Theory question - Example Given
This is from a live 5/5 game.
Hero - Text book player, sometimes creative for the most part bets with the nuts. No real theory or poker study behind them, all their experience has come from the table and notes I have given him
Villian - Very creative player, knows the game ok, good technical knowledge of the game and willing to gamble.
So I had this debate with my buddy last night after he told me what happened I think he should not have played the hand this way.
Hero stack - about 130
Villian - About 400-500 (essentially has hero covered by a comfortable amount)
Hero hole cards KQ
Here is the action
1. Hero in late position raises to 30.
2. Villian OOP calls the 30.
Flop
10 6 2 rainbow
Villian checks...hero bets out 40....villian check raises hero all in. Do you make the call?
In this situation Hero made the call with KQ for two reasons:
1. He put villian on air (which he was correct villian had 97 for gutshot)
2. He was short and said he was getting implied odds to draw to overcards
Outcome - villian spikes a pair and wins the hand (plan b as I like to call it)
I said that this is horrible poker as you are playing a cash game and should be picking better spots. I also said the edge was not great enough to call the all in with 2 cards to come as this was not a tourney and the blinds do not escalate and you could save the extra 80-90 bucks for a better hand when you are not essentially making a "hero call"
Thoughts???
Hero - Text book player, sometimes creative for the most part bets with the nuts. No real theory or poker study behind them, all their experience has come from the table and notes I have given him
Villian - Very creative player, knows the game ok, good technical knowledge of the game and willing to gamble.
So I had this debate with my buddy last night after he told me what happened I think he should not have played the hand this way.
Hero stack - about 130
Villian - About 400-500 (essentially has hero covered by a comfortable amount)
Hero hole cards KQ
Here is the action
1. Hero in late position raises to 30.
2. Villian OOP calls the 30.
Flop
10 6 2 rainbow
Villian checks...hero bets out 40....villian check raises hero all in. Do you make the call?
In this situation Hero made the call with KQ for two reasons:
1. He put villian on air (which he was correct villian had 97 for gutshot)
2. He was short and said he was getting implied odds to draw to overcards
Outcome - villian spikes a pair and wins the hand (plan b as I like to call it)
I said that this is horrible poker as you are playing a cash game and should be picking better spots. I also said the edge was not great enough to call the all in with 2 cards to come as this was not a tourney and the blinds do not escalate and you could save the extra 80-90 bucks for a better hand when you are not essentially making a "hero call"
Thoughts???
Comments
if we want to be critical, the villain's push with air was idiotic. but playing this way with 26xbb is f'd too.
This would be open-ended no?
As the rest stands, Villain prob put Hero on overs that obv didn't hit on this board. Figured that with this bet (and stack size) could just take it down and go onto the next hand. If called (again stack size prob a factor) he was happy to draw.
Sounds to me like he cont. bet the wrong type of player.
Oh I am in total agreement...but that is why its the juiciest 5/5 game I know...lol
If Hero knows villain well enough to believe he is ahead/has odds the requisite % of the time, then the call is ok , i guess. Like if the villain only c/rs allin with draws but check/calls or donks with made hands.
Pot is offering 3.4:1.
This call is not theoretically very bad.
In this case, hero has to call only $60 more into what will be a pot of ~$265. He is getting great POT odds (not "implied") of 3.4:1 to call. In other words, he only needs 23% equity or chance of winning to make calling correct. Given that the likely range of hands that he put the villain on is "air", he happened to have made the correct equity-maximizing play of calling, even if he doesn't understand what implied odds are or the poker theory for maximizing equity. My question now is: do YOU?
I think however that he may just be trying to justify the fact that he commited himself in the first place. When he made the continuation bet he couldnt have been thinking much at all.. by betting almost half his stack he is essentially advertising that hes willing to commit his stack, but isnt backing it up. Its easy to see its not a value bet when its close to 70% of the pot, looks more like hes trying to cut down odds to me.
As for making the all in call, Its hard to say... There are so many variables considering the size of his remaining stack... is he willing to rebuy chips? How big is the average stack? Can he play comfortable with only 12 blinds remaining? You could argue saying that the size of his stack is irrelevant in a cash game,... but think of how much pressure there is playing with a short stack. It might be better to take the 3.5-1 odds even if you think you twice that to call, assuming you play less than 50% of your A-game when your under pressure.
Personally, I think its best to fold and rebuy enough chips to be an average stack. Otherwise call it a night.
The bolded portion is wrong. In cash games you can pass up small edges because the blinds don't increase. In tournaments you cant pass up small edges because you have to stay ahead of the blind increases. I made the switch from playing mtt's professionally to playing full ring cash games professionally and this is one of the fundamentals I had to learn.
On the flop we should be open shoving if we think villain has air and we plan to bet because we cant ever fold to a shove getting 3.4 to 1.
Hmm, I actually think blondefish is correct here. There's no reason to pass on any edge in a cash game, provided your bankroll is large enough. In a tournament you should often pass on a tiny edge if you believe you will have a larger edge later. This is because in a tournament if you run out of chips you're done. Blondefish's statement agrees with Sklansky in Tournament Poker for Advanced Players (which I am currently rereading, the only reason I'm confident disagreeing with a pro).
First round of the WSOP you are the BB and the SB pushes all in. You've accidently seen his cards - AsKs. You look down at 3c3d. This would be a foolish tournament call if you consider yourself one of the better players at the tournament. Particularly so because the player to your right is likely to make many mistakes later on where you can realize a much larger advantage.
In a cash game where you have a very large bankroll it is a call, because you have an equity edge.
I think one key thing to understand when reading my strategy responses is that I assume that people already understand the basics to some degree. Your edge in the tournament situation listed is one where we're playing for all of our chips in a spot where our edge is tiny. I would refer to that as a race situation not a spot where we effectivly have an edge. To me understanding to fold there is so basic there's not even a need for a discussion on it.(please keep in mind I dont mean that in a derogatory way or anything of the sort)
Let me offer an example of what I mean. $400NL full ring cash game online. All stacks at the table are 100BB. Let's say we have 88. We 4x raise from mid position and get flatted from the BB. The flop is T62 rainbow. We Cbet and get check raised by a player who we have little info on. We can definitly go away a decent portion of the time without it being a big leak. We might be slightly +EV in calling here but if we do call then we have a tough decision to make on the turn and river if he fires again. With stack sizes the way they are it's prob best to fold more than we call. Thus we possibly give up a small edge here some of the time in a cash game to keep ourselves out of a tough situation.
Now let's look at a spot where we're unsure of where we're at in the hand in an mtt. Both players have 20BB stacks in a $109 buyin mtt. We've been semi-active from late position. We open the cutoff with 88 for 2.5x and a tight aggressive player who likes to defend flats from the BB. Flop is T63 rainbow. We Cbet and villain check raises. This is a spot where we should be folding much less since we're often ahead and and because of rising blinds we really cant pass up an opportunity to get the chips in ahead in a spot where we're somewhat +EV.
Hopefully this illustration helps you better understand what I mean.
As I said in post #15 "we cant ever fold to a shove getting 3.4 to 1."(if we're sure that he has air)
Of course not, I didn't take it as such - I used simple examples intentionally.
My only issue, and we may be simply discussing semantics here, is of your correction/categorization of blondefish's correction as "wrong" when it is actually correct tournament strategy.
The key for tournaments and passing up small edges is that you hope to be able to take advantage of a larger edge later on. In your $109 mtt example you likely won't have a better chance to put your money in so calling is ok. Make the stacks 1000bb somehow and then folding becomes a more likely play.
Your cash game example is an extension of the same reasoning. Keep yourself out of a tough situation now, to have the chips available later for bigger edges later. I totally agree with your play in the example. This is more of a personal preference issue though, if a player could withstand the much greater variance that would come with a call/raise then making the theoretically correct play of call/raise would be fine. (vs an unknown we couldnt' know if we had an edge or not, we would need a solid read)
When I say pass up small edges I don't mean fold 33 if we KNOW our opponent has AK. Obv we call there without a doubt.
and then in next post it is written
Your edge in the tournament situation listed is one where we're playing for all of our chips in a spot where is tiny. I would refer to that as a race situation not a spot where we effectivly have an edge. To me understanding to fold there is so basic there's not even a need for a discussion on it.
Do these statement contradict? If they don't could someone please explain why?
Thanks.
Thanks everyone for the input.....
I think this post sums up the discussion. As a regular cash game player I would not have gotten myself into this situation to begin with, but my buddy is more of a "gambler" then a structured stats orientated poker player. In the end I don't make this raise preflop with KQ because of the above stated fact, but I guess cause my buddy did he was committed, so in a strange reality he was correct.
Like a few other posts have said, if you are going to play cash why are you playing short. It makes situations like these a lot less important and in the end you can pick better spots to grab cash.
I honestly don't find it profitable going in to flip in a slight edge in a "LIVE" cash game because:
1. Most live games are two nitty to make these kind of plays profitably....
2. The quote "big hands-big pots, small hand small pots" come to mind
Short stacking is actually better for your friend in all likelihood because he doesnt seem to really understand poker strategy. The deeper the stacks the easier it is to make costly mistakes. Until he learns effective TAG strategy it's probably best he keeps short stacking and looses less while doing so.
I'm been pretty frustrated with this whole discussion because I can't seem to explain what I'm trying to say in a way that you all can easily understand. I think I might have figured out how to say it:
I'm not talking about passing up situations where we are clearly +EV by a small edge. I am talking about passing up situations where we THINK we're +EV by a small edge in cash games. Hopefully that says it in a way you can understand.