How do you rationalize this?

[PantsOnFire]

We wall know about implied odds in NL holdem. One of the best examples is playing a PP in a deep stack situation.

A common rule of thumb is that you generally need to win about 10 times the amount you are paying pf given the odds of flopping a set and the addition of the times you do flop a set but lose to a higher set/full house, flush or straight.

However, sometimes we will win a lot more than 10 times our cost. We can stack bad players, we can turn it into a full house, sometimes several opponents stay in the pot making it larger, etc. We can also sometimes win the pot without improving or by turning an unlikely straight.

So if this is true, then the times we don't win a pot large enough to justify the play would still average it out to be a good play none the less.

Now I still do believe that entering the pot without the chance of winning the required pot (i.e. against a short stack) is mathematically wrong.

But my question is: can this be applied to other implied odds situations like calling for a draw? In other words, if you call with a draw against the odds and don't make it up with implied odds, can this be justified by the other times you hit your draw and make more than the implied odds require?

[mce86]

No.
There are times you hit your draw and dont get paid off like you had hoped. There are times you hit your draw and get out drawn.

[_TKO_]

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But my question is: can this be applied to other implied odds situations like calling for a draw? In other words, if you call with a draw against the odds and don't make it up with implied odds, can this be justified by the other times you hit your draw and make more than the implied odds require?

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Look at it this way. Say you want to call with a gushot getting 7:1 immediate odds (it's about 11:1 to hit) and hoping you will make it up in implied odds. What this means is that, out of all the times you hit your draw getting 7:1, you need to earn about 4 times the amount of the bet you called on average. The problem is that you'll have a hard time averaging out a rare scenario like drawing to a gutshot, so you should only call if you can reasonably expect to get paid the missing amount. It's like loaning your opponent an equity advantage.

On the other hand, and this is something I wonder about as well, if you don't expect to get paid when you hit, then you should find more opportunities to represent draws that hit when you don't hold that draw yourself.

[mvdgaag]

There are more ways to win than by making the best hand.

[drzen]

I think the answer is probably yes, if and only if your expectation of implied odds was reasonable.

Sometimes, in the STT forum, players say "yeah, call raises up to 10% of your stack with a PP" and I'm like, well no. Your implied odds in an SNG are not often enough that good. A guy who raises with AQ is not going to stack off when the flop comes K65, so your set of 5s may win a disappointing pot.

I like the treatment of draws in Holdem on the Come. I forget the name of the guy who actually wrote it but it was sold on the back of a few (mostly useless) comments by Rolf Slotboom. That deals with limit but the concepts are useful if you're willing to nut it out.

But what do I know? One of my leaks is to overvalue draws (not discount them enough for times they come in but are not best) and I "compensate" by taking a pessimistic view of implied odds. I mean, there's a spectrum of future action that you could achieve, and your implied odds lay somewhere on it. I tend to take a sort of average view: I won't make a ton of bets, but I'll make a few.

[iveyleague24]

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There are more ways to win than by making the best hand.

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correct.

Against any reasonable opponent, playing your hands purely based on pot equity and showdown value would be grossly -EV. Unless you're playing against uberdonks, you're going to have to scrape out equity from your low-medium pps and scs when you miss.

[drzen]

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There are more ways to win than by making the best hand.

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correct.

Against any reasonable opponent, playing your hands purely based on pot equity and showdown value would be grossly -EV. Unless you're playing against uberdonks, you're going to have to scrape out equity from your low-medium pps and scs when you miss.

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Playing small pairs on the assumption that you will be able to "scrape out" equity with them is -EV for most players, who, if they took your advice, would be calling far too loosely with them, and losing more money trying to make up for it by working them too hard in the wrong spots. There's a ton of difference between saying "play small pairs only if you have the right pot odds" and "play small pairs only if the implied odds you are counting on are reasonable".

[iveyleague24]

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There are more ways to win than by making the best hand.

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correct.

Against any reasonable opponent, playing your hands purely based on pot equity and showdown value would be grossly -EV. Unless you're playing against uberdonks, you're going to have to scrape out equity from your low-medium pps and scs when you miss.

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Playing small pairs on the assumption that you will be able to "scrape out" equity with them is -EV for most players, who, if they took your advice, would be calling far too loosely with them, and losing more money trying to make up for it by working them too hard in the wrong spots. There's a ton of difference between saying "play small pairs only if you have the right pot odds" and "play small pairs only if the implied odds you are counting on are reasonable".

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lol wtf [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img] [img]/images/graemlins/blush.gif[/img] [img]/images/graemlins/blush.gif[/img] [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] [img]/images/graemlins/confused.gif[/img] [img]/images/graemlins/confused.gif[/img] [img]/images/graemlins/confused.gif[/img]

Sir, you are making alot of assumptions.

All I'm saying that is you can't always play fit-or-fold with these hands.

I never said you have to overplay your hands when you miss in order to maximize their value.

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Playing small pairs on the assumption that you will be able to "scrape out" equity with them is -EV for most players, who, if they took your advice, would be calling far too loosely with them, and losing more money trying to make up for it by working them too hard in the wrong spots.

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So my original statement leads you directly into this conclusion? Where did I say you have to call loosely with them? Where did I say you have to "work them hard?" Are you seeing things?

[img]/images/graemlins/confused.gif[/img] [img]/images/graemlins/confused.gif[/img] [img]/images/graemlins/confused.gif[/img] [img]/images/graemlins/confused.gif[/img] [img]/images/graemlins/ooo.gif[/img] [img]/images/graemlins/ooo.gif[/img] [img]/images/graemlins/ooo.gif[/img] [img]/images/graemlins/ooo.gif[/img] [img]/images/graemlins/confused.gif[/img] [img]/images/graemlins/ooo.gif[/img] [img]/images/graemlins/confused.gif[/img] [img]/images/graemlins/blush.gif[/img] [img]/images/graemlins/blush.gif[/img] [img]/images/graemlins/blush.gif[/img] [img]/images/graemlins/ooo.gif[/img] [img]/images/graemlins/confused.gif[/img] [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img] [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

[iveyleague24]

.

[pzhon]

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There are more ways to win than by making the best hand.

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correct.

Against any reasonable opponent, playing your hands purely based on pot equity and showdown value would be grossly -EV. Unless you're playing against uberdonks, you're going to have to scrape out equity from your low-medium pps and scs when you miss.

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Playing small pairs on the assumption that you will be able to "scrape out" equity with them is -EV for most players,

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lol wtf [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img] [img]/images/graemlins/blush.gif[/img] [img]/images/graemlins/blush.gif[/img] [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] [img]/images/graemlins/confused.gif[/img] [img]/images/graemlins/confused.gif[/img] [img]/images/graemlins/confused.gif[/img]

Sir, you are making alot of assumptions.


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You're giving him too much credit. You said something that disagreed with him, so of course he had to post that you were wrong. No new assumptions were necessary.

Here is a way to express what you said more mathematically when you have a pair.

Calling is better than folding if your expected return is greater than the size of your call. Your expected return is the sum of the expected return from two cases.

[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img] Case 1 is that at least one card of your rank is on the flop. This is fun, although you only win about 80% of the time, given that your opponent started with an overpair.
[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img] Case 2 is when you miss. This is usually uncomfortable, but you might miss with a straight-flush draw and 17 outs against an overpair without a card of that suit.
[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img] Case 3 is that you don't get to see a flop, perhaps because there is a big reraise after you. Your return should be 0 for this case, but it can't be ignored because its probability affects the probabilities of Cases 1 and 2. This slightly decreases the return from a speculative call when you are not last to act, particularly in an aggressive game.

The expected return from Case 2 is not negative if you play properly, since you can do at least as well as folding to no bet, 0. So, if your expected return from Case 1 is greater than the amount you invest by calling, then you know that you can profitably call. Quite commonly, the expected return from Case 1 is not enough, so you either need to find enough equity in Case 2, or the hand isn't profitable.

How you go about extracting some equity is from Case 2 is complicated. Some opponents will check the flop through, giving you more chances to spike a set, pick up a big draw, or determine that your hand is good. Against some opponents, you can profitably call the continuation bet on some boards, then check it down or find a value/protection bet. Against some, you might find many profitable raises, sometimes as a semi-bluff with 6+ outs, such as 44 on a board of 763. In some circumstances, you may find profitable floats. None of these are as easy as flopping a set, but they are a normal part of playing winning poker when your opponents stop mindlessly stacking off against sets.

To answer the OP, sometimes you make a call which is profitable on average, and your opponent pays off less than average. However, if this keeps happening, you should review how much you expect to get paid off when you hit. You may be overestimating it.