Razz-caution or coward?

[SGspecial]

[ QUOTE ]
Fold hand 1 on 4th. He called your early position raise, so he probably has good cards. The 7 probably didn't pair him, since there is a 7 out and he probably started with better cards than that.

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At this limit you're giving the villain far too much credit. If the 7 was an overcard to his starting hand, 90% of the time he would have raised on 3rd to begin with. Also, where's the plug for prax limping with a monster on 3rd st?

[ceegee]

Fold 4th on the first hand if you like to be loose. A call on 4th means you are hoping for him to brick 5th, so it's a definite fold on 5th when he catches again unless you have a read that he paired. If you have a read there then the line you took is fine.

Hand 2 is fine, check the river.

[jbrennen]

IMO, bet the river in the 2nd hand.

Almost certainly, he did not have a made 7-5 on 6th street. If he had 7-4-3-2 (or better) on 4th street, that's pretty much an automatic bet even against scary two-card boards. (Even if he's reraised, he's not that far behind, and 5s and 6s are very live.)

Maybe he had a made 7-6 on 6th street; checking 7-6-4-3 on 4th street might be reasonable looking at those boards. But if he had that, or a worse hand, you're good unless he rivered the win.

He's almost never going for a check/raise on the river. You check/called 6th street; the chance that you actually bet the river is pretty small.

Bet/call the river after he checks to you. If he does check raise, he's doing it with a smooth 8 or a 7-6 or with total air often enough to call him.

[Praxising]

[ QUOTE ]
IMO, bet the river in the 2nd hand. ....
Bet/call the river after he checks to you. If he does check raise, he's doing it with a smooth 8 or a 7-6 or with total air often enough to call him.

[/ QUOTE ]
Thank you. And would you raise the river on the first hand?

[jbrennen]

[ QUOTE ]
Thank you. And would you raise the river on the first hand?

[/ QUOTE ]

At these stake levels, and against a player with no history, probably yes. He'll pay a buck to look you up often enough to make up for the times when you're beat.

But your hand is pretty much an open book, so you need to be careful against a known good player. He could be planning a C/R on the river -- one big difference between this hand and the other is that in this hand you were the last aggressor before the river, so if he outdrew you, going for a check/raise would make a lot of sense.


So basically, this first hand I'd play situationally. Against an opponent who I know to be good, or in a tourney situation, I probably check behind. The lower the stakes, or the more unknown the opponent is, the more likely that I bet the river.

[Praxising]

[ QUOTE ]
But your hand is pretty much an open book, so you need to be careful against a known good player. He could be planning a C/R on the river -- one big difference between this hand and the other is that in this hand you were the last aggressor before the river, so if he outdrew you, going for a check/raise would make a lot of sense.

[/ QUOTE ] Yeah, this was my thinking at the time. I was hoping to improve my hand even more, but not doing that, I just checked behind. I think since I am underbankrolled for even .5/1 at this point, I am going to err on the side of caution and decide that's ok for awhile as long as I don't get comatose.

[Raxxmataxx]

I tried looking at hand one, using the excellent calculator from propokertools.com and was a little surprised by some of the numbers.

Here's a breakdown of your equity numbers, in percentage points, from street-to-street, using some different assumptions about your opponent's hand distribution. I also assumed he was going to keep betting, no matter his hole cards, until 6th.

Wide starting range (98-32): 55-35-45-61-49

Medium starting range (86-32): 52-31-38-55-40

Nitty starting range (75-32): 50-30-34-43-31

Quick summary:

* You're never much of a favorite on 3d, even against someone who will play 98A against you.

I'm sure most razz people knew this, but to me it is a surprise. Since most openers are going to have a wider range than 42A it suggests you can be pretty liberal calling opening raises, as long as you don't show your bad cards.

* You're always worse of on 4th than on 5th. So your opponent catching an eigth apparently isn't all that bad.

The call should still be pretty horrendous due to you not having much in the way of implied odds. The only way I see you having those are if your opponent either is calling when obviously beat or going nuts with rough pats when you catch perfect on fifth.

* The seven is pretty much the perfect card for the opponent on 4th. Only 3:s and 6:s are as good. All other small cards are from 2-6 points worse.

* You're not ahead against a nit on 6th.

* Range vs range you're not really ahead against anybody on 6th. An opponent can have a ton of boardlocks and should punish you with a lot of 3-bets and bluffs here.

* You're not ahead against an unmodified range on 7th.

To be able to value bet here you need to be able to exclude quite a few hands from your opponent's range due to him simply calling you on 6th and checking on 7th.

[RustyBrooks]

Well, and further, to value bet you have to expect him to call with ALL of his worst hands, and the truth is that he's folding all of his worst ones and calling all of his better ones. In order to value bet you not only need to be ahead a decent percentage of the time, but you also need him to call with a lot of hands you beat.

[RustyBrooks]

Nice analysis, by the way.

[Raxxmataxx]

Not that I've played a lot of razz, but I wouldn't be too surprised to see the other guy calling all his eights and better.

My general experience in poker is that tons of people just go into calling mode one street from showdown and just stop thinking.

Further, if it's actually true that he'd bet any hole cards from 4th and onwards I think he *should* call down with most, or all, eigths. I'm not at all sure about that, since my intuition for ranges in lowball games isn't good at all. But getting 4:1 on a call down he shouldn't be folding very often.

Also, the fact that the enemy didn't re-pop 6th makes me think something is iffy. Rangewise we're in a 7-3 in favor of the bad guy. Him not 3-betting indicates he doesn't really know what he's doing. If he's better he should value-raise, and if he's worse he should semi-bluff with a ton of hands.

I should also point out that I think that hero's 2-bet on 6th is pretty horrible for the simple reason that the other guy has so very many boardlocks compared to hero's zero. It's somewhere along the lines of raising an A with a 9 on 3d street.