a poker argument with my friend...

Gholimoli

Ok so I was having a conversation with a friend of mine about poker.
We got in to this massive argument about poker and as I know he reads board I told him that I will post up the argument and will let others say who is wrong or right.
Basically the argument started like this:
He was playing a hand where he called a raise with AJ and flop came J high.
Dude bets near half the pot and my friend raises him.
I told him I don’t like the raise here much because its not the best play (if he does it all the time) and I don’t know what happened but eventually I said I rather raise with 78 there than with AJ.
He then proceeded to tell me that I don’t have a clue what im talking about and to suggest that a raise with 78 on 2 3 J is better than to raise with AJ on the same board just shows how clueless I am.
I explained where I was coming from and that the raise with 78 has a better expectation than the raise with AJ but he insisted that I didn’t know what I was talking about and that there is no way that I could be right or convince him at all that what I said had any merits at all.
I then got in to a discussion of the theory behind semi bluffing but then again when I said I would often check behind with AcKc on Tc 9h 2c but bet with 5h6h for example on the same board he started to call me mad and again said that there is no way I could be right here.
As I know he is waiting for me to post this and he is reading this board could you please argue about the above ?

EWheelChair

The guy betting out is probably just protecting his raise prefolp, trying to steal with middle pocket pair or AK. Depending on the suits i would reraise here.

I don't really understand your argument.

Sangre

So Gholi only raises with semi/total bluffs and never made hands?
Thanks for the tell!

5starpool

I would sometimes do both. In both cases, unless there is a strong draw on board, you are beaten one way or another if re-reraised.

Ollieboy

Ok mate, there's nothing wrong with your views and I'm guessing your mate is newish to poker or as read Harringtons books etc and thinks this is the bible. And again, thats is style and it works for him and there's nothing wrong with it.

What he doesn't understand is the different style's of poker players and your a totally different style to most players. Thats all. I dont agree with your style as its given away a lot of chips cheaply and involves having to play the flop correctly based on its texture. But it can be very effect as you can get great implied odds, but its a style that doesn't suit everyone. Also, when you change gears in the later stages of a tourney, this should be a style the better players can change too to win tourneys.

Norwich Fan Rob

if u raise with AJ, u only get re raised when u are behind, and people will fold 88 99, maybe KJ etc..............this is bad............if u raise with 78, u still get re raised by QQ+ and big hands, but may get people to fold 88, 99 etc, this is good..........basically a strong re raise with a marginal hand like AJ on a J high flop is no better than a raise with 78 in many cases. (in fact in the sense that it scares of hands u have beat, it can be deemed worse).

However, randomly raising guys who have raised pre, and bet the flop with no pair and no draw is not a play i particularly like..........

Further more, calling a raise pre with a hand like 78s CAN have a bigger expectation than AJ..............with 78s your hand is disguised and u can stack a big pair, with AJ your hand is likely to be dominated, and if an A falls and your op has no A, they will fold, of they have an A, u are likely out kicked........similar probs on J high pair with regard to poss overpairs..........78s is a great hand as long as u can get away from it if you partially hit.

mewso

Few things here.

When I have an arguement with a "friend" it tends to be civilised but anyway...

I'll be the first idiot to hold up my hand and ask how raising with 78 has a higher expectation than AJ in the situation described. i.e. I would be interested to know. (I'm always the guy who asks someone to explain a big word they used in a conversation simply because I know they don't expect anyone to ask)

Are you saying raising with 78 here is a semi-bluff? Don't you need outs for it to qualify as a semi-bluff?

Gholimoli

Ok this is not really going my way so far

Ok maybe im leaving out details :
In the first case the pot is raised and we have TPTK and the raiser now bets half the pot.
I argued that a reraise here does not do us much good.
villain will drop almost everything we have beat and will call/raise with everything that has us beat. I argued that if we just call we can get him to bluff at us on the turn (good if we have him beat) or we keep the pot small by just calling his bets (good if he has us beat).
As an example I told him that you will get AK to fold here majority of the time but you don’t really want AK to fold here because he will put more money in to the pot if an A hits the turn or river.
By the same token if you raise with 78 here again you will prob get AK /AQ to fold but in this case you want them to fold as you are currently miles behind them hands. That’s why the 78 raise I think has a better expectation.
This is completely style independent and is based purely on expectation and poker math.

ianmc38

In hand 1 if we raise the flop villain will fold most hands that we beat and call or raise with hands that beat us. That's poker 101.

mewso

Yes makes sense. I insist it's a bluff though with 78 not a semi-bluff

5starpool

but if it does go to showdown (for some reason) you will, some of the time be ahead with AJ, but never with 78 (barring miracle turn/river). Depends who you are playing against and what type of draws miss etc as to the frequency of being ahead.

I think what you might be trying to say is that stealing with absolutely nothing is better than reraising with a decent holding that may or may not be behind. You will never lose a big pot with 78 in this position but may with AJ. Is that sort of what you are saying? I don't understand your use of the word 'expectation'. This all depends on the standard of players. If they are always married to any pair then AJ has way better expectation. If they are good players it is more tricky.

Gholimoli

musician wrote:

Yes makes sense. I insist it's a bluff though with 78 not a semi-bluff

oh yes it is a bluff and not a semi bluff at all.but a bluff that has a higher EV IMO than the riase with "made hand" .
the semi bluff discussion is related to the later discussion but yes my bet with 78 is meant as a total bluff.

Hitman Actual

The questions are confusing. First one, you're saying you call a pre-flop raise with AJ or 78, and that raising a lead bet by the pf raiser on a 23J flop has a better expectation with 78 than AJ?

I doubt either case is profitable, and I'm struggling to see how it's less un-profitable with 78 than AJ. I don't like the raise with AJ for a start; you only fold out worse hands (apart from idiot KJ/QJ players) and get called or re-raised by better hands.

Actually, as I'm typing this, I'm thinking about FTOP with the 78 raise, so when you get opponents to make mistakes by folding better hands, it probably is more profitable than the AJ raise (opponents will make less mistakes when you raise with AJ). So, yeah, I see your point from this perspective.

Norwich Fan Rob

on a J high flop, 78 doesnt have MORE expectation than AJ, if u re raise and are deep, the expectation is prolly similar, u either get re raised and should fold, or u take it down.

Pre flop, in a deep cash game, 78 has much more +EV than AJ, in fact AJ into a raise prolly has negative implied odds.

Hitman Actual

Second question: Betting with the 56h isn't a semi-bluff, it's a pure bluff. The semi-bluff only applies with betting the AKc in that spot. Or am I missing something?

Gholimoli

5starpool wrote:

but if it does go to showdown (for some reason) you will, some of the time be ahead with AJ, but never with 78 (barring miracle turn/river). Depends who you are playing against and what type of draws miss etc as to the frequency of being ahead.

I think what you might be trying to say is that stealing with absolutely nothing is better than reraising with a decent holding that may or may not be behind. You will never lose a big pot with 78 in this position but may with AJ. Is that sort of what you are saying? I don't understand your use of the word 'expectation'. This all depends on the standard of players. If they are always married to any pair then AJ has way better expectation. If they are good players it is more tricky.

A bets expectation is exactly that.
The expectation of that particular bet.
We are not talking about show down value or pot equity here.
You are making a single wager and trying to decide which is better and that’s it.
Its also safe to assume that in both case you are facing the same kind of opponent who is of average skill.(it gets too complicated if you bring in opponent attributes here even though I agree it does play a huge part in your expectation here).

Gholimoli

Norwich Fan Rob wrote:

on a J high flop, 78 doesnt have MORE expectation than AJ, if u re raise and are deep, the expectation is prolly similar, u either get re raised and should fold, or u take it down.

Pre flop, in a deep cash game, 78 has much more +EV than AJ, in fact AJ into a raise prolly has negative implied odds.

If you get a better hand to fold then that’s good for you.
If you get a worse hand to fold then that’s not good for you.
Raising with 78 has the ability to get the better hand than yours to fold which allows you to take the down the pot that’s why it does have a higher expectation.

mewso

It's simply that raising and taking the pot with 78 is money you had no right to win or +EV wheras raising with AJ may well lose money in that you win less than you should have. (-EV). Sorry just trying to get in right in my own head not for you geniuses.

Hitman Actual

Norwich Fan Rob wrote:

on a J high flop, 78 doesnt have MORE expectation than AJ, if u re raise and are deep, the expectation is prolly similar, u either get re raised and should fold, or u take it down.

But you might get 88-TT to fold, which is good for the 78 bluff, but not the AJ TPTK. I think Gholi has a good point here. When you hold AJ, your opponents make much fewer mistakes. I'm not saying that the 78 raise is definately +EV, but it should be better than the AJ raise.

Hitman Actual

lenny_leonard wrote:

Second question: Betting with the 56h isn't a semi-bluff, it's a pure bluff. The semi-bluff only applies with betting the AKc in that spot. Or am I missing something?

Come on Gholi, explain the second situation a bit better! I'm bored at work at the golf updates are too slow in coming.

Gholimoli

lenny_leonard wrote:

Come on Gholi, explain the second situation a bit better! I'm bored at work at the golf updates are too slow in coming.

The second situation is a bit more complex.
Obviously betting here with AcKc is not bad as you can improve and win the hand. however if you get reraised to a point where you will have to let your hand go then the result is disastrous for you because you have just prised your self out on a very good situation by raising but if you had check behind then that would not happen.
When you bet with 56 you have no fear of getting reraised and your hand does not fear getting prised out of anything and you can just release the hand if that happens.
That combined with the fact that your bluff can take the pot there and then makes this an ok play. again im not saying betting here with Aks is bad by any means. and in my original post I said I sometimes check behind with it .i suppose its more balancing play because if you always semi-bluff then your opponents may catch on and come over the top .

ntlbell

lenny_leonard wrote:

Come on Gholi, explain the second situation a bit better! I'm bored at work at the golf updates are too slow in coming.

watch it live online then...

bill_ashmount

My head hurts

padraig_f

I'll usually just go ahead and raise the AJ on that flop. I think the flop is often the best chance you get to get paid off with your hand. So many players slow-play their big hands that a flop raise is often seen as not that strong (and may be interpreted as a bluff trying to snap off a continuation bet).

Whereas if you call on a flop with no draws and bet the turn, that's a pretty strong-looking play. There are also added problems flat-calling:

1. you give him an extra card to outdraw you
2. a further scare card might come that kills action you would've gotten on the flop
3. if he feels he's behind, he only has one card to improve now and so is less likely to call.

Gholimoli

padraig_f wrote:

I'll usually just go ahead and raise the AJ on that flop. I think the flop is often the best chance you get to get paid off with your hand. So many players slow-play their big hands that a flop raise is often seen as not that strong (and may be interpreted as a bluff trying to snap off a continuation bet).

Whereas if you call on a flop with no draws and bet the turn, that's a pretty strong-looking play. There are also added problems flat-calling:

1. you give him an extra card to outdraw you
2. a further scare card might come that kills action you would've gotten on the flop
3. if he feels he's behind, he only has one card to improve now and so is less likely to call.

Padraig,
I don’t think AJ on j high flop in a raised pot is really a big hand after the raiser is leading.
I would some what agree with what your saying about betting with AJ in a tournament situation but then again that’s because I don’t mind if my opponent folds AK here that much as I do have my tourney life to worry about as well so the chances of me getting out drawn kind of compensates for the value I lose.
Also im not discussing about making moves here so calling the flop bet and leading the turn is not what im talking about at all.
My argument was purely raising the bet and which hand to do it with 78 or AJ.

Ste05

By the sounds of this argument, it all started when discussing the merits of a raise with AJ in this situation as compared to a call.

A call is the superior play, without a shadow of a doubt. I think the point Gholi is trying to make with the comparison is that raising with AJ in this situation basically turns your TPTK into a bluff, as every hand you beat will fold, and only the hands that have you beat will put any more money into the pot.

However the expectation for both the raise with AJ and the 78 are basically the same, as they both have the expectation of taking the pot down here and now or folding to a re-raise. In the hands of a bad player the raise with 78 would have a higher expectation because they won't get stacked by AA, KK or QQ, whereas they might get stacked if they have AJ.

But in the hands of a decent player who can fold TPTK then the expectation difference is neutral. Although IMO marginally in favour of the AJ, for the tiny % of the time that a non-believing donkey fish with 88, 99, 1010 or AK calls the raise and the hand gets checked down.

But as said above raising here with AJ is effectively bluffing with TPTK.

padraig_f

Gholimoli wrote:

Padraig,
I don’t think AJ on j high flop in a raised pot is really a big hand after the raiser is leading.

Oh yeah I'm not saying AJ is a monster. My point is that a flop raise may be interpreted as being weaker than a flop call followed by a turn bet, and thus be more likely to get paid off with worse hands. TT/99 might think they're still good, AK might see one more card.

I also don't think he bluffs much on the turn when you flat-call. put yourself in his shoes - tightish player calls your pre-flop raise and then calls a bet on a J 2 3 flop. What do you think he has? Are you going to bluff the turn with ace high?

Ste05

Padraig,

In this situation the only thing our AJ is good for, is catching bluffs. There's no value in raising or betting on this board at any later stage in the hand.

ianmc38

Raising with 78 will get AK to fold. This is good.

Raising with AJ will also get AK to fold. This is bad.

fuzzbox

Gholi - this situation has a lot to do with your opponents and the texture of the board.

If your opponent is one who is likely to stack off with KJ/QJ/JT/TT/99 etc, then raising with AJ is way more +EV than raising with 78.
If your opponent is one who is likely to fold those same set of hands (or a goodly proportion of them), but will pay you off more than zero times on the turn or river then raising with AJ is inferior to calling with it, and raising with 78 every now and then is a good play.

Ste05

ianmc38 wrote:

Raising with 78 will get AK to fold. This is good.

Raising with AJ will also get AK to fold. This is bad.

Raising with 78 will get AK to fold. This earns us the pot, If we are re-raised we fold.

Raising with AJ will also get AK to fold. This also wins us the pot, If we are re-raised we fold.

The result is the same.

EDIT: Fuzz makes a good point regarding our opponent, I'm just referring to a standard semi-decent ABC player.

ianmc38

The results are different. If we smooth call the flop, we allow AK to bet again on the turn/river.

In situation 2, we're only smooth calling if we're looking to float. Taking the pot by raisiing now is fine.

NickyOD

If we are talking stricly about cash games here.....I would usually just call. The stack size of the villain is important too. Deep stacked against a good player I'm definitely calling. On this flop a smooth call should be much scarier for my oponent than a raise.

In general as NFR pointed out calling is usually (but not always) better, espicially against an experienced oponent because they will just fold every hand that you beat and when they are behind they will usually be drawing very thin. Sometimes you will be outdraw but long term smooth calling gains more chips.

While there is nothing wrong with trying to take pots down early, this is more applicable to tournament strategy (but not always). Cash games are all about extracting the most value from your hands over the long term and not overplaying marginal hands, especially top pair, which is something that an ameteur player takes a while to grasp.

The point Gholli made about a raise with 78 being better is because you get underpairs and hands like AT-K to fold. These are all hands that you shouldn't be too unhappy to keep in when you have AJ on a Jack high flop.

As Hectorjhelly has pointed out many times, smooth calling is the lost art of NL Holdem.

Ste05

ianmc38 wrote:

The results are different. If we smooth call the flop, we allow AK to bet again on the turn/river.

In situation 2, we're only smooth calling if we're looking to float. Taking the pot by raisiing now is fine.

We are just looking solely at the expectation of the raise in Gholi's original question. Subsequent action doesn't come into the discussion AFAIK. And the question was which hand is the better hand to raise with AJ or 78. As I've now said twice, there's no difference. Because by raising with AJ here, all we do is reduce our AJ to a 78 or any other random bluff in this spot.

If we talk about the turn and river, obviously then it all comes down to who our opponent is, but as I pointed out previously, the only value our AJ hand has is for catching bluffs from the likes of AK, 1010, etc. Although AK is highly unlikely to bluff again on the turn given the action thus far.

And standardly floating with the likes of 78 is just mental TBH. I know you didn't advocate it, but it's completely irrelevant. And yes I agree that it's fine to raise now with 78, it's just another bluff, we make bluffs all the time, all we can do is hope our timing and victim selection is correct.

Hitman Actual

Ste05 wrote:

Raising with 78 will get AK to fold. This earns us the pot, If we are re-raised we fold.

Raising with AJ will also get AK to fold. This also wins us the pot, If we are re-raised we fold.

The result is the same.

I still think that raising with 78 is marginally better, because our opponents make more mistakes by folding a lot more hands that beat us. Raising with AJ means that the opponent makes very few mistakes. Surely this implies that the raise with 78 has to have a higher expectation?

Edit: The higher expectation comes from hands that would have made it to showdown (a certain percentage still will!). The raise with 78 gains by winning the pot now that it loses (excluding outdraws) to hands at showdown (88-TT, AK).

califano

musician wrote:

Few things here.

When I have an arguement with a "friend" it tends to be civilised but anyway...

Maybe the way Iranians chat is the the equivillent of the way the Irish argue?.
Like when Lisa Simpson gets lost in Springfield, she asks two Russians playing chess where she is but gets startled when they yell at her. The subtitles however are the Russians kindly giving her directions!.

Rnger

Fundamental theory of poker anyone?

The AJ raise has less expectation because you miss out on catching bluffs on further streets. Your losing that money. Thats the whole arguement for calling. You will gain more money off Joe Poker more often by calling here than raising. Further streets must be taken into consideration here

Raising causes him to fold worse hands then ours. Its the opposite with the 78 raise. Simple stuff no?

NickyOD

. . .

RoundTower

I raise AJ here much more often than 78, raising AJ is often right depending on opponent, stack sizes, etc, raising 78 is rarely right.

DeVore

Since our opponent is going to fold call or raise regardless of our cards, then we will pick up the pot with any fold and ditch the hand to any reraise. Therefore we only have to consider the situations where the opponent flat calls.

So the difference between these hands/moves is which you would rather be holding when flat called after reraising in this position. I dont like either but I do prefer AJ!

DeV.

Hitman Actual

Time for an "It Depends" answer, me thinks. Someone mentioned that by raising AJ here, you're treating it as a bluff. But by raising 78, you treat that as TPTK. In both cases, the hands that beat AJ also beat 78 (AA, KK, QQ, JJ), and can be practically ignored for this analysis (although AJ obviously has more value as it can improve and win). Also, if you get re-raised, you fold both hands; if you get called, you slow down in both.

Assume the other hands you're up against are 88-TT, AK, AQ, KJ, QJ. When you raise with AJ (TPTK) here, a specific opponent will fold a fairly high amount of the time, but will still call a smaller percentage of the time, which leads to our expectation in the hand. When we raise with 78, the opponent calls/folds with the same percentage split, the fold part giving us our expectation in this case.

Here's my "It Depends" part: There's a crossover point where we gain more by bluffing with 78 and getting our opponent to fold, compared to the gain we make when an opponent calls with a hand we're beating. The problem with the bluff is that it has to make the opponent fold a hell of a lot; also, we're risking more to win a smaller pot on the flop. Plus, the bluff bet size affects your expectation. All this has to make up for the potentially bigger pot that AJ can win. Actually, in writing this, AJ does look the better proposition. But anyway, raising with 78 may be more profitable, depending on:

1. % of time opponent folds.
2. Pot size on flop.
3. Bluff raise size.

BTW, I obviously still agree that raising with AJ here is generally a poor move in any case.

Right, rip shreds through that if you will.

Goodluck2me

lenny_leonard wrote:

Time for an "It Depends" answer, me thinks. Someone mentioned that by raising AJ here, you're treating it as a bluff. But by raising 78, you treat that as TPTK. In both cases, the hands that beat AJ also beat 78 (AA, KK, QQ, JJ), and can be practically ignored for this analysis (although AJ obviously has more value as it can improve and win). Also, if you get re-raised, you fold both hands; if you get called, you slow down in both.

Assume the other hands you're up against are 88-TT, AK, AQ, KJ, QJ. When you raise with AJ (TPTK) here, a specific opponent will fold a fairly high amount of the time, but will still call a smaller percentage of the time, which leads to our expectation in the hand. When we raise with 78, the opponent calls/folds with the same percentage split, the fold part giving us our expectation in this case.

Here's my "It Depends" part: There's a crossover point where we gain more by bluffing with 78 and getting our opponent to fold, compared to the gain we make when an opponent calls with a hand we're beating. The problem with the bluff is that it has to make the opponent fold a hell of a lot; also, we're risking more to win a smaller pot on the flop. Plus, the bluff bet size affects your expectation. All this has to make up for the potentially bigger pot that AJ can win. Actually, in writing this, AJ does look the better proposition. But anyway, raising with 78 may be more profitable, depending on:

1. % of time opponent folds.
2. Pot size on flop.
3. Bluff raise size.

BTW, I obviously still agree that raising with AJ here is generally a poor move in any case.

Right, rip shreds through that if you will.

raising with AJ had to be more favourable here than 87, purely for improvemetn reasons. we sre semi bluffing with Aj as we can hit another J to improve, we are outright bluffing with 87 as we cannot easily improve on the next streets sufficiently.

Gholimoli

folks ,
ok i made one mistake in one of my posts saying that im only talking about the
expectation of that individual raise and not in temrs of the expectation of the whole hand from there on.
again im not talking about "how to best play this hand" .
some people are talking about calling here with AJ being correct play.even though i agree with that comment but its not relevent to the point i was raising.
my point was a raise here with AJ is not a good play and infact if you had 78 here instead it would be better play to raise with that.im talking about the expectaion of your whole hand when raising with AJ versus when raising with 78.
you can clearly see how 78 can be a better raising hand here becuase your hand has 1.little to no chance of improvment 2.little or no showdown value
but with AJ you have both .
also 78 you can get alot of hands to fold that you dont want them to fold with AJ (such as now dominated Aces ) .so a raise with AJ will allow you to miss all the profits you would have made through worse hands than yours and a raise with 78 will allow you to collect on all the profits than getting better hand to fold will bring you.
im not sure if im explianing this well but i thin people are thinking too much in to this and this is a real simple concept.

also i agree totally with what Fuzz said about different players having different impact on this and i even said in one of my posts that even though it plays a huge part ,i left it out cuz it would make things much more complicated

Hitman Actual

goodluck2me wrote:

raising with AJ had to be more favourable here than 87, purely for improvemetn reasons. we sre semi bluffing with Aj as we can hit another J to improve, we are outright bluffing with 87 as we cannot easily improve on the next streets sufficiently.

I mentioned that here:

lenny_leonard wrote:

although AJ obviously has more value as it can improve and win

But that's not the point of the argument. It's not a thread about semi-bluff v pure bluff.

charlesanto

In short ...

Only bet when you know you're behind - never bet when you're ahead :cool:

I must play the boards €200 f/o !!!:D

mewso

Gholimoli wrote:

im talking about the expectaion of your whole hand when raising with AJ versus when raising with 78.

Surely it's the same expectation. You don't win more money with 78 here. In fact you may win more with AJ here because you will be more willing to continue on the turn with it. I can see how raising with 78 is a better play but not how it has higher expectation.

DeVore

Gholi, you simply cant take this raise in isolation. In that case raising with 78 here would be AWFUL... you *might* take the pot but you have the same chance of taking the pot as if you hold AJ.

What *might* make the play good is the subsequent streets... Raising here should be the first shot in a long bluff (you are bluffing, you simply havent got a prayer of winning at showdown realistically, as you acknowledged).

To simplify:

We are only talking about times you RAISE with either hand. You are going to fold to any reraise with either hand and win with any fold with either hand.

So, we can narrow any difference/benefit of this play to times when you reraise and you are flat called. So, we HAVE to look at the next streets for any difference between them...

If you think you can take him off the hand on a later street with 78 then its a marvelous play, if not then its fugly!
If you get to the showdown, you're fecked with 78 and probably fecked with an unimproved AJ.

Do you have a strategy for subsequent streets with the 78 raise? If so what is it because the value of your first raise is dependant on that... If you dont have a strategy then its as ugly as a red-haired stepchild IMHO.

DeV.

Hitman Actual

The OP is confusing to say the least. Gholi seems to be making several different points while meaning to only make one. I interpreted the question as: which hand has more expectation in this situation, raising with AJ or 78. That's comparing both hands directly. But then the discussion switches to looking at the best play for each hand in isolation. And then seems to change to discussing whether calling with AJ is better than raising with 78. I think.

I agree that what Gholi is trying to get across is a "real simple concept", but I'm still not sure what the argument was supposed to be about.

Hitman Actual

DeVore wrote:

We are only talking about times you RAISE with either hand. You are going to fold to any reraise with either hand and win with any fold with either hand.

So, we can narrow any difference/benefit of this play to times when you reraise and you are flat called. So, we HAVE to look at the next streets for any difference between them...

No, there is a difference in the raise for each hand. The value with 78 comes from the times we get our opponent to fold. In contrast, when our raise with AJ gets called, you have a hand whose value comes from the hands that it's now beating (excluding outdraws). For analysis purposes it's best to ignore 'fancy' plays on later streets; most of the time both 78 and AJ will slow down in the same way anyway.

Gholimoli

musician wrote:

Surely it's the same expectation. You don't win more money with 78 here. In fact you may win more with AJ here because you will be more willing to continue on the turn with it. I can see how raising with 78 is a better play but not how it has higher expectation.

this is wrong .the fact that you are willing to continue on with AJ hass nothing to do with it or the expectation of the play.
raising with 78 is better play becuase it has a better expectation.

FastMachine

I fold 78 on a J23 board. If you're standard play is to reraise someone else's raised pot when you've completely missed, you will be bleeding cash. Now and again I'd reraise on a bluff, but the standard play is to fold.

As for AJ, I raise here every time. So what if you loose action from 88-1010, how much action do you think you'll get anyway with an overcard on the board on the flop and a good chance of another one on the following two streets. Although your average villain will often call the initial raise if there's only one overcard so you have some value here too.
The advantage of raising though is you find out early if you are up against a better hand and save yourself alot more money than you stand to gain off negligible action from 88-1010.

If the villain has an unmade hand with a K or Q you also prevent them from outdrawing you. O.K. they have only one card to draw to here but in similar situations where people "don't want to make opponents fold worse hands while calling with better ones" - such as 88 on a 934 board and villain has AJ, by not raising here you are giving the villain a 3-1 chance of outdrawing you, these outdraws happen all the time when people could've taken the pot when they were ahead. I really don't agree with the "don't want to make opponents fold worse hands while calling with better ones" theory. This is basically a fancy term for slowplaying and it's not even slowplaying very strong hands (which can be good), it's slowplaying vunerable ones too which is asking for trouble. It often leads to often getting outdrawn when the villain should've been put out of the pot on the flop, and to calling off your cash to a better hand because you never raised to find out where you stood. Another advantage of raising for info is that you can get more action when you have a very strong hand as you'll often by reraising marginally and thus a villain is going to find it harder to let go of an overpair/tptk when you have him by the balls.

I find the more vunerable you are (with a genuine hand) the quicker you should raise to find out where you stand. The stronger you are, the more you can flat call and keep a villain in, although it's often good to play it as strong as it is.