Long, probably boring, SD hand

shadow. · #1 07-06-2006, 06:59 PM

This hand is probably standard for a lot of people, but I figured that I'd let some people see some of my thought processes. I'll post another hand that's more interesting and gives some higher level thinking later.

Reads:

This hand is my second on this table. In the first hand, there were five players to the flop, I flopped top pair and bet and then sexied 3 players on the turn when I made trips. I bet the river and got two callers and won. PokerTracker says that everyone three players are very passive, ranging from 67/0 to 51/7. MP is a regular in this game. I have seen him at 10/20 a few times, but I don’t think that he did very well and is back down at 5/10. His stats are 29/15/2.0,1.6,1.4 with a 38 WTSD and a 4.9% c/r over ~2600 hands. Button is a retarded fuckmonkey and I hate him. His stats are 45/30/0.5,0.7,1.0 with a 40 WTSD and a 1.4% c/r over ~1600 hands.

Party Poker 5/10 Hold'em (6 handed)
Preflop: Hero is SB with T[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img], Q[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img].
UTG calls, MP calls, 1 fold, Button calls, Hero completes, BB checks.

This complete is standard for me. Also standard would be a cold call with a pfr and a cold-caller. Against a steal from the Button with at least a 20% ATSB I will 3-bet 75% of the time or so, calling the rest. Against an opener in MP with no cold-callers I will sometimes cold-call. 

Flop: (5 SB) T[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img], J[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img], Q[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img] (5 players)
Hero checks, BB checks, UTG bets, MP calls, Button calls, Hero raises, BB calls, UTG calls, MP calls, Button 3-bets, Hero calls, BB calls, UTG calls, MP calls.

This flop is pretty good for me, but my hand is still vulnerable. I check, ideally hoping to c/r MP with the Button caught in between, but admittedly this situation does not happen all that often. UTG betting doesn’t tell me much, admittedly. He could have any of the following: two hearts, an ace, a nine, a king, a straight, two pair, or really anything else.

MP’s call is more closely defined. This particular TAG is not incredibly imaginative—I’d expect him to raise a made hand here. He has a flush draw (and the nut draw at that) an overwhelming percentage of the time. Also in his range are nines, kings, and some aces. I’d think that the only nines he’d play for a limp would be A9s (or potentially 99 if he ventures from his well-established pre-flop chart). Kings and Aces also include a lot of pairs and draw combinations, like KTo etc. What’s important out of this hand range is that he is on a draw in the higher 90% range.

Button’s call means that his range is about the same as UTG’s range, except a bit tighter—we’re throwing out a lot of the junk hands that UTG could potentially have.
I check raise. I like checking better than betting here for several reasons, the first of which is that it allows me to attempt to control the pot size. Betting would likely spur several calls, which can quickly spiral the pot out of control. Betting offers BB 6:1 immediate, with 10:1 implied odds not unlikely. Those are not odds that I’d like to offer, as with 4 other players there is likely to be at least one gutshot out there. Furthermore, offering those odds allows hands with a backdoor draw and 2-3 additional outs to call profitably. I’d rather not let that happen. Check/raising also allows me to put in many bets while I’m ahead, more so than simply betting the flop. Naturally, this plan won’t work all of the time, but that’s not what we care about in poker.

BB’s cold-call means a pair or a draw, as do the calls of UTG and MP. Now is where things get interesting. Button back-raise 3-bets. I am now way behind. There is no question that Button has 98 or K9. AK is out of the question, as he would have raised that pre-flop. He probably would have raised K9 too, but I’m not throwing it out.

Everyone else calls, verifying my initial reads.
Now it’s time to evaluate my outs. We’ll start with a base of four and then work down from there. There’s likely a flush draw out there, but that doesn’t affect us. We’re against a straight, which doesn’t take up any of our outs. That leaves two passives and then a re-evaluation of MP, since his hand range does include non-flush draws that sometimes have some of our outs. The two passives likely have Ks, 9s, or As. There are either 6 straight outs or 7 straight outs, depending on Button’s hand. We can weight these distributions according to how likely it is for Button to have either hand. Just take a weighted average to determine how many straight draw outs are against you. This point doesn’t have any real bearing on our hand, but I think that it is marginally important as a note about how to calculate outs against you.

Anyway, I’m afraid that I’ve veered off on a tangent. The only hand combinations that we care about are hands in which some of our outs are taken. These hands are any Q or T hands. Since there are only four tens and queens out there, the probability of any one player holding one of our outs is severely diminished. Depending on the player, we’d have to narrow further these Q and T hands to hands in with another draw, such as T9 and KQ. This limiting provision applies only to MP in this hand, as the passives would likely play a Q or a T much the way they would play a draw, albeit less frequently (I think that this is an important, yet obvious point. The passives are more likely to throw away a pair than a draw. Additionally, there are more draw combinations out than pair combinations.) There is more intense math that you can do here to give a weighted out average based upon the hand distributions. I don’t think that it is important to do with this hand, especially since we’re drawing to the nuts. I just wanted to walk through what my mind is thinking in the five seconds or so right before I call, just making myself aware of what hand possibilities are out there, how these combinations affect my draw, my implied odds, and the possibility of not having a full four outs.

On the fly, I gave myself 3.5 outs. There are serious arguments out there to give the full four or to discount an entire out. Keep in mind, however, that if we do discount an entire out that our decision is the same on the flop, getting 15:1. The turn decision results in the same decision, although with a closer edge.

Important to note that if the board does pair, MP knows that our hand is likely to be a full house, depending on the action that we take and thus we can't count on his implied odds, even if he does make his flush. 

Turn: (10 BB) 8[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img] (5 players)
Hero checks, BB checks, UTG checks, MP checks, Button bets, Hero calls, BB calls, UTG calls, MP calls.

Getting 11:1 immediate, with likely 14:1 implied (call on the turn by BB, UTG, or MP, and river check/raise against only Button) odds as a conservative estimate, this call is standard. The spade redraw does not affect our hand.

River: (15 BB) 8[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] (5 players)
Hero checks, BB checks, UTG checks, MP bets, Button calls, Hero folds

Missed our draw, MP comes to life with the flush, Button calls resignedly and we fold.

tyler_cracker · #2 07-06-2006, 07:27 PM

Nice post, shadow. While your drunkern posts are usually entertaining, you are a much greater resource to the forum when posting sober (or at least serious).

[ QUOTE ]

Button back-raise 3-bets. I am now way behind. There is no question that Button has 98 or K9.

[/ QUOTE ]

Why can't he play a [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] draw this way? He is a "retarded fuckmonkey", right? I guess this is just part of the read you have after 1600(!) hands with him?

Similarly, you have great position to raise the turn. Do you raise here to try and protect your hand if you don't have such a detailed read about Button's hand?

Why are you so unconcerned about someone else raising the turn and making your draw more expensive/unprofitable? You said you think that 9x is in a lot of your opponents' ranges.

V4P · #3 07-06-2006, 07:39 PM

Raise PF...I [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] the blue writing

Seeya at the 5/10 tables doogie, you'll always be a loser in my database

shadow. · #4 07-06-2006, 08:07 PM

[ QUOTE ]
Nice post, shadow. While your drunkern posts are usually entertaining, you are a much greater resource to the forum when posting sober (or at least serious).

[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah, I agree. But there comes a time when you just don't feel like posting strategy on 2p2...especially when you see the games actively getting worse and worse.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]

Button back-raise 3-bets. I am now way behind. There is no question that Button has 98 or K9.

[/ QUOTE ]

Why can't he play a [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] draw this way?

[/ QUOTE ]

He just doesn't think that way. There is no way that he knows that having a lot of opponents paying many bets when you have a flush draw is a good thing. He has no concept of equity...just the fact that he likes to win big pots sometimes.

[ QUOTE ]
He is a "retarded fuckmonkey", right? I guess this is just part of the read you have after 1600(!) hands with him?

[/ QUOTE ]

The "retarded fuckmonkey" comment is for the fact that he has about 50 BB of my money!!!

[ QUOTE ]
Similarly, you have great position to raise the turn. Do you raise here to try and protect your hand if you don't have such a detailed read about Button's hand?

[/ QUOTE ]

Oh yes, definetly. If Button's AF were higher then I own on the turn.

[ QUOTE ]
Why are you so unconcerned about someone else raising the turn and making your draw more expensive/unprofitable? You said you think that 9x is in a lot of your opponents' ranges.

[/ QUOTE ]

Here's an important part that I intentionally left out of my OP. An important note is that passives generally won't c/r the turn here with a 9; they donk. I think that some extended discussion on this point would be great.

Pedro: I have a new Party name!!!!!11!1!

shadow. · #5 07-06-2006, 10:57 PM

no one else loves my serious posts??????? [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img] [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img] [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img]

bennyhana · #6 07-06-2006, 11:17 PM

[ QUOTE ]
no one else loves my serious posts??????? [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img] [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img] [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img]

[/ QUOTE ]

nice hand. the text was a little long for me. how bout some cliff notes.

OrigamiSensei · #7 07-06-2006, 11:43 PM

beni I know you were joking but thank heaven for something with a little more meat than the average "How are my stats after 2k hands?" post.

On the turn you didn't mention what your thoughts were about having three players left to act behind you and concerns about a possible check-raise. Was that of concern to you?

dchz · #8 07-07-2006, 02:08 AM

w0w niice post,

i think thi is a very helpful post, i think i am going to add this to favorites and reread it before i start to play again

thanks

bottomset · #9 07-07-2006, 04:06 AM

[ QUOTE ]
especially when you see the games actively getting worse and worse.

[/ QUOTE ]

lol limit

Bonesy · #10 07-07-2006, 12:25 PM

[ QUOTE ]

Yeah, I agree. But there comes a time when you just don't feel like posting strategy on 2p2...especially when you see the games actively getting worse and worse.

I thought it was a tremendous post and would welcome ones like them. I'm assuming the worse and worse comment refers to the games getting tougher overall?