an interesting hand for discussion

[Phytopath]

I dunno, here you don't really get anything that beats you to fold and I would rather have worse hands try and bluff again on the river.

In these spots I don't see the need for this type of play. I think calling the turn and possibly calling/value betting the river as a much better option.

[prodonkey]

I'm not really sure why you make this move.. I think calling him down will be profitable. if he has an Ace you are splitting.. if he has a K, let him bluff.. if he has a 6 you're getting called. He could have an ace but maybe he just thinks you are full of it and is value betting his King.

[ADK]

usually in this spot im weary of the minraise on flop, and usually call/fold the turn, read dependant ofcourse. but his turn bet was pretty weak and i think you did the right play here

[DawnToDusk]

At first I saw this and didn't like it. I thought it was a slightly veiled brag post. Then I looked at it and realized it wasn't.

What this move essentially does is force your opponent off the same hand. After looking at the action of the BB it seems clear that you he has an Ace. He check/raises you on the flop and you call and then he bets right into you on the turn. I guess he could have a King here but I don't think a lot of micro opponents do this and the thinking behind betting a King like so has to be a lot different from the way micro opponents are thinking. There is also the possibility that he could flip over a better hand.

But then I thought about it some more and said to myself "Well even though this push is meant to move my opponent off the same hand, those times I get called I am always a dog." If called your opponent is going to show you a better hand or a hand you are splitting with right now. But those times that your splitting with him you can still lose in the sense that if he pairs his kicker he is going to beat you. That’s because most likely his kicker is higher than a 6 and when he pairs it, he makes a higher two pair. But also when the K pairs you are also losing more often than not, because his kicker is higher than a 6 more often than not.

So I Stoved up some results on this hand. I gave my opponent AQo-A7o (without him having the Ad of course) and AQs-A7s (without him having the clubs or diamond combo suits) and found that your equity was only 43.128%. His equity was 56.818%. That’s because 43.128% of the time BOTH of you will win when he calls and you guys see a showdown. The other 13.64% of the time he wins all of the money when he calls.

So lets assign some probabilities to the frequency of your opponent calling with a hand you are tied with (these are the hands that your opponent will call with but can still beat you come the river). Lets say he calls 40% of the time not believing or thinking he is splitting the pot with you. The other 60% he folds. So your expected value from your push versus these hands is:

(.60)($29.25)+(.40)[(.8636)($0)+(.1364)(-$31.50)]=$15.83
A note - .8636 combines the probabilities that you both tie on the river and win nothing.

But lets also touch a little on the hands that have you beaten at this moment already. Those cases apply when he has a set of aces, kings, AK for two pair and a 6 holding. One could make the case that the way this hand played your opponent may have one of these holdings. If we assign him probabilities to the chance of flipping over a hand that beats you or a hand that you are tied with, again we can look at your expected value. Lets say that your opponent will have a hand that beats you 30% of the time and a hand you are tied with 70% of the time. So:

(.30)(-$31.50)+(.70){(.60)($29.25)+(.40)[(.8636)($0)+(.1364)(-$31.50)]}=$1.63

So the expected value of your push versus the opponent who is going to flip over a hand that you are behind to or a hand you are tied with but can lose to on the river is $1.63. Lets tweak those numbers a little and see what happens. Lets say you know your opponent is more TAGgy. Maybe you expect him to only bet this way with a hand that is beating you say 40% of the time. So your expected value is:

(.40)(-$31.50)+(.60){(.60)($29.25)+(.40)[(.8636)($0)+(.1364)(-$31.50)]}=-$3.10

Lets tweak it to 50% and see what happens:

(.50) (-$31.50)+(.50){(.60)($29.25)+(.40)[(.8636)($0)+(.1364)(-$31.50)]}=-$7.84

Wow!!! Look at our EV drop the tighter we think our opponent is. Tighter in the sense that he will only behave the way he did with a hand that will beat us. So lets draw a conclusion from this part of the post so far.

Conclusion

Looking at your opponent and his proclivities, the more we believe our opponent will behave this way with a hand that is beating us at this moment, the less inclined we should be to push.

Lets go back to the drawing boards one more time and look at an opponent who could behave like this very often with a hand we are tied with at the moment.

So we once again assign the probability that our opponent will have a hand that beats us 30% of the time and a hand we are tied with (but that could beat us by the river) 70% of the time. We know the expected value of this call is $1.63. But lets go back and look one more time at our opponent and see if we can get any reads on him. If we know that our opponent has a hard time getting away form hands and big bets don’t scare him then we can maybe adjust the frequency that he will call with these hands we are tied with. Lets make them bigger. Lets now say he calls 70% of the time not believing or thinking he is splitting the pot with you. The other 30% he folds.

(.30)($29.25)+(.70)[(.8636)($0)+(.1364)(-$31.50)]=$5.78

We see that just looking at the hands that we tie with our expected value actually decreased by him calling us more often. Lets see what happens when we plug it into our equation where he has a hand that beats us 30% of the time and a hand that we are tied with 70% of the time.

(.30)(-$31.50)+(.70){(.30)($29.25)+(.70)[(.8636)($0)+(.1364)(-$31.50)]}=-$5.40

Again our EV dropped the more often we thought our opponent would call with a hand that ties us!!! Lets draw one more conclusion and then tie them together.

Conclusion

Looking at your opponent and his proclivities, the more we believe our opponent will call our push with a hand we are tied with, the less inclined we should be to push.



So there we have it. Maybe we can take this information and formulate it into some theorem or something. Something that brings it all together.

Also check my math! I am 90% sure it is right but maybe Pokey wants to check it too!!! Also let me know if you agree or disagree with what I am saying! I love this hand and it was a blast to think about. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[prodonkey]

You're overestimating the split equity due to the fact that you are going to lose $1.50 a piece due to rake. It would be $15.31, a little off the other ev calculations. So it would just take 52c of ev off all the other ones.

[DawnToDusk]

Semantics. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] Ya you're right in that there will be some money taken off for rake but I am more interested in the general ideas behind all of those EV calculations. Its the way the EV drops or rises due to the proclivites of our opponents that we are most concerned about and the conclusions that can be drawn from them.

So I guess you agree with what I have said besides the rake. What does everyone else think? I think this was a stellar hand and I will definately keep this idea in mind for the rest of time.

[Marshall28]

DawnToDusk, I appreciate all the time you spent calculating all of this and putting it into a form thats easy to understand. I realize that you do say quite a few times that of course the profitability of the play depends a whole lot on the proclivities of the opponent. What I think you might have missed on this occasion was the table dynamics. I was completely running over the table, playing 30/24 and c-betting every time I raised pf and had position on the flop. My opponents were check minraising my c-bets in upwards of 50 percent of the time.

Personally, I don't think about numbers or math much when playing, I concentrate on images and betting patterns. I was actually ready to give this hand up once villain bet the turn, but after consideration, his weak bet on the turn gave me the idea to give the play a try, and I kinda thought that he folds in this situation much much more often than he ever has a hand that beats me.

[Montezuma21]

perfect play. his range is so narrow here it's ideal. if he's even semi-decent i love it.

[DawnToDusk]

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DawnToDusk, I appreciate all the time you spent calculating all of this and putting it into a form thats easy to understand.

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I'm glad you posted this hand and I was able to contribute to its discussion. It has helped me learn a lot. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

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I realize that you do say quite a few times that of course the profitability of the play depends a whole lot on the proclivities of the opponent. What I think you might have missed on this occasion was the table dynamics. I was completely running over the table, playing 30/24 and c-betting every time I raised pf and had position on the flop. My opponents were check minraising my c-bets in upwards of 50 percent of the time.

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I guess I can also make the assumption that they were folding a lot to someone coming over the top of their minraises. If that is the case then your EV for when they have a hand that you are tied with will go up.

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Personally, I don't think about numbers or math much when playing, I concentrate on images and betting patterns. I was actually ready to give this hand up once villain bet the turn, but after consideration, his weak bet on the turn gave me the idea to give the play a try, and I kinda thought that he folds in this situation much much more often than he ever has a hand that beats me.

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I usually don't think a lot about math either. Most times I look at my odds, pot odds, and then try to assign a frequency to my opponents actions depending on a specific hand range. Pretty rough estimates.

I took the time to do this kind of post game analysis of your hand though because I think you can alter the specifics of the hand and it would apply to a lot of different situations. You know what if you hadn't been running over the table and your image was just a TAG and a LAG? If your image was a LAG this move might be less EV for you than if you were a TAG. What if your opponents didn't view you like that? You were just a player to them and they were really straightforward for their image? Well if that is the case, then if they are LAGgy and tend more to call down to the river then this move is pretty -EV. On the other hand if you have an opponent who will fold to big bets then this move is +EV.

Your hand in the OP gave a good basis for similar situations like this. I hope there are plenty more hands in the near future where we can first analyze it and then extrapolate it to other situations, we will better prepare ourselves for whatever game we sit. It will allow us to make the most correct decision given any situation.