Home game Short-handed PL0/8 dilemma

[Godfather80]

The game is $.25/.50 PL0/8 with 5 players.

Relevant Stacks
SB (aggressive LAG): $40
CO (aggressive TAG): $120
Hero (button): $90

Reads: SB is loose and drunk, but capable of milking with a good hand. Basically, he understands how others see him and gets paid off.
CO is a TAG and a good player. He can be tricky early in hands, but tends to play straightforward late in hands.
Hero is TAGish who can be a little tricky early and late.

Preflop: Dealt to Hero K[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img]J[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img]T[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img]9[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img]
UTG folds, CO calls $.50, Hero calls $.50, SB raises to $1.25, BB folds, CO calls, Hero calls.

Flop ($4.25) K[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]Q[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img]7[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]
SB bets $1.75, CO calls $1.75, Hero calls $1.75

Turn ($9.50) K[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]Q[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img]7[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]9[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img]
SB bets $3.00, CO raises to $9.00, Hero ????

Please include your reasoning along with your advice. I'm trying to get better and often I don't see exactly why a play is best without a bit of an explanation.

[Phil153]

[ QUOTE ]
SB is loose and drunk, but capable of milking with a good hand

[/ QUOTE ]
Wow, this is normally how I talk about my women...

[Phil153]

(apologies for the bad joke)

My read here would be that CO has a set or top two and is isolating the drunk. He'll only have a straight some of the time here, and a straight with good redraws even less frequently.

There's three things you want to avoid here. One is an agonizing river decision if the board turns ugly and CO bets into you. The second is allowing CO and SB to correcly fold weaker hands. The third is getting all vs the deep stacked CO with a second best hand. Raising in this spot will make all these things much more likely.

You're quite deep stacked with the current nuts and one card to come, and a lot of safe outs. Therefore I'd flat call CO's raise and heavily bet a safe river. However, if SB reraises the turn, I'd probably push. There are enough marginal hands that will pay you off to compensate for redraws (IMO), especially with the pot being much larger at this point.

[gergery]

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[ QUOTE ]
SB is loose and drunk, but capable of milking with a good hand

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Wow, this is normally how I talk about my women...

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Funny, that's how I talk about your women too....

-g

[Phil153]

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Funny, that's how I talk about your women too....

-g

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Ouch

-p

[gergery]

[ QUOTE ]
(apologies for the bad joke)

My read here would be that CO has a set or top two and is isolating the drunk. He'll only have a straight some of the time here, and a straight with good redraws even less frequently.

There's three things you want to avoid here. One is an agonizing river decision if the board turns ugly and CO bets into you. The second is allowing CO and SB to correcly fold weaker hands. The third is getting all vs the deep stacked CO with a second best hand. Raising in this spot will make all these things much more likely.

You're quite deep stacked with the current nuts and one card to come, and a lot of safe outs. Therefore I'd flat call CO's raise and heavily bet a safe river. However, if SB reraises the turn, I'd probably push. There are enough marginal hands that will pay you off to compensate for redraws (IMO), especially with the pot being much larger at this point.

[/ QUOTE ]

If you were SB and had either a set or flush draw or even higher straight draw, what would you want OP to do here?

I probably min-raise this.

-g

[Phil153]

If OP just calls, SB is still making a mistake most of the time. With a flush draw (8 outs) or set (4-8 outs), his draw is worse that 5:1 in both cases and he'll be making a mistake by calling. If we raise, we maximize his mistake, but we might also get his weak hand/draw to fold correctly. I don't see any real advantage trying to force SB out at this point. Raising can also have unintended consequences if we're up against a couple of monsters.

My main concern here is CO, mostly based on OP's read and the depth of the stacks. I don't want to get a significant amount of my stack in on the turn when almost half of all rivers will be difficult decisions with a chance to make a very expensive mistake. I prefer to play a smaller pot on the river. I also think slowplaying will maximize profit vs two pair or a set and minimize loss vs big hands. It's quite easy to milk a blank river (non heart 2,3,4,5,6,7,8,K?, maybe 9) as the straight is fairly well hidden if we don't show strength on the turn.

This is just my opinion.

I'm interested in why you'd min raise here, apart from shutting out SB.

[Godfather80]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
(apologies for the bad joke)

My read here would be that CO has a set or top two and is isolating the drunk. He'll only have a straight some of the time here, and a straight with good redraws even less frequently.

There's three things you want to avoid here. One is an agonizing river decision if the board turns ugly and CO bets into you. The second is allowing CO and SB to correcly fold weaker hands. The third is getting all vs the deep stacked CO with a second best hand. Raising in this spot will make all these things much more likely.

You're quite deep stacked with the current nuts and one card to come, and a lot of safe outs. Therefore I'd flat call CO's raise and heavily bet a safe river. However, if SB reraises the turn, I'd probably push. There are enough marginal hands that will pay you off to compensate for redraws (IMO), especially with the pot being much larger at this point.

[/ QUOTE ]

If you were SB and had either a set or flush draw or even higher straight draw, what would you want OP to do here?

I probably min-raise this.

-g

[/ QUOTE ]

I thought raising would be correct as well because of the following logic: there are ~22 river cards I don't want to see. 7 clubs, 9 hearts, 3 queens, and 3 sevens. In my mind, holding the current nuts and having 4 redraw outs to a full house, means that I should protect my hand.

I raised, but I raised to $34. My logic was that SB would call with any set, so I wanted him to be making a mistake if he did. I knew CO would come along if SB came along, but I figured that I couldn't help that. I put CO on something like 2 pair plus a nut flush draw or a set plus a nut flush draw.

My goal was to get money in the pot when I had the best hand (with 4 redraw outs). Is this sort of thinking dangerous?

[Phat Mack]

Right now you have the nuts. You say you have a redraw of four outs, but if there is a set of queens out there (SB?), you have 2.

From your description of the CO, and his raise on 4th street, I am assuming that he has the same straight that you do. It is possible that he has the same straight with more redraw outs (to a flush or higher straight).

From your description of SB, you have may have him beat now, but he may have a bigger draw.

For your straight to remain good, you want a non-heart A-6 or an 8 to come on the river: 21 outs. A King or 9 may also help. At the table I would think I was roughly even to get a good river card.

If I have faith in my read that CO has my same straight, I am laying 2:1 on my turn-bet money for a draw that is 1:1. I don't like that. Plus, the SB is short stacked. If I raise the turn, it may prompt SB to get all in on this round, and every chip I put in over that is just to get my money back. I don't like that either, and to try to pevent it, I just call on 4th street and hope that SB slows down. I may get some information about SB's hand by how he reacts to CO's re-raise and my call, information that might help me if a scare card comes on the river.

On the other hand, promoting a mass all-in on this street will prevent a missplay by you (or your opponents) on the river. But if I feel that I'm reading the table well, the river decision doesn't bother me that much, and I willing to make it when it comes.

JMO

[gergery]

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With a flush draw (8 outs) or set (4-8 outs), his draw is worse that 5:1 in both cases and he'll be making a mistake by calling.

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No. If you call here then SB must call $6.5 to win $30.5, so he’s getting 4.7 to 1 pot odds. Since he must have some 2 card combo like Axh or QQ to call on a draw, there are 42 unseen cards meaning he needs ~7.5 outs to be getting correct pot odds. Therefore a flush DOES have correct odds to call. And a set may have correct implied odds to call. But more importantly, even if it is a mistake its not much of a mistake for SB to call with those hands.

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OP just calls, SB is still making a mistake most of the time. If we raise, we maximize his mistake, but we might also get his weak hand/draw to fold correctly. I don't see any real advantage trying to force SB out at this point.

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Your objective isn’t to get him to make a mistake, it is to make money yourself. If sets/flushes aren’t making much of a mistake by calling if you call, then it can’t be hurting you too much if you raise and he folds. However, if you raise and he calls then it makes you tons of profit, since his call is EV neutral-ish due to existing pot odds, but FRESH money going in has you at a 4:1 favorite for a massive EV advantage.

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Raising can also have unintended consequences if we're up against a couple of monsters.

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You need to answer 4 questions and link the answers together to know what to do.
How often am I ahead? If I’m ahead, what’s my equity?
How often am I behind? If I’m behind, what’s my equity?

Worrying about monsters places undue focus on only one of those questions

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I want to get a significant amount of my opponents stack in on the turn when almost half of all rivers will be difficult decisions with a chance for him to make a very expensive mistake since I have position and want to maximize its value

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FYP