) + (0.15 x 9.10) + (0.65 x 4.10) = + 0.61 + 1.37 – 2.67 = - 0.69.

Should I just jump ship whenever these crazy super-loose, super aggressive players come on board, and find a safer table. But I’m just so convinced there must be money to be made from these folks I can’t break loose – until all my money’s gone! Should I raise aggressively instead of call? But I have seen these guys go all in pre-flop with QTo – they love the all-in rush – and won’t that just increase the losses?

[PantsOnFire]

Here are some points:

1. If you are in a multiway pot with SLAGs and you have a flush draw on the flop, just move all-in. You basically just need two callers to make that close the mathematically correct. Plus, there are some times where everybody will fold and you will win the pot right away.

2. In your example, you forget about potential money you would win with a river bet. After the turn, you can calculate how much you will need to win by betting on the river to get your EV into positive. You need to also figure the likelyhood that these player will call with three flush on the board but it sounds like these guys will most of the time. And if they have something good like a straight, three of a kind or two pair, you might win a lot more than you need to break even.

3. Playing against guys who go all-in pf with Q10 will make the game very high variance. So your swings of winning and losing will be large. You might get concerned when you are down a lot but as long as you are getting in with the best hand, you will win in the long run.

[GrumpyB]

Many thanks, sounds like great advice - but I've a slow brain so I'll have to work it though a couple of times to catch up.

Also just wanted to say thanks for spotting that I meant SLAG and not SLAP! Oops.