Push or fold? Difficult cash game calculation

NickyOD

1/2 Pot limit Holdem cash game at the poker lounge in Limerick. I'm having my second bad night in a row. I can recall 5 large pots over the 2 nights where I've gotten either all my money or my oponents when I've been between a 20-1 and a 3-1 favourite and lost them all. I've also made some bad calls at showdowns so its safe to say I'm on tilt and its 7 o'clock in the morning. :rolleyes:

We see a flop 5 handed and I'm in the cutoff with 7-T of diamonds. The flop was 8h-9d-5s.

The action postflop was quite interesting. I hope I remember it correctly. Kobraki might be able to correct me. The only thing I am sure of was the amount of money in the pot because I spent forever trying to work out my pot odds.

I checked the flop, BB checks. I already know he has flopped a set with 88 or 99. He raised to €5 out of the BB and that's exactly what I put him on. Next player bets 20. Next palyer calls, as does the player on my right who is very tight passive so I think he has 2 pair or TPTK here but definitely not a made straight. I call knowing the BB with probably raise but I have to see what develops anyway. He raises to €120. 2 players fold and the tight passive player calls leaving only €26 behind. The BB has €75 left so its €175 for me to get him all in and obviously if I do the 3 of us are going to a showdown here.

After a lot of thought I estimated that my chances of winning the hand were 29% and I pushed because I was risking €175 to make a profit of €426.

Thoughts?

careca

I'm not great with pot odds but I would have thought your chances of winning were less than 29%. 8 cards left out of 47 ? Also is it not 195 to get all his money in, which is only giving you over 2/1. Fold for me anyway.

Norwich Fan Rob

with 2 cards to come and 8 outs u are around 32% imo.
however, with that many calling the flop, 1 or 2 of your outs may well be gone.
Also , u are not drawing to the nut str8, as someone could have JT (perhaps the 2nd guy)

Your getting between 9/4 and 5/2 on the call, which is marginally value, if u still have all 8 outs.

i dont think id call this myself.

careca

Norwich Fan Rob wrote:

Also , u are not drawing to the nut str8, as someone could have JT (perhaps the 2nd guy)

just wondering does this matter at all ? None of Nickys outs will make the nut str8 for this player, so surely this should not be considered ?

Norwich Fan Rob

just say 2 of your outs are gone, then u are just over 3/1 to make your hand, and its a bad call.

Waylander

You cannot rule out some of your outs as they could already be in play. I think a call is the correct move in this pot. Once you are getting 2 to 1 the value is there for you.

MGrah

NickyOD wrote:

The action postflop was quite interesting. I hope I remember it correctly. Kobraki might be able to correct me. The only thing I am sure of was the amount of money in the pot because I spent forever trying to work out my pot odds.

I checked the flop, BB checks. I already know he has flopped a set with 88 or 99. He raised to €5 out of the BB and that's exactly what I put him on. Next player bets 20. Next palyer calls, as does the player on my right who is very tight passive so I think he has 2 pair or TPTK here but definitely not a made straight. I call knowing the BB with probably raise but I have to see what develops anyway. He raises to €120. 2 players fold and the tight passive player calls leaving only €26 behind. The BB has €75 left so its €175 for me to get him all in and obviously if I do the 3 of us are going to a showdown here.

After a lot of thought I estimated that my chances of winning the hand were 29% and I pushed because I was risking €175 to make a profit of €426.

Thoughts?

Nicky - just gonna have a go at this, feel free to criticise the analysis.

Assuming you're up against a flopped top set and TPTK, depending on the number of blockers to your back door flush draw you're around 28/29% or 2.45/1, with 426 return for 175 or 2.43/1. This makes it very marginal and a fold for me. (if the previous poster is right and there's a chance second caller has JT, then you're in a whole heap of trouble here at only 21%.
There's little chance of either player folding at this point.
Don't take this as a criticism (far be it from me!), it's a genuine question, if you know that the bb will raise big behind you isn't the call of the initial €20 bet on the flop wrong? without the second caller you have no chance of being able to call this raise. Or were you sure that the guy would call the raise?

Iago

Waylander wrote:

You cannot rule out some of your outs as they could already be in play.

I would tend to disagree with this, you have to put your opponent on a range of hands, sometimes that range will include some of your outs. You then have to revise your chances of winning the hand downwards, otherwise you're not being honest with yourself and you're giving up a lot of money over a period of time making calls that you shouldn't be making.

As for not drawing to the nut straight, this makes a difference because you could well hit your card only for it not to matter because someone with a higher straight draw has hit their out. Alowing for the fact that one of the players probably has a set and with it a 27% chance of hitting a full house and leaving your out irrelevant, the combination of these two things (possibilities) make this a difficult decision.

I think if you're playing then a push is the only option, I don't know whether I would have folded at this point or not though. You know you're behind, there's a good possibility that even if you improve it won't be enough, and you have no folding equity as both players have committed themselves to the pot.

Personally I think you're up against an overpair in the BB and a set from the tight passive player. With that in mind, I think your outs are probably clear (I'm assuming that the BB has QQ/KK) and therefore the push is the right move. but then I'm not a great cash game player so I'm probably way off.

Waylander

I do not have a problem with a call or a push here, it does not really matter as both other players will be all in by the end of the hand, but I think you can only eliminate cards in pot odds calculations when they are exposed and you are certain they are not in the deck. I do not agree with estimating how many of your outs are in play, and adjusting your pot odds calculations accordingly. Maybe I am incorrect and this is a weakness in my game. Anyone else any opinions on this. As for the nut straight and house draws, this is a risk you take every time you are in a pot and not holding or drawing to the nuts, and of course these have to be considered as possibilities.

MGrah

Iago wrote:

Personally I think you're up against an overpair in the BB and a set from the tight passive player. With that in mind, I think your outs are probably clear (I'm assuming that the BB has QQ/KK) and therefore the push is the right move. but then I'm not a great cash game player so I'm probably way off.

Even putting your opponents on 1) AA - QQ (JJ is also possible taking a chunk of your outs away, but let's leave that out for now) and b) 99, 88, 55 you're still only 27.5% to take the pot. This leaves it at -EV although only marginally.
I'm not a big cash game player by any means, but I am interested to know from those who are, how much +EV would you normally want to make a call in these situations. Example: if you are getting 2.3/1 for a 2.25/1 shot would you take it, or wait for a better spot to put your money in? When players say they'll take any +EV bet, do they mean they'll take even the most marginal of positions like this one?
I still think this is a fold, but would like someone to let me know if I'm making a mistake with the math cos alot of people seem to think it's a push.

Hitman Actual

Regarding the hand ranges, Nicky seems to have good reads on the players, so his estimation of 29% is (scarily!) accurate. Is there any point in bringing big pairs into the hand ranges if Nicky is so sure?

But as far as I can see, risking 175 to win a profit of 426 means that you have to win 29% of the time to break even. So it doesn't matter in the long run.

MGrah

lenny_leonard wrote:

Regarding the hand ranges, Nicky seems to have good reads on the players, so his estimation of 29% is (scarily!) accurate. Is there any point in bringing big pairs into the hand ranges if Nicky is so sure?

But as far as I can see, risking 175 to win a profit of 426 means that you have to win 29% of the time to break even. So it doesn't matter in the long run.

I think it's fair enough to bring them in because your read is not going to be right 100% of the time. What it shows is that those times that you are wrong with your read (unless at least one of the other players is making a completely idiotic move) it only makes things worse for you. Those times you're wrong turn break even into -EV.

NickyOD

I ended up winning the hand with a backdoor flush. My guesstimate was pretty close. I was actually 28.32% to win and my read was right but I lose a small amount of money with this call long term. I called knowing it may have slightly slightly -EV because I had no intention of reloading my stack and I had only €100 after calling. I figured the negative EV was made up for by the fact that if I won the pot I would increase my chances to win more money by having more money at the table.

I'll admit that it was an early morning tilt call, but I've got to be happy about being able to put 2 players on specific hands, and work out my pot as close to half a percent. :v:

Ste05

NickyOD wrote:

I'll admit that it was an early morning tilt call, but I've got to be happy about being able to put 2 players on specific hands, and work out my pot as close to half a percent. :v:

In the heat if battle that's savage. .

Brimming with confidence now going into CityWest I'd say.... wp nh

P.S. What did they turn over??

Amaru

Using the word "guesstimate" is -EV.....