MLET Challenge: Labatt Action

[Brain]

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Yes. This was part of the game.

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and it is still screwing w/ my pot odd/size calcs [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]

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Don't forget the rake. [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]

[OziBattler]

drzen,

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Im expecting that Bravos is raising any pair, any broadway, any ace, any king, any queen (except with maybe a really bad kicker), many suited connectors/1 gappers. That’s a pretty wide range. I also plugged in J8s into pokerstove versus the top 40% of hands and depending on what I hands I use I was at worst a 40/60 dog (all calculations approximate).

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I think this is a reasonable range. although low carded connectors and some low suited connectors/1gappers could be mucked too. Anywho, its a range similar to what I would be using to steal. if its playable its raisable.

it should be noted that Ive admitted this was borderline and this should be interpreted to mean that if the raise came from even an earlier position or my cards were just a little weaker then I probably wouldnt have pulled this raise.

Strangely enough, my respect for bravos allowed me to do this since I know he will know about position, he knows to raise anything playable here and he knows how to fold. Yes I got a little lucky in that he had a hand at the bottom of his range but after I 3 bet he has to hit the flop.

Now, it would have been interesting to see what I would have done if I wiffed and i wont give away all my secrets (cos I havent thought them up yet [img]/images/graemlins/confused.gif[/img])

When I say I can back off quickly I say this because when I look at that flop I realise that if I get played back at its going to mean he has something he likes. I figured a screwplay was unlikely on hand #1.

this is where my preflop works in my favour. that flop is gunna look scary for him if he doesnt have at least 2nd pair or a nice flushdraw.

FWIW and with a grain of salt I considered there to be the following lines here
1. I bet and he folds
2. flop is bet/call and i get raised on the turn. I would probably muck it at this point since that raise would be telling me he has me beat
3. flop is bet/raise and I call. I would maybe intepret this as a flushdraw looking for a free card and might have donked the turn and folded to a raise. honestly, it depends.
4. I bet and get called down and lose to a weak ace or better jack.

yeah, also metagame....I also am gunna get some sweet sweet action on the following hands [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[drzen]

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the reason its better to reraise than to call is because this particular opponent can fold a made hand postflop, has a wide range that may need to connect to continue, and if we both catch we can win a huge pot.

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Sorry, I didn't really understand any of those reasons.

Why does reraising make him any more likely to fold a made hand? He actually had a made hand here and folded because the flop sucked for him, not because we reraised.

Yes, he has a wide range, but why does that mean that it's a good idea to reraise. We are not beating his range and we too must hit the flop to continue!

And yes, we can win a big pot when we both catch (but he catches less, I guess you mean) but that is the worst reason for reraising I can think of. You'd raise every hand you were dealt if that was a good way to think. It totally ignores that you lose more when you do not catch. You also ignore the chance that he has something like Ax and you both catch.

I don't see anything in that that is actually a benefit of raising. The first, okay, I see what you're saying. You're hoping that you might have some benefit to deceiving a made hand into thinking your stronger and folding because of it. Well, good luck. You've inflated the pot, so many players actually will not fold because you've made the reward for hanging in there with a weak made hand a bit better. The second and third are results-oriented. Yes, I want to have raised when I win! I want to have capped every street. But I don't want to have raised when I lose.

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this type of move can be more dangerous vs an opponent who is willing to make moves on you after showing preflop strength, but I honestly don't think that this was the case here.

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I don't see how it becomes any more or less dangerous because I don't see much benefit in the reraise in the first place.

[drzen]

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drzen,

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Im expecting that Bravos is raising any pair, any broadway, any ace, any king, any queen (except with maybe a really bad kicker), many suited connectors/1 gappers. That’s a pretty wide range. I also plugged in J8s into pokerstove versus the top 40% of hands and depending on what I hands I use I was at worst a 40/60 dog (all calculations approximate).

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I think this is a reasonable range. although low carded connectors and some low suited connectors/1gappers could be mucked too. Anywho, its a range similar to what I would be using to steal. if its playable its raisable.

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?

If that is how you think, I suggest a rethink! You'd simply never limp if that were the case. Maybe you don't.

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it should be noted that Ive admitted this was borderline and this should be interpreted to mean that if the raise came from even an earlier position or my cards were just a little weaker then I probably wouldnt have pulled this raise.

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Why not? Without knowing why you felt the raise was a good idea, it's hard to know why those things make it a bad idea.

If you think it's worth raising when you're a 40/60 dog, why would being a slightly worse dog make much difference? I think you already need to get sufficiently lucky that this isn't much of an issue. If the raise was from an earlier position, I'm sure we wouldn't be having this discussion. I can't believe you'd reraise in that circumstance. You just seem too solid a player for it.

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Strangely enough, my respect for bravos allowed me to do this since I know he will know about position, he knows to raise anything playable here and he knows how to fold. Yes I got a little lucky in that he had a hand at the bottom of his range but after I 3 bet he has to hit the flop.

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With the hand he has! You only know that now.


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Now, it would have been interesting to see what I would have done if I wiffed and i wont give away all my secrets (cos I havent thought them up yet [img]/images/graemlins/confused.gif[/img])

When I say I can back off quickly I say this because when I look at that flop I realise that if I get played back at its going to mean he has something he likes. I figured a screwplay was unlikely on hand #1.

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With no ace on the flop, you don't know that he likes it that much. He could have any part of it and puts you on overs.

I think you are slightly underestimating how much a very favourable flop made your reraise look better.

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this is where my preflop works in my favour. that flop is gunna look scary for him if he doesnt have at least 2nd pair or a nice flushdraw.

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But not all flops will.

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FWIW and with a grain of salt I considered there to be the following lines here
1. I bet and he folds
2. flop is bet/call and i get raised on the turn. I would probably muck it at this point since that raise would be telling me he has me beat
3. flop is bet/raise and I call. I would maybe intepret this as a flushdraw looking for a free card and might have donked the turn and folded to a raise. honestly, it depends.
4. I bet and get called down and lose to a weak ace or better jack.

yeah, also metagame....I also am gunna get some sweet sweet action on the following hands [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

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But I don't see how any of those lines are any more or less likely if you don't raise.

[OziBattler]

thrakkar said it best "theres a fine line between being a genuis and an idiot" and ive already said it was borderline (call it a screwplay if you will) so I probably should stop defending my funky -EV line.

In short, my raise probably isnt +EV but I wanted to get this HU and give myself a chance of outplaying him postflop. its a changeup I admit that and even wookie says it is OK once in a while.

yes, he isnt that likely to fold a made hand but he is more likely to fold a hand that is better than mine that doesnt connect the flop.

I believe that by 3betting I greatly increase my chances of taking this pot down on the flop/turn and I decrease the chance of me being outplayed postflop and gives me a (slightly) better chance to outplay my opponent postflop. By outplay I also mean that I am capable of making the right fold.

FWIW if I do rarely limp when folded to me in HJ, CO or Button.

why do I feel like Im defending the indefensible? [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]

[Smurph64]

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Yes. This was part of the game.

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and it is still screwing w/ my pot odd/size calcs [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]

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Don't forget the rake. [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]

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Shh! They don't know I am going to rake the entire amount at the end of the tournament yet. [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

[Thrakkar]

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Yes. This was part of the game.

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and it is still screwing w/ my pot odd/size calcs [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]

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Don't forget the rake. [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]

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Shh! They don't know I am going to rake the entire amount at the end of the tournament yet. [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

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If you do that we won't be able to tip the dealer... Your problem! [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

[drzen]

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thrakkar said it best "theres a fine line between being a genuis and an idiot" and ive already said it was borderline (call it a screwplay if you will) so I probably should stop defending my funky -EV line.

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Please don't be too defensive. We're talking poker not personal! You should defend your line because you're helping me learn. If I don't see it and you explain, then I have a chance of seeing what you see.

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In short, my raise probably isnt +EV but I wanted to get this HU and give myself a chance of outplaying him postflop. its a changeup I admit that and even wookie says it is OK once in a while.

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I just think you need to be clear on why it's okay, if it's okay.

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yes, he isnt that likely to fold a made hand but he is more likely to fold a hand that is better than mine that doesnt connect the flop.

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This is the part I'm thinking hardest about. The question has to be "how much more likely?" Over the course of 1000 hands, how many pots will this win us? If it was enough hands, then obviously this would be a good play with just about any two. But it requires you always to continue with a bet on the flop, so when he does connect, you lose even more than you already have. And as I noted, I think it makes the other player *slightly less likely* to fold weak hands because there's now a bigger pot.

So maybe you're right but I'd certainly be interested in figuring out whether the value is there.

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I believe that by 3betting I greatly increase my chances of taking this pot down on the flop/turn and I decrease the chance of me being outplayed postflop and gives me a (slightly) better chance to outplay my opponent postflop. By outplay I also mean that I am capable of making the right fold.

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I'm doubting the "greatly" here. I can see the value in deception (so long as you don't have to show down too many of these hands and you're not threebetting everything raised to you in the blinds) but it's so player dependent.

Well, it's food for thought anyway, so I'm glad you had a go at it.

But I note in the hand you posted just now you didn't raise a better hand in this same sort of position against exactly the kind of player that I think you would get value for deception against. Interesting.

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FWIW if I do rarely limp when folded to me in HJ, CO or Button.

why do I feel like Im defending the indefensible? [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]

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LOL. I never limp when it's folded to me in those seats. I either raise or fold. But that doesn't mean I'm raising very bad hands, and I wouldn't think you'd have value against my range with the hand we're talking about. And the deception value would be nil. If an aggro player threebets me from the blinds when I steal, I simply assume they have what they consider a playable hand. If you were an unknown, I'd think maybe you had something a little better.

[OziBattler]

drzen, its cool. I realise I had trouble explaining and that I waffled abit. I do tend to do that when I dont have a concrete response. I love this game of poker and this MLET is turning into a THINKAMENT.

Anyway, I think that gurumans post is simplier and summarises my thinking.

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LOL. I never limp when it's folded to me in those seats. I either raise or fold. But that doesn't mean I'm raising very bad hands, and I wouldn't think you'd have value against my range with the hand we're talking about.

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Yeppers. Obviously I mean that I dont limp. I raise of fold from LP if open folded to me. I dont raise trash but I open my range (but of course we both know that we know this is standard play so why am I bothering to type this? meh)

Let me just try to wrap up my comments on this preflop discussion by repeating that it took very special set of (as discussed) circumstances to make me raise this preflop

[drzen]

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drzen, its cool. I realise I had trouble explaining and that I waffled abit. I do tend to do that when I dont have a concrete response. I love this game of poker and this MLET is turning into a THINKAMENT.

Anyway, I think that gurumans post is simplier and summarises my thinking.

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Hmmm. As I noted, I didn't think any of his thinking made sense. I'm just not convinced that pumping the pot just in case you get lucky is *ever* going to be a good reason for raising when you are an underdog.