a not so hypothetical

[jba]

say it folds to you in the cutoff and the button and blinds are stupid tight so you raise with some really trashy trash. the super-nitty button 3bets - this means either JJ+ or QQ+, decent chance of AKs, and maybe AKo (but highly doubtful). and the blinds fold and it's on you.

after some conversation he offers to give you .5 sb back if you fold. at what point do you accept his offer?

[jstill]

gettin 6.5:1 most of my holdings are going to have the pot looking more enticing than getting half a sb (or a whole one) back. So id prefer to play the hand than concede it with any suited 2 or 3 gapper or offsuit connector even if i KNEW i was against an overpair. Even a hand like K2s if i knew i only had one overcard at best i think id still rather see the flop than get some money back.

I guess u could argue there are huge reverse implied odds with all of these hands, so my thinking here is somewhat flawed. But our equity against his range is usually not more than a 4:1 dog if even on avg with all our trash hands. So calling preflop is +EV by more than half a small bet I think.

[Nick C]

Okay, I'll assume we have complete rags like 84o, so Button will have at worse two overcards versus us.

AA-JJ = 24 combos that make us about a 5.5 to 1 dog.

AK = 8 combos (discounted, because Button is so incredibly tight) that make us about a 9 to 5 or 1.8 to 1 dog.

So that makes us, what, about a 4.5 to 1 dog on average?

We do have one postflop advantage, which is that Villain's range is so narrow that we know we're behind on any flop that contains an ace or king and doesn't give us two pair or trips. Then again, usually we're going to need two pair or trips, so I'm not sure how much what we know really helps us. I think we're in a reverse-implied odds situation most of the time when we flop a pair and in fact we're doing worse than the hot-and-cold equity suggests.

We'll catch something on the flop about 1/3 of the time, but that will usually just mean we're chasing versus an overpair and will need to check-fold the turn UI if Villain bets again (or, if we think our tight opponent will second barrel with UI AK, we can call again and usually lose that BB on the turn but sometimes end up taking the pot either because we improve or because Villain checks the river and lets us win). Anyway, catching just one pair on the flop won't even be particularly profitable. (Basically, we're relying on implied odds on good turn cards, and we should have some of those, but it's not as if we're going to make a fortune when we flop a pair, and in fact usually what'll happen is that we'll just lose more.)

Okay. We'll flop two pair about 1 out of 25 times. We'll flop trips or better, what, 1 out of 150 times or something? These are the only hands that will actually be profitable for us postflop, and we're only going to get them about 1 out of 20 times (assuming my quick math is correct).

So . . . about 2/3 of the time we're simply check-folding the flop and making a 1 SB donation.

About 1/4 of the time we're still practically just breaking even postflop (that's my approximation of what happens when we flop a pair), just like we did when we check-folded. But let's be generous and say we recover our full 1 SB preflop call of the 3-bet when we flop a pair.

So for 19 of our 20 preflop calls, we're going to lose about 13 SBs. That means we need to win 6.5 BBs that other time when we flop big. 3 of those BBs are already in the pot preflop, so we need to win about 2.5 BB postflop on average with our big hands. Which I'd imagine is in fact approxmately what we can hope for.

Can all of this be right? It seems to me that if Button offers us anything back at all, we should take it. Calling the 3-bet seems roughly break-even to me, and I suspect it might not even be that. I wonder if we should just fold whether Button offers us a rebate or not.

[Nick C]

Grr. Something in my math above doesn't seem quite right to me. Does anybody know offhand what the odds are of flopping trips when you hold unmatched cards? I think they're better than what I said.

[Nick C]

[ QUOTE ]
Grr. Something in my math above doesn't seem quite right to me. Does anybody know offhand what the odds are of flopping trips when you hold unmatched cards? I think they're better than what I said.

[/ QUOTE ]

Ah, I figured out my damn mistake. I took the 1 out of 25 times for two pair out of HPFAP, but my conversion of the 2.02 percentage given was way off. It should of course instead be 1 out of 50 times that we'll flop two pair with a hand like 84o.

So that's what I got (more or less) just now myself using rough math, and that same rough math gives me about 1 out of 67 times for flopping trips (I was making a simple mistake before that I won't get into when I said 1 out of 150).

So, overall, it's a little less than 1 out of 25 times that we'll flop big, and thus I'm a little more pessimistic now than I was in that long post. 2/3 of the time we'll be check-folding the flop, and flopping one pair is not a great result for us either (I'm thinking if we knew we were going to flop exactly one pair, there would be nothing especially wrong with folding preflop, although flopping one pair should be better than flopping nothing, on average.) Only very rarely will we flop a massively profitable situation, and if we're calling, we're counting on scoring big when we flop a monster, to make up for all those flop whiffs.

[27offsooot]

IIRC, this reminds me of a high-stakes post where Tommy Angelo was a PF raiser, was three bet by a super nit, and folded. It engendered a beautiful Tommy thread, again IIRC. I could be imagining things at this point though.

I would fold most of my junk hands if i can get an sb back, but I think this is an interesting question.

[Leader]

Well you're risking a BB (your call and the money you forfeit by calling) so this spot is like kind of like when it's 2 back to you. The pot is much smaller though. The pot is say 6sb when we consider probable rake. So you're getting 3-1. So now it's more like calling a raise in the BB except your IO are cut in half as you're paying twice as much and villain has a very strong range.

So in short I think you should play very tight here.

Time to look at his range in terms of combos:

18 combos of QQ+, say 3 of JJ, 4 of AKs, maybe 4 of AKo.

Let's consider TT-22. Almost 3-1 he has a higher PP. He'll hit an A or K like 1/3 of the time on the flop when he has AK. So if we take these rough estimates we'll be behind 7/9ths of the time on the flop when we don't hit a set. 7/9 * 6/7 = 2/3 which is roughly how much we'll be behind on the flop considering sets we hit and ignoring set over set/flushes/straights. So we're getting 3-1 and we'll be a 2-1 dog.

That's not the end of the story though. We have to think about how he plays his hands. This type would likely bet the flop with AK UI-check the turn UI-fold the river UI. For PP's let's assume he will always bet-bet with JJ+ (simplistic but this is already out of control lol).

our EV (TT-22) = EV of flopping or turning a set (we hit a set-18% * guesstimate of what we make-7BB)

+

EV when we don't hit a set {82% * [EV when he misses with AK 50% * the likelihood he has AK 25% * 4.5BB - expected loss when he hits with AK-50% * the likelihood he has AK-25% * 1.5BB - expected loss when he has JJ+ (he has JJ+ 75% * 1.5BB)]}

This mess = .645BB So PP's are a call.

I can't do other hands now but I suspect that the only hands you should call with are AK or something that is very coordinated like 98s.

This is all very rough BTW. Someone might want to check it more then I can ATM

[parkinson]

it actualy completely depends on villian imho. basicaly how does he play post flop.

if we call PF and call the flop will he bet again? knowing that we should fold the flop with less then 2 pair.

if we raise the turn will he call down with JJ-AA? of will he fold? (bluff equity).

basicaly villian is in a very deficult spot here if we call PF since he knows we know his range.

then again we dont have position wich is an advantage to the button. i think it can definately be EV+ to see the flop with some hands depending on the villian. (its essential we know basicaly how he plays post flop tho).

[jba]

villain is generally weak postflop. he will check behind AK unimproved on the turn almost always - unless he checks behind on the flop (but remember AK is highly discounted). he will check behind the flop or turn if an overcard hits. he'll showdown big pairs almost always.

he will bet overpairs on the flop and turn unless the board gets very scary (like four flush/straight). he'll check behind tons of rivers even when it's AA is an overwhelming favorite - like whenever the top card pairs or three to a flush are in.

also the fact that he offers this deal does not indicate a weak hand in any way. he's the type to say stuff like "if you don't have a club you're drawing dead" or "aces no good" and be telling the truth 100% of the time.