Play a Hand With the Masters #1 River

[Taraz]

I think a lot of us are forgetting that CO open limped preflop. Is he really gonna do that with KT or QJ? Or QT or T9 or some other two pair hand? I just can't see him entering this pot without trying to steal with those hands.

I think that a set is probably the most likely holding for our villain. His check on the river is a little strange. But it could be to induce a bluff as Beef said.

So in my mind, the question is will he fold a set here? It would really depend on a more concrete read that the CO "has been playing pretty tight" and what our image is. I would think that at this big of a tournament with so many chips that the CO would be able to lay this down, so I would probably push. On party, this would be a definite check in my mind however.

[CardSharpCook]

I don't get this logic - "he limped in CO, so he must have a monster." Players often limp here hoping to steal the blinds simply by betting the flop after no one raises PF. KT, JT, Q9, are precisely the type of hands that limp here.

[AtticusFinch]

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Aside: A good 2+2-er that I have talked with before has a theory that when someone's hand range is small for a given situation... the chance that they are bluffing goes way up. It relates to Bayes' Theorem and I don't feel like explaining it right now. And sure enough, it applies here.


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Good point, and I think you are right. What is Bayes' theorem? I hear it mentioned all the time, but I haven't studied it in.... 8 years.

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This is a fantastic point, and deserves further discussion. Bayes' Theorem, stated as simply as I can, says that when there is a limited set of possible explanations for an event (call them E1, E2, . . . En), then the probability of any one (Ei) of them being true is:

Ei/(E1 + E2 . . . + En)

It's best understood by example. Sklansky's discussion from TOP is a good one. Say you have a horse race with 10 horses, only 3 of which were mares (Let's say horses 1, 2, and 3). Let's say you know that a mare won, but not which. We know horse 2 is a mare. What is the chance horse 2 won?

Normally the answer is 1/10, but we have more information, now: we know a mare won. There are 3 possible explanations for a mare winning: Horse 1 won, horse 2 won, or horse 3. So the probability that horse 2 won is:

.1/(.1 + .1 + .1) = 1/3

This idea may seem obvious from this example, but its application is not always intuitive. Let's look at the case before us.

Say your initial range for opponent inclues 50 hands. You eventually narrow the range down to 5 hands. Let's further accept as true Harrington's postulate that any opponent bluffs at least 10% of the time. For the tight opponent in this problem, we'll say it's exactly 10%.

So now you have 6 possible explanations. Your 5-hand range, and a bluff. From your initial range of 50 hands, the 5 hands each has a probability of .02. The odds of a total bluff now are: .1/((.02 * 5) + .1) = 50%!

This is assuming your range is perfect, and it might be better to analyze this just one street at a time, as opposed to between PF and the final river decision. But the point is, this is a very powerful idea that merits further investigation.

Hope this helps.

Edit: I'm not sure if it's appropriate to use Harrington's 10% estimate in this manner, and I'm going on 3 hours of sleep. Don't worry so much about the above figure for now, it's the concept that's important. I'll firm up the math when I'm more coherent.



-AF

[Sluss]

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I don't get this logic - "he limped in CO, so he must have a monster."

[/ QUOTE ] This is the argument I had on the turn. Too many people were convinced he had a monster.

The problem on the river is how little FE we have. He doesn't need a monster here to call. If he thought he was ahead on the turn we are not talking him out of it on the river for only 7000 more. He is calling with a set, top pair, two pair, or a straight. I guess he might muck J10 or K10(if he even has these holdings), but not always. I think we get a fold so few times here we are just stuck fighting for another day.

[tpir]

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The odds of a total bluff now are: .1/((.02 * 5) + .1) = 50%!

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This is the idea... and it's not even that people do it intentionally... they simply bluff intuitively with some percentage but rarely adjust it properly to match the range of hands they wind up with in a situation. The horse analogy was a great one.

Sorry to thread hi-jack, but I do think it's interesting. I will PM the person who pointed out this concept to me and see if he wants to a) chime in b) start a new thread about it c) kill me for mentioning it in the first place [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

-tpir

[SossMan]

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Also, is Sossman going to give his take on how he played the hand, his thought processes, and how he would have liked to play it differently if there is a way?

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yes...at the end of this murder scene.

[EverettKings]

Are there any hands that the villain could play this way that you think he played properly? I personally don't love his line no matter what he has. Most likely he got caught in a funny spot with QJ or KQ, but doesn't appear to have set out a real plan in his mind. I figure the hands that he auto-folds (whiffed clubs, J9, etc) offset the hands that he auto-calls (funnily played T9 or KJ), so it's really this medium range that concerns us.

So... what it comes down to is: will he release these hands? Part of the problem is that I don't think even he knows for sure.

I had a hard time deciding on an answer for that, but then I remember that he only has to fold this what, 40% of the time? Our line is pretty strong, and the turn raise size was perfect in that it 1) looked like an honest raise for value, and 2) left us with enough ammo to fire a significant barrel on the river. So now I've jumped camps, and I figure let's light up our last shell and see if we can't blast Mr. Marginal out of our pot.

I want to see some more thoughts here though

Everett

[NoahSD]

For those of you advocating betting, what does everyone think about betting less than a push? At these high buy-in events would a weird play like that signal strength or weakness? If we come out betting 4k, what will CO think?

I assume it's the wrong play, but I think considering it would be nice.

I still like checking, btw.

[KneeCo]

Hmmmm, there's no way I was right about the CO now. He didn't have the set, otherwise he would have certainly reraised the turn.

Time to rethink:
He's a tight player.
He limp-called pf (which led me to believe he had a mid-pp)
Check the flop.
Bet the turn, which could have meant a number of things.
Thought and called a raise, which means he did not have a made hand to protect against the numerous draws, rather he had a weak hand or was on one of those draws himself.
The river is a brick.
There's nearly 10k in the middle.

I'm taking a stab at this pot. Bet 3,500$, trying to make it look like I have a hand and want a call.

If he has 77-88-TT, in line with my PF read, a tight player will probably muck it, unless he has a read on me.
if he has AJ himself or some other hand for a missed draw, I would expect a fold as well.

[Rduke55]

If he had a hand that he was happy with why didn't he raise the turn with all thos e draws out there?
(I know there are reasons why he may not have but I still think we may be able to take this one).