100NL Live How do you play this hand with various stack sizes?

[veryblind]

I'll give the actual hand first, but I'm curious if you would do anything different if the effective stacks were larger.

100NL live game. 7 players at the table at the moment.
Effective stacks are $100. I have a little over $100, CO has a little under $100, and UTG+1 has about $300 (for some reason, a player's stack even if it doesn't play affects their play so I thought I mention it here).

Actual hand: I have Q[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]8 [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] in MP2
Preflop: UTG+1 limps, I raise to $15, CO calls, UTG+1 calls.
Flop ($45): J [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]8 [img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img]5 [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]
UTG+1 bets $25, Hero...?

Heads-up, I usually push in this spot. But I didn't want to lose CO. I called hoping for a call from CO to build the pot for me. I was planning on shoving the turn regardless of the card and whether or not CO called flop. Also, I didn't think a shove here would really fold out any flush draws or UTG+1's probable pair of Jacks.

What I don't want though is to be sandwiched between a guy who has a weak but bigger pair than 8's, (which UTG+1 is likely to have), and a guy who has a higher flush draw. I don't mind playing either one of them. But if they both have a bigger pair or both have a draw, I think I want to play against both.

What are your thoughts?

Also, how does this change if the effective stacks are $200? $400?

Thanks.

[KurtSF]

Thoughts:

Preflop is burning money. There's no money in the pot, and your have 0.000000001% chance it folds around and a 94% chance that you end up playing a large multi-way pot with a weak easily dominated hand from out-of-position. Yuck.

The flop is very bad as well. In case you hadn't noticed, you don't have the nuts. Yes, you have a huge amount of equity in this hand. But the ways you will win are (1) getting everyone else to fold and (2) hitting a card that makes you the best hand on the turn or river. How does keeping CO in the hand achieve either of those? You kill any FE you have by making the pot large, and by keeping more players in the hand you screw up your outs, either by allowing better hands to stick around or by not cleaning up your outs by getting other draws to fold.

$100 effective stacks this is a shove.
$200 effective stacks this is a shove.
$300 effective stacks this is a raise to ~$120 and shoving most turns.
$400 effective stacks this is a raise to ~$120 and playing poker on the turn and river.

$0.02

[KurtSF]

[ QUOTE ]

What I don't want though is to be sandwiched between a guy who has a weak but bigger pair than 8's, (which UTG+1 is likely to have), and a guy who has a higher flush draw. I don't mind playing either one of them. But if they both have a bigger pair or both have a draw, I think I want to play against both.


[/ QUOTE ]

I re-read your post and realized that you already understand that calling is bad here. Put that knowledge into practice.

[FireStorm]

Preflop is yuck. Flop, easy shove.

[SammyG-SD]

ignoring the hand, I will comment on the effective stack size in live games. While online I consider stack size when making a decision, almost as routinely as breathing; it took me awhile to put this in practice in live games. Since doing this, my bankroll has become much healthier. You need to consider who is involved and what their stack size with every bet, especially on hands that will pay off bit multiway. Nothing is worse than hitting a disguise set on the flop, and the two guys in the hand only have 10xBB.
-What do you want your bet to accomplish? Are you trying to protect, build the pot, setup a semi-bluff on the turn? Will the guy pay you off, if so how much does he have? Can he laydown his hand? If you don't consider this on every action, then you are going to get caught trying to bluff someone who is pot committed, and that will kill your table image.

[veryblind]

You make a good point Kurt.
In this hand, I don't think I had much FE even if I pushed though. And yes, if I get CO to call, he will likely take away some of my outs. I am hoping that he is not taking the big portion of my outs (ie. the hearts).

This may not be the best hand to exemplify the issue I'm trying to raise. But let's say I had A [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]8 [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] instead. So now, I'm not afraid of losing many of my flush outs.
Assuming, I don't want to fold out my opponents, isn't there value in letting them draw to the 2nd best hand?

[Landlord79]

The power of a semi bluff comes from its fold equity, not the 1/3rd of the time that you actually hit a low implied odds hand.

BTW, preflop is more spew live than online, live players just want to see the flop, so you should play in position and outplay them post flop.

[veryblind]

Perhaps I'm not getting my point across or I'm just a little slow and not understanding your answers. Whichever it is, I hope someone can straighten me out.

I agree that preflop is not an optimal play. The reason I did it is because a lot of live players tend to be hit-or-fold players and I can build my stack with a couple of these PFR and cbets in order to start playing real poker with a deeper stack. OK, so if we can get past my idiotic preflop play, I'd like to concentrate on post flop play...

The basis of my point is the fact that part of drawing well requires that you have good odds. Yes, sometimes you can raise with draws to get FE but let's suppose that you have a situation where raising will not fold the better hand. In that case, isn't it better to keep more people in so that your draw has better odds?

Here's a completely contrived example.

Board: 6 [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] 8 [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] J [img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img]
You have A [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] 2 [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]
You have $100. There's $100 in the pot.
Player1 bets $50, It's your action and there 3 players behind.

Let's assume that if you push, you have a greater chance of pushing out the players behind you.
Let's also assume that player 1 is not folding to your push, since he'll be getting $250-$50 or 5-1 odds to call.

Now, if you end up going heads up against player1, it's not bad, but it's not great. You're a 2-1 underdog and you push $100 to win $200 so it's neutral EV, right? (again, remember we have no FE in this example which may be unrealistic. push back if you think this is unrealistic)

But you call, you give the player behind 4-1 odds to call. And if he calls, the player after that gets 5-1 odds to call...

Isn't this a better situation?

You may argue that a good player will not call since I overcalled the flop bet and auto-committed myself to the pot. But let's assume we're playing bad players, who will call with AJ, K or Q high flush draws and even straight draws 57 or 79.

Please help me see the flaw in this logic if there is one.

[Berge20]

Are you considering that by keeping other players in the hand, you are potentially losing additional outs?

Your queen might be good if it hits in the first one, or the ace in this last example.

[veryblind]

[ QUOTE ]
Are you considering that by keeping other players in the hand, you are potentially losing additional outs?

Your queen might be good if it hits in the first one, or the ace in this last example.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes, I did consider that, although admittedly, not carefully. I just guessed that the additional money in the pot outweigh my lost of equity in that pot. But this is really the heart of the question. Thank you for brining it out.

I'll try a very naive estimation (no pokerstove on hand at the moment). I hope others can step in with a better model.

So let's assume that if I let others in the pot, then there's 100% chance I lose the aces as outs but I keep them 100% of the time that I fold out other players (except player 1).

case 1 (I push and get called only by player 1):
I have 9 hearts + 3 aces = 12 outs so I'll win 45% of the time.
45%($200) - 55%($100) = $35

case 2: (I call, 1 player behind calls, player 1 and I go all-in on turn and other player folds)
In this case, I only have 9 outs, let's say I'll win about 36% of the time

36%($250) - 64%($100) = $26


case 2: (I call, 1 player behind calls, player 1 and I go all-in on turn and other player calls too)
Again, I have 36% chance of winning

36%($300) - 64%($100) = $44


So it's close. I think case 3 is more likely than case 2 because the other player will be getting huge odds to call (but he may fold if another heart came he was drawing to a straight with no hearts). But also, there's a slim chance others might come in. So it depends...

I really don't know. Does anyone else have insight? Does anyone else want to take a crack at it? I suck at math