a poker argument with my friend...

Gholimoli · 24-09-2006 3:57pm

Ste,
the SemiBluff a well known poker concept says that when you raise with a hand that is not the best hand now but can improve to be the best hand has a higher expectation play than its alternative of checking or calling for example.
the reason as every one knows is becuase your opponent may fold to win you the pot there or your hand improving to the best hand .the chances of them both combined makes this a higher expectation play.

now notice that its the chances of them both combined that has the higher expectation play and some of that happens in the futur ie your hand improving to the best hand which happens on later streets.
notice the way your expectation of the whole hand is used to calculate the expection of your current play .
in the AJ v 78 case im describing is the same thing.
one play (the riase in this case) has a higher expectation for your whole hand than its alternative play(ie calling or folding).
also again im only talking about the expectation of raising with 78 or raising with AJ in this particular spot and i am NOT trying to come with the best play here.im only concerned with the difference between these two.

snappers point is also wrong IMO(maybe not wrong but not relevent) in that you cant say here that your raising your expectation of a particular holding.
i mean you can but then again you can say that in any situtation with any holding ,when you make a play then your altering the expectation of that holding .
so for example when your holding trips and you raise you are then potentially raising your expectation of that holding.this is true with all hands and thats why its not mentioned in this manner.

Ste05 · 24-09-2006 4:18pm

What does the semi-bluff have to do with this discussion??

Are you saying you think raising with 78 is a semi-bluff?? Or even raising with AJ is a semi-bluff?? If not then there's no need to bring it up as it's irrelevant. We are not semi-bluffing with 78, it is a straight up bluff. With AJ, we only get called or raised by a better hand and hence we might as well be bluffing with 78.

You are right about how you calculate the expectation of an action based over the future of the whole hand. But after this raise we are finished with the hand. Our next action after we raise with AJ or 78 is the same, (a) fold to a re-raise, or (b) if called, check fold on the turn or river or try another bluff. (Based on our opponent obviously) Obviously all this is asumming we don't hit another J or A on the turn or river with AJ, or hit runner runner straight with 78. But in that case the AJ has the higher expectation. Again as I said previously. AJ has marginally higher expectation, but it's negligable and not worth talking about.

So basically the later streets are irrelevant to the point.

And Snapper's point is correct. In this exact situation we are increasing our expectation for 78 from $0 to $100, we are also reducing our expectation for AJ from ($100 + possible turn bluff) to $100. i.e. the same. And again the example of using trips is again completely irrelevant, raising or calling may increase or decrease the expectation of that holding depending on the situation and opponent.

Hectorjelly · 24-09-2006 4:48pm

Raising Aj has a way higher expectation than 78. The villain is going to fold the same hands no matter what we have, but when he calls we will sometimes be ahead with Aj and will usually have outs, whereas with 78o we are drawing dead. The difference in expectation is pretty big.

Also semi bluffing definitely does not always have a better expectation than calling or folding.

DeVore · 24-09-2006 5:21pm

Hectorjelly wrote:

Raising Aj has a way higher expectation than 78. The villain is going to fold the same hands no matter what we have, but when he calls we will sometimes be ahead with Aj and will usually have outs, whereas with 78o we are drawing dead. The difference in expectation is pretty big.

Also semi bluffing definitely does not always have a better expectation than calling or folding.

Jeeeez, thanks HJ I thought I was talking to myself here... :eek:

DeV.

FastMachine · 24-09-2006 6:28pm

Gholimoli wrote:

also not raising is not slow playing at all but its keeping the pot under control and small and managable which is good practice considering your hand cant handle much presure.remember the pot was raised and now the raiser is leading for something like the pot so if you reraise here everytime with AJ i can only say god help your BR cuz its a very bad play.

In the op you said he lead for half the pot, leading for the whole pot is different. And, like I said originally, I don't usually call raises with AJ anyway. If I was in this situation though, I'm not looking to keep this pot small and manageable, I'm looking to find out if I'm beat so I can fold as early as possible and escape as cheap as possible which is what reraising here accomplishes. I don't like to get stacked with tptk. Btw, this is my first week back after a break so I'm easing back in - I'm up 4.8K and counting, 8 tabling almost only 2/4 (one little excursion to 5/10 where I quickly stacked a 'buddy' accounts for 600), applying my principle of getting out as cheap as possible so I don't agree that it's very bad play.

villain raises to 25 pre-flop with AK and you call.

flop(50)
J 2 3

villain bets 50.
now:

1.you have AJ and raise

in this case villain will fold so you take the pot which is 100.
how ever consider the value your missing by just flat calling this bet.
villain may have another go on the turn to take the pot in which case you can call and extract more money out of him.
also an A may fall on the turn or river and make villain put more money in the pot so basically by reraising villain your allowing him to play perfect which in turn is losing you money.

Yes you take the pot with the best hand, so what? There is feck all value to be gained here generally, if you've called a flop pot bet and are in position against missed overcards. Less than 10% of villains (only the most aggressive) would fire a second barrel in this situation.
"An A may fall on the turn or river" - It may but it's not likely, a K is more likely and will put the villain ahead but generally a villain is not putting more money in the pot with missed overcards in this situation so you have little value to gain. If you call a turn bet because "he may be bluffing and this is how I get value for my AJ" then that means you call everytime and as long as he has a higher pair more often than not (which he will the vast majority of the time if he bets again big here), you are resigning yourself to calling off a serious portion/all of your stack without knowing where you stand in the hope that he's bluffing (which as I've already said he usually won't be if he bets big again here).

now consider villain has QQ+ here.
you reraise and villain comes over the top in which case you will have to drop .but if you didnt reraise you may have caught another J or an A on the turn or river giving you the best hand so by reraising here you have prised your self out of the pot.

He goes over the top with AA/KK/QQ and you're out as cheap as possible. You make a point about catching an out against an overpair but the fact is 4 out of 5 times you won't catch one of your 5 outs and are calling off alot of cash blindly. I'm not going to call hoping to catch a lucky out, he's already priced me out of drawing to 5 outs by betting the flop so I want to find out if he has me or not. I would also expect to be called here a % of the time by villains with 88-1010 that have played with me for a while and think I reraise light and are going to try and check it down so there is some value here too. But I don't really care if I fold out these hands as they're not going to give me much action anyway. Worse J's are definately calling.

2.in this case you have 78

flop(50)
J 2 3

villain leads with AK for 50.

now you reraise him and he will have to drop.now you have won a 100 pot with the worse hand which is excellent for you.

Yes it's great the times it works, but if you always reraise with garbage as standard it will cost you alot more than you stand to make from it. And seeing as how you're looking to pull off sucessful bluffs doing it to often means you get called more. Bluffing too much is a huge leak for a lot of people.

if villain has QQ+ then he will reraise you again and you will drop.
notice that this release of hand is much better than the AJ release becuase unlike AJ ,78 has little no chance of becoming the winning hand with two more cards to come so your not losing anything.
i hope this explians it a little better.

You are losing something, you've reraised with garbage and if this is your standard play with a missed hand you'll loose a fortune because your bluffs will be even less likely to work in these situations as the opposition won't fold as easily. Now and again, it's ok to mix it up, but if you're advocating reraising someone's raised pot with random hands on a missed flop as standard play you have a BIG leak in your game. The best expectation you can get for 78 here is to fold.

Hectorjelly · 24-09-2006 6:58pm

FastMachine wrote:

here accomplishes. I don't like to get stacked with tptk. Btw, this is my first week back after a break so I'm easing back in - I'm up 4.8K and counting, 8 tabling almost only 2/4 (one little excursion to 5/10 where I quickly stacked a 'buddy' accounts for 600), applying my principle of getting out as cheap as possible so I don't agree that it's very bad play..

This is totally ridiculous, unless you spent a week only calling raises with AJ and only continuing with top pair what you made this week is totally irrelevant. The argument we are having is over the best line in a very marginal situation, whichever one is better it isnt better by a whole lot. How you play situations like this is only going to have a very small net effect on your win rate.

The fact is your line makes it easy for you to make decisions, but assuming you make good decisions its going to hurt your expectation. This isnt really a point that can be argued - its been done to death on 2+2. There was a really good article on this subject a few years ago but it seems to have been deleted, ill post on 2+2 and see if I can find it.

Gholimoli · 24-09-2006 7:13pm

Ste05 wrote:

What does the semi-bluff have to do with this discussion??

Are you saying you think raising with 78 is a semi-bluff?? Or even raising with AJ is a semi-bluff?? If not then there's no need to bring it up as it's irrelevant. We are not semi-bluffing with 78, it is a straight up bluff. With AJ, we only get called or raised by a better hand and hence we might as well be bluffing with 78.

You are right about how you calculate the expectation of an action based over the future of the whole hand. But after this raise we are finished with the hand. Our next action after we raise with AJ or 78 is the same, (a) fold to a re-raise, or (b) if called, check fold on the turn or river or try another bluff. (Based on our opponent obviously) Obviously all this is asumming we don't hit another J or A on the turn or river with AJ, or hit runner runner straight with 78. But in that case the AJ has the higher expectation. Again as I said previously. AJ has marginally higher expectation, but it's negligable and not worth talking about.

So basically the later streets are irrelevant to the point.

And Snapper's point is correct. In this exact situation we are increasing our expectation for 78 from $0 to $100, we are also reducing our expectation for AJ from ($100 + possible turn bluff) to $100. i.e. the same. And again the example of using trips is again completely irrelevant, raising or calling may increase or decrease the expectation of that holding depending on the situation and opponent.

no no no i obviously dont mean the raise with 78 is a semi bluff.
the reason why brought semi bluff in to it is becuase iwas trying to make a point about the expectation of the whole hand as oppose to a single action and not considering the futur impact of that action.

HJ
i didnt say that semi bluffing always has better expectation than calling at all infact in my original post i said i would some times just check behind with AKs on good draw flop.alot of this depends on the opponent but thats not relevent .

also i agree about the point you made about raise with AJ may sometimes be called by a hand that we have beat but on the flip side raising with it AJ will open the door for another reraise by our opponent in which case we have to release our hand and giving up on a chance to further improve our hand.
i would be very interested if there was discussion about this on 2+2 as im not so sure that im right any more .some people have made some valid point that i didnt consider however most are still missing the point and are talking about how to best play 78 or AJ here.
comments like "i would not call a raise with AJ" or "raising with 78 as a bluff will just get you in to trouble" and other comments like this are so missing the whole point of my argument and are so far off topic.

Fast machine:
we can start another thread to argue about what your saying because its totaly different that to the point im trying to get across.
im not saying your wrong or right but just off topic.

Hectorjelly · 24-09-2006 9:19pm

While poor players use many different axioms to justify an action, there is one particular concept that I find to be constantly misapplied in no limit hold 'em.

"I raised to find out where I was at."

On its surface, the reasoning makes sense. Poker is a game of incomplete information. If one can make a play that causes an opponent to give away information about his hand, that should be a good thing, right? So, a player puts in a raise with a moderate hand, hoping that his opponent's subsequent action will reveal his hand. If the opponent folds, then the raiser's hand was clearly best. If the opponent calls or reraises, the raiser is clearly behind and can fold to further action unless his hand improves. A common spot for a player to try this move might be with a small overpair heads-up after having coldcalled a raise before the flop.

However, closer examination of the situation shows why this play might not always be the best option. A premise of the "raise for information" is that one expects only to be called by a better hand. Thus, this play runs contrary to the Fundamental Theorem of Poker, which states that a player gains by making bets and raises that are called by worse hands or that fold out better hands. When you raise for information, you don't give an opponent the opportunity to make a mistake. And, the only way to profit in the long run is for your opponents to make mistakes.

Let's examine a specific situation. We'll assume a $5-5 no limit game in which you and your opponent each have a $300 stack. Your opponent raises under the gun to $20. From having watched him, you know that he will only make this raise with pocket aces through jacks or ace-king, and he will make this raise every time he has one of those hands. This situation is not far-fetched; many low- and mid-limit players follow this exact opening strategy in early position.

It is folded to you on the button, and you call with pocket nines, hoping to flop a set. The blinds fold, and the flop comes ragged: 7 4 2 rainbow. Your opponent leads out for $50, which he would do 100% of the time in this situation. Now, what should you do?

Let's look at the expected value of a raise. We know that he will hold an overpair in this spot 60% of the time, as there are 6 possible combinations of each AA, KK, QQ, and JJ and 16 possible combinations of AK. We will assume that he will always call a flop raise and call to the river with a big pair and always fold AK to a flop raise. Let's assume that you raise to $125, a typical amount.

You will win the $100 pot 40% of the time and get called 60% of the time. When called, since you know that you are beaten, you can check behind on the turn, hoping to spike a set. You will make your set on the turn or river without your opponent also hitting a set 8.4% of the time; you will get his stack when this happens. You will both make sets 0.4% of the time; he will get your stack when this happens. So, the expected value when you raise the flop and are called is:
8.4% × $330 + 0.4% × -$280 + 91.2% × -$125 = -$87.40

Thus, the expected value of raising is:
40% × $100 + 60% × -$87.40 = -$12.44

Folding has an expected value of $0. So, we know that we should not raise in this situation, since we have at least one alternative that has a higher expected value.

Realize that the assumptions in this example are conservative in a number of regards. First, we assumed that your opponent did not reraise the flop, which allows you two chances to make a set. Many times, an opponent will just move in with his big pair on the flop once raised. If your opponent were always to reraise rather than call, the expected value of raising would plummet to -$35.

Also, a bigger issue in the long run is that, if your opponent catches on to what you are doing, he will not fold his AK; he will reraise! Thus, the information that you will be seeking with your raise will not even be accurate, since, in your search for information, you have given away an immense amount of information about your own hand.

A logical follow-up question to this analysis is, "If I shouldn't raise, what should I do in this common situation?" As I stated above, it might be correct just to fold. Most players can't stand the thought of folding an overpair and having that fold be incorrect almost half of the time. But, sometimes, it might be the correct play.

However, depending on the opponent, a better play might be to call the bet on the flop. It probably seems as if, when you call here with a pocket pair, an ace or king always comes up on the next card. But, even though you will cost yourself the pot sometimes by just calling, it might be correct if you will frequently be making a good decision on the turn. Your opponent will have to act before you, and you will have another chance to gain information. Perhaps your opponent will usually give up on the turn when he has a bare AK. If he checks, you can go ahead and bet your hand (or check to induce a river bluff, but that is another topic altogether). Or, maybe he will bet his AK again, but it will be a very small bet, one much smaller than if he had an overpair. In this case, you can call or raise, knowing that your hand is best. Also, realize that if your opponent will play very predictably on the turn, you don't need a hand as strong as pocket nines to make a call on the flop profitable.

Of course, there are certainly spots where you might raise the flop with a weak overpair or similar hand. Keep in mind that every raise has multiple benefits. In addition to providing information that can help you play the later streets, a raise can protect your equity in the pot when ahead (even if you usually aren't) and might fold out a better hand (or let you take the pot later) when behind. In our above example, we had a situation where the magnitude of the other benefits was minimal. But, it is easy to imagine situations where raising a marginal hand is correct.

First, suppose that your opponent in the above example would raise preflop with any two face cards. In that situation, you are often ahead on the flop. If you flat-call his bet, you will likely face a difficult decision on the turn if your opponent is not predictable. A raise in this spot is probably correct.

Another important variable to consider is the likelihood of your opponent calling with a worse hand without having sufficient odds to do so. In our initial example, we assumed the likelihood to be zero. The higher that likelihood, the better a raise becomes.

Finally, it can be correct to raise even if you are certain that you have the worse hand. If the stacks are deep (say, 150 big blinds), you can raise in an attempt to build a pot and to put pressure on your opponent. If your opponent just calls your raise, and you suspect that he does not want to play a big pot with his hand, there is a good chance that you will be able to take the pot on the turn or river if you continue to apply pressure and represent a flopped set. The decision to raise the flop in this sort of situation is completely read-dependent, but can be very effective when the opportunity presents itself.

While obtaining information about an opponent's hand can be a benefit of raising, it is rarely sufficient reason to raise in and of itself, particularly with shallow stacks. In order for a raise to be correct, there generally must be other benefits, such as getting action from a worse hand. Raising for information might help you "find out where you're at," but it certainly won't help you play winning poker!

boba_fett3099 · 24-09-2006 11:17pm

What he said..

FastMachine · 24-09-2006 11:27pm

Hectorjelly wrote:

This is totally ridiculous, unless you spent a week only calling raises with AJ and only continuing with top pair what you made this week is totally irrelevant. The argument we are having is over the best line in a very marginal situation, whichever one is better it isnt better by a whole lot. How you play situations like this is only going to have a very small net effect on your win rate.

Gholi said god help my bankroll if I play like this, I'm saying I have a very healthy bankroll and this is one of the principles I base my whole game on.

This is one of the most common situations in poker, if you're playing it wrong you have a serious leak, which is going to have a significant effect on your win rate. I'm not talking about AJ on a J23 board in particular, I'm talking about situations in general where you've called a raise and have a decent but vunerable hand on the flop. For example, I'd classify 88 on a J75 board and 109 on a 1083 board, as two situations that I would treat the same as the op where you're either ahead or behind and are drawing thin.

I'd often fold the 88 hand btw. If I didn't though I'm not going to just call and still be behind to higher pairs/Jx and giving two missed overcards a chance to outdraw me while gaining close to zero value from worse hands. If I was going to play it I raise, the same as I would in the op hand.

You are not going to get much value from hands that are behind in this situation but hands that beat you are going to get plenty of value from you if you're willing to call off your cash blindly while you're behind.

The fact is your line makes it easy for you to make decisions, but assuming you make good decisions its going to hurt your expectation. This isnt really a point that can be argued - its been done to death on 2+2. There was a really good article on this subject a few years ago but it seems to have been deleted, ill post on 2+2 and see if I can find it.

In the op's hand on the J23 board - I don't see how you can knowingly make a correct decision on the turn if you've flat called the flop. Whether to call/fold/go all in, when you have no idea where you stand.

If you're up against an opponent who's tight enough, it's easy to know you're beat, but with anyone else how can you know? If he gives it up on the turn, and you take it with a bet, well you weren't getting anymore money out of him anyway, so it would've been no different to raising him on the flop. You and Gholi have said before that by raising the flop you lose value from worse hands that may bluff given the chance so to get that value you have to call them on the turn. But you have no way of knowing if they are bluffing or not, and they won't be most of the time in this situation which means you're losing lots. And alot of the guys that will bluff it will do it with such frequency that they are making more money off you when they are ahead than you are off them when they are behind.

Hectorjelly · 24-09-2006 11:28pm

That was written by ML4L on 2+2, it was in the magazine but taken down for some reason. (the whole issue)

FastMachine · 25-09-2006 12:05am

Hectorjelly wrote:

While poor players use many different axioms to justify an action, there is one particular concept that I find to be constantly misapplied in no limit hold 'em.

"I raised to find out where I was at."

As he says himself, he's talking about poor players who misapply the concept. He's not talking about good players who apply it correctly.

Let's examine a specific situation. We'll assume a $5-5 no limit game in which you and your opponent each have a $300 stack. Your opponent raises under the gun to $20. From having watched him, you know that he will only make this raise with pocket aces through jacks or ace-king, and he will make this raise every time he has one of those hands. This situation is not far-fetched; many low- and mid-limit players follow this exact opening strategy in early position.

It is folded to you on the button, and you call with pocket nines, hoping to flop a set. The blinds fold, and the flop comes ragged: 7 4 2 rainbow. Your opponent leads out for $50, which he would do 100% of the time in this situation. Now, what should you do?

Let's look at the expected value of a raise. We know that he will hold an overpair in this spot 60% of the time, as there are 6 possible combinations of each AA, KK, QQ, and JJ and 16 possible combinations of AK. We will assume that he will always call a flop raise and call to the river with a big pair and always fold AK to a flop raise. Let's assume that you raise to $125, a typical amount.

You will win the $100 pot 40% of the time and get called 60% of the time. When called, since you know that you are beaten, you can check behind on the turn, hoping to spike a set. You will make your set on the turn or river without your opponent also hitting a set 8.4% of the time; you will get his stack when this happens. You will both make sets 0.4% of the time; he will get your stack when this happens. So, the expected value when you raise the flop and are called is:
8.4% × $330 + 0.4% × -$280 + 91.2% × -$125 = -$87.40

Thus, the expected value of raising is:
40% × $100 + 60% × -$87.40 = -$12.44

Folding has an expected value of $0. So, we know that we should not raise in this situation, since we have at least one alternative that has a higher expected value.

Wow, what a great example. We have a weak tight villain narrowed to 4 possible hands and 3 of them have us beat. As I said already in a previous post, if a villain is tight enough, I'd call with the AJ, and fold if he bet again on the turn. That is definately the most efficient way of playing it against this type of villain.
The vast majority of the time the situation is not this cut and dry where you can put a villain on a hand this accurately.

Realize that the assumptions in this example are conservative in a number of regards. First, we assumed that your opponent did not reraise the flop, which allows you two chances to make a set. Many times, an opponent will just move in with his big pair on the flop once raised. If your opponent were always to reraise rather than call, the expected value of raising would plummet to -$35.

Also, a bigger issue in the long run is that, if your opponent catches on to what you are doing, he will not fold his AK; he will reraise! Thus, the information that you will be seeking with your raise will not even be accurate, since, in your search for information, you have given away an immense amount of information about your own hand.

Sometimes they reraise you off the best hand but it's that's fairly rare, if they will reraise like this they're just as likely to take you off on the turn with a double barrel bluff anyway. If by reraising a few times you can get an opponent to start putting that serious money in the pot with nothing you've got a very nice financial prospect when you have a better hand. The extra action you've generated when you have an actual hand makes up for the loss when you both have nothing but he reraises you out of it. Anyway it's not like you'll be reraising every single hand, just a select few where you're vunerable but think there's a good possibilty you have the best hand, a villain is not really going to notice you're reraising him light. Unless a few of these situ's occur in a row and that's when he starts thinking you're bluffing and get's p*ssed off with you. I'm fine with this.

Of course, there are certainly spots where you might raise the flop with a weak overpair or similar hand. Keep in mind that every raise has multiple benefits. In addition to providing information that can help you play the later streets, a raise can protect your equity in the pot when ahead (even if you usually aren't) and might fold out a better hand (or let you take the pot later) when behind. In our above example, we had a situation where the magnitude of the other benefits was minimal. But, it is easy to imagine situations where raising a marginal hand is correct.

First, suppose that your opponent in the above example would raise preflop with any two face cards. In that situation, you are often ahead on the flop. If you flat-call his bet, you will likely face a difficult decision on the turn if your opponent is not predictable. A raise in this spot is probably correct.

Basically what I was saying. Look at the last part where he says raising the flop would be good if your opponent has a wide raising range. Hmmm, most villains I play against raise more than 4 out of 169 hands.

[qoute]
While obtaining information about an opponent's hand can be a benefit of raising, it is rarely sufficient reason to raise in and of itself, particularly with shallow stacks. In order for a raise to be correct, there generally must be other benefits, such as getting action from a worse hand. Raising for information might help you "find out where you're at," but it certainly won't help you play winning poker!
[/QUOTE]

Lol, I play winning poker and I often raise for information so he's incorrect there..

Btw, if you are so concernced about worse hands folding and 'letting opponents play perfect' when are you supposed to raise with, for example, a set or some other money hand? Surely any time you raise with a better hand lets an opponent play perfect?

Hang on a minute, there's another theory for this, it's called the Fundamenatal Theorem of People Not Being Able To Fold Sh*t.

FastMachine · 25-09-2006 12:06am

Hectorjelly wrote:

While poor players use many different axioms to justify an action, there is one particular concept that I find to be constantly misapplied in no limit hold 'em.

"I raised to find out where I was at."

As he says himself, he's talking about poor players who misapply the concept. He's not talking about good players who apply it correctly.

Thus, this play runs contrary to the Fundamental Theorem of Poker, which states that a player gains by making bets and raises that are called by worse hands or that fold out better hands. When you raise for information, you don't give an opponent the opportunity to make a mistake. And, the only way to profit in the long run is for your opponents to make mistakes.

Look at in reverse taking the op's hand as an example. If you are going to call a few streets with AJ when you'll be behind way more than you'll be ahead you're the one making the mistake, not the villain. How do you avoid making this mistake? By raising and finding out where you are. That Fundamental Theorem of Poker sounds to me like it's advocating playing like a calling station.

Let's examine a specific situation. We'll assume a $5-5 no limit game in which you and your opponent each have a $300 stack. Your opponent raises under the gun to $20. From having watched him, you know that he will only make this raise with pocket aces through jacks or ace-king, and he will make this raise every time he has one of those hands. This situation is not far-fetched; many low- and mid-limit players follow this exact opening strategy in early position.

It is folded to you on the button, and you call with pocket nines, hoping to flop a set. The blinds fold, and the flop comes ragged: 7 4 2 rainbow. Your opponent leads out for $50, which he would do 100% of the time in this situation. Now, what should you do?

Let's look at the expected value of a raise. We know that he will hold an overpair in this spot 60% of the time, as there are 6 possible combinations of each AA, KK, QQ, and JJ and 16 possible combinations of AK. We will assume that he will always call a flop raise and call to the river with a big pair and always fold AK to a flop raise. Let's assume that you raise to $125, a typical amount.

You will win the $100 pot 40% of the time and get called 60% of the time. When called, since you know that you are beaten, you can check behind on the turn, hoping to spike a set. You will make your set on the turn or river without your opponent also hitting a set 8.4% of the time; you will get his stack when this happens. You will both make sets 0.4% of the time; he will get your stack when this happens. So, the expected value when you raise the flop and are called is:
8.4% × $330 + 0.4% × -$280 + 91.2% × -$125 = -$87.40

Thus, the expected value of raising is:
40% × $100 + 60% × -$87.40 = -$12.44

Folding has an expected value of $0. So, we know that we should not raise in this situation, since we have at least one alternative that has a higher expected value.

Wow, what a great example. We have a weak tight villain narrowed to 4 possible hands and 3 of them have us beat. As I said already in a previous post, if a villain is tight enough, I'd call with the AJ, and fold if he bet again on the turn. That is definately the most efficient way of playing it against this type of villain.
The vast majority of the time the situation is not this cut and dry where you can put a villain on a hand this accurately.

Realize that the assumptions in this example are conservative in a number of regards. First, we assumed that your opponent did not reraise the flop, which allows you two chances to make a set. Many times, an opponent will just move in with his big pair on the flop once raised. If your opponent were always to reraise rather than call, the expected value of raising would plummet to -$35.

Also, a bigger issue in the long run is that, if your opponent catches on to what you are doing, he will not fold his AK; he will reraise! Thus, the information that you will be seeking with your raise will not even be accurate, since, in your search for information, you have given away an immense amount of information about your own hand.

Sometimes they reraise you off the best hand but it's that's fairly rare, if they will reraise like this they're just as likely to take you off on the turn with a double barrel bluff anyway. If by reraising a few times you can get an opponent to start putting that serious money in the pot with nothing you've got a very nice financial prospect when you have a better hand. The extra action you've generated when you have an actual hand makes up for the loss when you both have nothing but he reraises you out of it. Anyway it's not like you'll be reraising every single hand, just a select few where you're vunerable but think there's a good possibilty you have the best hand, a villain is not really going to notice you're reraising him light. Unless a few of these situ's occur in a row and that's when he starts thinking you're bluffing and get's p*ssed off with you. I'm fine with this.

Of course, there are certainly spots where you might raise the flop with a weak overpair or similar hand. Keep in mind that every raise has multiple benefits. In addition to providing information that can help you play the later streets, a raise can protect your equity in the pot when ahead (even if you usually aren't) and might fold out a better hand (or let you take the pot later) when behind. In our above example, we had a situation where the magnitude of the other benefits was minimal. But, it is easy to imagine situations where raising a marginal hand is correct.

First, suppose that your opponent in the above example would raise preflop with any two face cards. In that situation, you are often ahead on the flop. If you flat-call his bet, you will likely face a difficult decision on the turn if your opponent is not predictable. A raise in this spot is probably correct.

Basically what I was saying. Look at the last part where he says raising the flop would be good if your opponent has a wide raising range. Hmmm, most villains I play against raise more than 4 out of 169 hands.

While obtaining information about an opponent's hand can be a benefit of raising, it is rarely sufficient reason to raise in and of itself, particularly with shallow stacks. In order for a raise to be correct, there generally must be other benefits, such as getting action from a worse hand. Raising for information might help you "find out where you're at," but it certainly won't help you play winning poker!

Lol, I play winning poker and I often raise for information so he's incorrect there..

Btw, if you are so concernced about worse hands folding and 'letting opponents play perfect' when are you supposed to raise with, for example, a set or some other money hand? Surely any time you raise with a better hand lets an opponent play perfect?

Hang on a minute, there's another theory for this, it's called the Fundamenatal Theorem of People Not Being Able To Fold Sh*t.

FastMachine · 25-09-2006 12:22am

To sum up:
By calling you will get little or no value from worse hands in this situation anyway. Lower pairs and missed overcards will give up unless they make a better hand so you're not gaining by keeping them in the pot. There is nothing wrong with folding out worse hands that are not going to put any more money in the pot unless they make a better hand than you.

You will lose alot of money if you are willing to call multiple streets in these situations with a worse hand in the belief that the villain may be bluffing (and he usally won't be). You propose that there is value to be gained by the villain bluffing the turn so you've locked yourself into calling here to gain this value leaving you at the mercy of a better hand.

Hectorjelly · 25-09-2006 12:36am

FM

I cant respond to that all of that, you seem to have have made a few mistakes in your last posts. Ive just picked out 2 at random.

FastMachine wrote:

Lol, I play winning poker and I often raise for information so he's incorrect there..

His last point was that raising for information will not help you play winning poker, and you respond with well this cant be right because I play winning poker and I raise for information. The two arent mutually exclusive and his sentence doesnt imply that. You have either completely misunderstood him or are deliberately misrereprenting what he said.

FastMachine wrote:

Btw, if you are so concernced about worse hands folding and 'letting opponents play perfect' when are you supposed to raise with, for example, a set or some other money hand? Surely any time you raise with a better hand lets an opponent play perfect?

Whenever you make a bet or a raise, you normally want to be called by a worse hand or fold a better hand. When you raise with AJ on a J hi board under certain circumstances its very difficult that either will happen. When you raise with a set on that board whenever you are called your opponent is making a mistake. If you are pretty sure that your opponent is bluffing with or without overcards then just calling is better because he can never call with a worse hand anyway. You have turned your hand into a bluffcatcher but thats ok. You raise with sets if there is a chance that your opponent has real hand so that you can get all of his money. In the long run you are better off raising with sets and letting AJ be the bluff catcher.

I think you should probably read the Theory of Poker by sklansky because you seem to have problem with the Fundamental Theory of poker and other accepted wisdom, i dont think you will find many people willing to reinvent the wheel.

Hectorjelly · 25-09-2006 12:39am

FastMachine wrote:

To sum up:
By calling you will get little or no value from worse hands in this situation anyway. Lower pairs and missed overcards will give up unless they make a better hand so you're not gaining by keeping them in the pot. There is nothing wrong with folding out worse hands that are not going to put any more money in the pot unless they make a better hand than you.

You will lose alot of money if you are willing to call multiple streets in these situations with a worse hand in the belief that the villain may be bluffing (and he usally won't be). You propose that there is value to be gained by the villain bluffing the turn so you've locked yourself into calling here to gain this value leaving you at the mercy of a better hand.

Of course if you are playing someone who will never bluff the turn then raising the flop is awful, just cold call the flop then fold the turn if he bets again. Bet if checked to. Its all a question of frequencies, if his bluff freq on the flop is big but turn small then just calling the flop and folding is better, if his bluff freq on the flop and turn are both very low then just fold the flop. Etc etc

Hectorjelly · 25-09-2006 12:50am

FastMachine wrote:

Gholi said god help my bankroll if I play like this, I'm saying I have a very healthy bankroll and this is one of the principles I base my whole game on.

This is one of the most common situations in poker, if you're playing it wrong you have a serious leak, which is going to have a significant effect on your win rate.

Do you think that all the people responding to you in this thread have winrates substantially below yours?

fuzzbox · 25-09-2006 9:18am

FastMachine wrote:

To sum up:
By calling you will get little or no value from worse hands in this situation anyway. Lower pairs and missed overcards will give up unless they make a better hand so you're not gaining by keeping them in the pot. There is nothing wrong with folding out worse hands that are not going to put any more money in the pot unless they make a better hand than you.

This is not true. If your oppent has ... oh I dunno - TT for example, and the turn is another J, most often he will bet again, or even check/call the turn.
Also QJ might believe he is ahead, but a raise is sure to tip him off to the strength of your hand!!
Do you always fold TT to a bet here? 99 ? 88 ?

You will lose alot of money if you are willing to call multiple streets in these situations with a worse hand in the belief that the villain may be bluffing (and he usally won't be). You propose that there is value to be gained by the villain bluffing the turn so you've locked yourself into calling here to gain this value leaving you at the mercy of a better hand.

This is just incorrect.

Gholimoli · 25-09-2006 10:17am

FM,
Your post about how much you have won is a bit childish IMO.
Also it does not prove that you are correct in what you are saying if your winning it just means your opponents are making bigger mistakes than you are.

You said there is nothing wrong with folding out worse hands that are not willing to put any more money in the pot but how do you they are not putting any more money in when you are failing to provide them with a chance to do so.
Also in your response to HJ’s post about raising for information you said that we can never have an opponent who plays like that and so predictably, again your missing the point he was trying to make.

FastMachine · 25-09-2006 10:36am

fuzzbox wrote:

This is not true. If your oppent has ... oh I dunno - TT for example, and the turn is another J, most often he will bet again, or even check/call the turn.
Also QJ might believe he is ahead, but a raise is sure to tip him off to the strength of your hand!!
Do you always fold TT to a bet here? 99 ? 88 ?

Yes I usually would fold TT - 88 to a bet here, the villains most obvious holding is a J. I certainly wouldn't be willing to call a sizeable bet here.
If you are reraising and c/raising often enough, QJ/TT-88 aren't going to auto fold the flop to a raise anyway, you'll often get called and they'll be looking to check it down.

This is just incorrect.

There is nothing incorrect about it, look around the tables at the guys getting stacked with tptk or smaller overpairs, this is where they are slipping up.

fuzzbox · 25-09-2006 10:43am

FastMachine wrote:

Yes I usually would fold TT - 88 to a bet here, the villains most obvious holding is a J. I certainly wouldn't be willing to call a sizeable bet here.
If you are reraising and c/raising often enough, QJ/TT-88 aren't going to auto fold the flop to a raise anyway, you'll often get called and they'll be looking to check it down.

You call a raise preflop with TT, flop is J32r and when the pfr fires a bet, you auto-fold ? Really ?
I dont.

You are very likely to have the best hand here, why would you fold?

There is nothing incorrect about it, look around the tables at the guys getting stacked with tptk or smaller overpairs, this is where they are slipping up.

Your logic is intersesting :
It goes along the lines of ...

In order to make it cheap for me to get away from Top pair, I raise it on the flop (that is to say, I put MORE money in).

FastMachine · 25-09-2006 10:45am

Gholimoli wrote:

FM,
Your post about how much you have won is a bit childish IMO.
Also it does not prove that you are correct in what you are saying if your winning it just means your opponents are making bigger mistakes than you are.

It's not childish, don't try and undermine the point I was making by saying it's childish. You said that my line = very bad play and will have a serious negative effect on my bankroll, I was illustrating that the opposite is true. This isn't some uncommon situation that one line is marginally better than an other. This is very common, one of the most common ways people get stacked, and making mistakes here is going to have a very noticeable effect on your bankroll/winrate.
It's working, not because my opponents make bigger mistakes than me, it's working because it's not a mistake.

You said there is nothing wrong with folding out worse hands that are not willing to put any more money in the pot but how do you they are not putting any more money in when you are failing to provide them with a chance to do so.
Also in your response to HJ’s post about raising for information you said that we can never have an opponent who plays like that and so predictably, again your missing the point he was trying to make.

How much exta cash do you expect them to put in the pot with a worse hand when you're most likely holding is a J? It's the same reason why AA-QQ will be looking to put alot of cash in the pot, because you look like you have a J.
You might get a call off TT on a non danger turn, but you're not going to get much value here in general.

I'm not missing the point for gods sake, I understand perfectly the point he's making, I'm just saying that's a very bad example and is not what happens in a real poker game where villains raise more than 4 hands and don't play their hands so predictably.

FastMachine · 25-09-2006 10:48am

fuzzbox wrote:

You call a raise preflop with TT, flop is J32r and when the pfr fires a bet, you auto-fold ? Really ?
I dont.

You are very likely to have the best hand here, why would you fold?

I thought you were talking about the turn. I assumend you meant if I was in the villains shoes and raised and bet the flop oop, was called and was faced with a sizeable bet on the turn after checking. There I usually fold.

As you describe it above, I auto raise a J32r flop with TT.

Your logic is intersesting :
It goes along the lines of ...

In order to make it cheap for me to get away from Top pair, I raise it on the flop (that is to say, I put MORE money in).

Yep, you've got it. If I'm reraised I'm out as cheap as possible, and it is the cheapest way to know you're up against an overpair. If I'm called I give credit for a very strong hand and wouldn't be willing to put too much more money in the pot depending on my read on the villain. If he's called me with an underpair he'll want to check it down.

FastMachine · 25-09-2006 10:59am

Hectorjelly wrote:

..............

I don't look for value in calling bluffs. If a situation pops up where it's very likely I faced with a bluff and I call and am correct I'm happy but this is not where the real value is in poker. And more often than not, they have the goods. I've probably lost more money through calling where I thought they might be bluffing than I've won when they actually were. I'm still going to call if I think it's likely enough someone's bluffing but I don't actively look for value there, unless I'm deliberatly checking to a guy I know will bet with his missed hand.

FastMachine · 25-09-2006 11:02am

I think I might bow out of this thread now, I've said all that I can on the situation, I'm just repeating myself now. I don't see this argument ending anytime soon.

Gholimoli · 25-09-2006 11:25am

FastMachine wrote:

I thought you were talking about the turn. I assumend you meant if I was in the villains shoes and raised and bet the flop oop, was called and was faced with a sizeable bet on the turn after checking. There I usually fold.

As you describe it above, I auto raise a J32r flop with TT.

Your logic is intersesting :
It goes along the lines of ...

Yep, you've got it. If I'm reraised I'm out as cheap as possible, and it is the cheapest way to know you're up against an overpair. If I'm called I give credit for a very strong hand and wouldn't be willing to put too much more money in the pot depending on my read on the villain. If he's called me with an underpair he'll want to check it down.

So villain raises to 25 and you call with AJ.

Flop(50)

J 2 3
Villain leads for 35 .
The pot is now 85 so your raise I take it will be something along pot size so say you raise for another 70 to make sure villain does have odds to call with just over cards.

You have put 105 in the pot.

Now say you just call the 35 bet.
Pot is now 120.

On the turn villain will more than likely define his hand by his bet size.
Notice that even if you call a bet of up to half the pot your still have put as much in to the pot as you would with your raise.
How ever the difference is that sometimes you will have the best hand here and some times even if you don’t have the best hand you can still improve by the river and make the best hand.
But your raise on the flop will wither win the pot there or get you to release your hand.
So IMO you have a better expectation with just calling while spending the same amount.

Gholimoli · 25-09-2006 11:26am

FastMachine wrote:

I don't look for value in calling bluffs. If a situation pops up where it's very likely I faced with a bluff and I call and am correct I'm happy but this is not where the real value is in poker. And more often than not, they have the goods. I've probably lost more money through calling where I thought they might be bluffing than I've won when they actually were. I'm still going to call if I think it's likely enough someone's bluffing but I don't actively look for value there, unless I'm deliberatly checking to a guy I know will bet with his missed hand.

this just suggests that you need to work on your hand reading skills.

FastMachine · 25-09-2006 12:41pm

Gholimoli wrote:

So villain raises to 25 and you call with AJ.

Flop(50)

J 2 3
Villain leads for 35 .
The pot is now 85 so your raise I take it will be something along pot size so say you raise for another 70 to make sure villain does have odds to call with just over cards.

He gets terrible odds to call with overcards here. If he wants to pay 70 for about 7.5-1 with KQ or 15-1 with AK/AQ, that's fine by me.

But your raise on the flop will wither win the pot there against hands that will put little or no money in anyway in this situation, unless they improve or get you to release your hand and get out cheap as possible against a better hand.

FYP.

My hand reading skills are quite good actually.

marius · 25-09-2006 1:17pm

musician wrote:

That was my point but then I was told I was wrong. Maybe I am but far too much emphatic dialog here these days.

Was just thinking this myself, this is a very interesting thread with many excellent players argueing (can never spell that word) both sides. Just wish we could leave out the 'you are totally wrong' , 'that is stupid' etc. Clearly FM, Gholi HJ and Fuzz etc. are all very sucessful players, I just dont get the black and white nature of the conversation.

Having said that its the first thread i've read on here in about a month that I found really interesting - so fcuk it...maybe its needed...

DeVore · 25-09-2006 5:44pm

yes, can we have less didactic declarations of poker canon and some more explanations of why you think your way of doing things is the most profitable.

And please get back on topic, the issue is which is it more preferrable to raise with here, AJ or 78. Nothing else enters the equation.

Would everyone agree that the opponent's fold and reraise rates for both hands are the same and that in the face of a reraise, we fold both hands??

So, we only consider situations where we are flat called.... right?

DeV.

a poker argument with my friend...

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