Adjusting to Perennial Cold-Callers

[mmcd]

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you wrote that solid winners are cold calling 2 bets. this is very unlikely. if they are often calling raises they are likely loosing players.


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This isn't necessarily true. Cold-calling is generally bad in certain textures of games, but in games where many people are taking flops for 2 bets, and generally play poorly post-flop, I think cold-calling is necessary in order to maximize one's ev in the game.

[magithighs]

I would tend to disagree about cold calling with small pairs. It was one of my most common mistakes in the old days when I was playing .5/1 on Paradise. I found cold calling with small pairs <5 was a money pit. Same situtation -- lots of bad players + lots of cold callers + lots of players playing badly post flop. It was still too much to overcome. Perhaps it was my lack of skill at the time. However, there were way too many players going for the "low" with low suited connecters and everyone with a pocket pair calling -- causing reverse implied odds as you're always making bottom set and paying off top set handsomely.

I too have noticed the same thing about my local game (20/40) with many seemingly winning players winning and cold calling. However, the more I observe them the more I see them losing.

What I have noticed is profitable is cold calling two-bets (max) with at least four players in the pot is suited connectors and one gappers down to 75 only on the button or cutoff. However, I'm still experimenting and don't know if this is trully profitable for me. I've always liked suited aces in Middle position, but won't call two bets cold with them -- but I will limp knowing that the pot will likley get raised. That still works for me.

Cheers
Magi

[AlanBostick]

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The times you win and lose with a set are combined together to give you an overall expectation. You don't need to "adjust 7.5:1 to 10:1 to account for the times you lose. I have idea how you came up with needing to earn 5 big bets back postflop...there is nearly that in the pot already.

Not calling two with any pair knowing there are at least 5 players in is ludicrous.

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The foundation of my thinking about small pairs, for almost ten years now, comes from this old r.g.p. post by "Dragon" Ramsey.

Ramsey asserts that the odds of small flopped set's holding up in very multiway pots are roughly 3:1 on ragged flops and 3:2 on coordinated flops, and pegs it at 2:1 overall.

1/8.5 * 2/3 = 0.0784 = 1/12.5

In other words, by Ramsey's figuring, a small pocket pair needs to return 11.5 times its preflop investment when it hits in order to break even. It is literally impossible to get this in preflop action alone except in the blinds. Turning a profit with a small flopped set demands extracting bets from one's opponents on the flop and after.

I think he is too conservative here -- and at the same time, when you do flop a set and lose with it, it generally costs you a lot more than your initial preflop investment.

I've just looked at my PokerTracker stats for pocket pairs. Game conditions in online low-limit games (5-10 and below; substantial fraction of 6-handed tables) are rather different than those in the Oaks' 15-30 game. I filtered for hands where 4 or more players saw a flop.

34,489 total limit holdem hands played. In hands where 4 or more players saw a flop, I floped sets or better with pocket pairs in the range 22 through 88 26 times, and I was beaten by a better hand (straights, flushes, higher sets/boats) 5 times. Therefore, this data indicates that a small pair that flops a set will hold up 81 +/- 8 % of the time in multiway pots.

Doing the same math I did above, this indicates that the pot+implied odds you need to get with a small pair if its value is considered to be flopping a set is something like 9.5:1, with error bars ranging from 8.5:1 to 10.3:1.

Absent better data, I stand strongly behind my 10:1 figure.

[ETA: "... in multiway pots." in 3rd-to-last paragraph]

[bernie]

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For example, he recommends limping in with small pocket pairs and small suited aces in early and middle position.

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These hands are great multiway for 2 bets with relative position on the PFR. You hit your hand and get to check them into him.

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Five-way action just isn't good enough to justify paying two bets to see a flop with a small pair.


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It's not hard to make up the 5 BBs postflop. Especially, as above, with relative position on the PFR and 4 opponents.

b

[Man of Means]

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34,489 total limit holdem hands played. In hands where 4 or more players saw a flop, I floped sets or better with pocket pairs in the range 22 through 88 26 times, and I was beaten by a better hand (straights, flushes, higher sets/boats) 5 times. Therefore, this data indicates that a small pair that flops a set will hold up 81 +/- 8 % of the time.

Doing the same math I did above, this indicates that the pot+implied odds you need to get with a small pair if its value is considered to be flopping a set is something like 9.5:1, with error bars ranging from 8.5:1 to 10.3:1.

Absent better data, I stand strongly behind my 10:1 figure.

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Sample size is small but this is interesting and I think it's worth going to the numbers whenever conventional wisdom is thrown around.

Can you look at the overall EV (not just when you flop a set) for each pocket pair under these conditions (4+ players for 2 bets preflop)? Also, in constructing odds estimate I wouldn't go by % of the time you win because that doesn't consider relative size of gain/loss.

[WillyT]

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I've read SSH, and there are aspects of Miller's recommendations that I don't like. For example, he recommends limping in with small pocket pairs and small suited aces in early and middle position. All too often when I do this I face a raise after me, and wind up paying too much to see a flop out of position with a hand that needs the flop to hit it hard in order to continue. Five-way action just isn't good enough to justify paying two bets to see a flop with a small pair.

(Yes, I know this doesn't directly address the cold-calling issue.)

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I like these kinds of games. Limp a lot and limp reraise a lot. Raise some too, especially with good multiway hands like JTs and QJs.

good luck,
WT

[bernie]

Wow. Nice game.

Don't isolate as much with lesser hands unless you're in LP since there are fewer people to get out.

The more players between you and the raiser, the wider your coldcalling range gets. For instance, it's very, very rare for me to coldcall as the first one to act left of a raiser. (not counting if he's on the button and I'm SB) That's a 3 bet spot for me. But put a few players in between us and I can find a few hands to come in with.(not offsuit hands, btw.) 3 bet your better hands: AJs, QQ...

I agree with the others, SSHE is great for this type of game. This is a game to use good multiway hands.

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Even the good players in this game, the props, the local pros, the otherwise-tight, solid winners who have been taking money home from the game for years, often cold-call preflop raises.

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If they're coldcalling after a few players have called, it's not as bad. Unless they're doing it with crap like QTo or something. If they're doing that, more power to 'em. If they're repeatedly the first ones to coldcall a raise, you shouldn't really mind them in the game.

b

[candyman718]

I'd like to know what type of hands are being open raised. I used to take your view on cold calling. Now I am playing mostly 6 handed 10/20 and 15/30 on PP and I had to loosen up my cold calling standards soon after I realized what was being raised..

[PhatPots]

with so many callers, I only limp with medium pairs. 77-99. I am now 3-betting AQo and AJs if the raiser is loose.

Other than that, not too much else you can do without more information. But this situation is profitable for you

[disjunction]

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The foundation of my thinking about small pairs, for almost ten years now, comes from this old r.g.p. post by "Dragon" Ramsey.

Ramsey asserts that the odds of small flopped set's holding up in very multiway pots are roughly 3:1 on ragged flops and 3:2 on coordinated flops, and pegs it at 2:1 overall.


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Yick. I hate a lot of things about this math. Maybe I didn't read thorougly enough, but since no one really addressed this math, here are some thoughts...

He estimates that we win only 60% when there's a flush draw? This seems to assume that our set will always be against a flush draw, and we will not redraw. One or two flush cards will give us a boat, and failing that, we have a 22% chance at a redraw. That brings us to winning 70%. Now factor in that of our 5 opponents, maybe 3 will be suited. Since some suited cards are taken up by the flop, there's maybe a 50/50 chance of someone having a flush draw. So now our chances of winning are 85%, if our only threat is a flush draw. So factor in straight draws and stuff and I think this number is closer to 75%.

On a ragged board, 75% seems kind of low too. You'd need to lose set over set or some kind of backdoor making bad calls and giving you odds.

Also I'm not sure about the ratio of ragged boards to drawy boards.

If you figure an 80% win rate, you hit a set 12.5% of the time, and win 80%, for a 10% winrate, or you need to win 9x your investment. Now, 3 things:

(1) 12.5%, or 7:1, is probably pessimistic, not optimistic. Exact odds are 7.5:1, but with 5 opponents, they mostly have high cards.
(2) You have odds to chase a gutshot. It's a one-card gutshot, but if you have 55 do you think anyone has another 5?
(3) You will see the turn ~10% of the time. When this happens, you are 5.5:1 to hit your set.

More intuitively, if the board has a single draw on it, you *must* be better off than if you had 7.5:1 odds. Because your opponents are putting in postflop money with the worst of it. (I realize this is a good chunk of our implied odds, the other part being opponents who are drawing dead with top pair).

Finally, the 26 samples doesn't mean much to me. There's so much going on (rainbow boards vs twotone, how many times the flush card hits, how many times the straight draw hits, etc.) that intuition tells me it would take a hundred trials to get within 10%. Where does the +/- 8% come from?