20/40 NL - Call or fold???

Flipper

This pot occured the other night on Tribeca. I can't find the hand history but I'll try to re-create it.

5-handed and I'm in the BB. I have 2,500 and villian covers. Villian raises from the cutoff to 140 (he has raised a large % of pots pre-flop but not as confident post-flop) and I pump it to 390 with JcJs. He calls. Flop comes 3d6dQd. I bet out 650 into the 800 pot. Villian raises all in. I've got about 1,400 behind. What do you do...?

delanec8

You are getting 2.5 to 1 on the call but even still i think you are drawing to one out here enough that its a fold. Has he called many reraises before preflop? He will probably have the lone Ad here a fair bit and even then you arent much of a favourite. If you had Jd it may be a call.

Gholimoli

Don’t like the lead on that flop.
If I lead I would fold to a bet like that.
There is not much that you beat at all.
Your best hope is that he has Adx where x is not a Q and lower than J .in that case even though you are not much of a fav to win the hand but the odds justify a call.
Check/call flop and check/fold turn.
Pre flop raise more or flat call.

jimbling

why re-raise pre-flop?
Why lead the flop?

As it stands now, it depends on a number of things. really depends on player.
You say he covers you, but by how much? - A large stack may be using the ugly board to push you off the hand.

Without any knowledge of the player it's a fold.

Flipper

he had about 4,500 starting the hand. I re-raised hoping to win it pre-flop but didn't mind taking a flop either.

The outcome: I put him on an Kd or an Ad so given the pot odds, I called. He showed the AdKh. Ts on the turn gave him my remaining two Jacks as well and a black King on the river shipped the pot to him.

My question is: Even if his hand was turned up, am I right every time to call? I don't know the exact %'s but if he has 14 outs, I suppose that makes him just worse than 50/50?

Gholimoli

Flipper wrote:

My question is: Even if his hand was turned up, am I right every time to call? I don't know the exact %'s but if he has 14 outs, I suppose that makes him just worse than 50/50?

lol
the problem is he hasnt turned his cards faced up and your up against a range and not just a hand.
a range that has you cruched.
the particular hand was just one in his range that you were behind but had odds to call.

Flipper

Gholimoli wrote:

the particular hand was just one in his range that you were behind but had odds to call.

Was I behind on the flop???

I was putting another 1400 in to win 5000 so I was certainly getting a price if I felt that he had the Ad or Kd. I understand that I was never going to be huge fav when the cards were turned over - It was either 50/50 (like it was) or I was crushed (running house outs only). It was unlikely that he was re-raising with nothing (although not impossible on this board).

delanec8

You were putting in 1400 to win 3500 not 5000. Pretty significant difference.

Gholimoli

Flipper wrote:

Was I behind on the flop???

I was putting another 1400 in to win 5000 so I was certainly getting a price if I felt that he had the Ad or Kd. I understand that I was never going to be huge fav when the cards were turned over - It was either 50/50 (like it was) or I was crushed (running house outs only). It was unlikely that he was re-raising with nothing (although not impossible on this board).

You are getting 3.5:1
Basically his range is
JJ+,66,33,Ad2+,KdQ,AQ

I would think against that range you are a massive underdog but not quit sure if its 3.5:1.
Looking at it again I think its closer than I first thought which means a call or a fold could have the same EV here.
Again it all depends how much of an underdog you are to the above range.

jimbling

Gholimoli wrote:

You are getting 3.5:1

no... it's 2.5:1, delanec8 is correct there. You're counting the 1400 that he hasn't put into the pot yet as winnings.

Hitman Actual

2.5/1 = 30% equity or so.

PokerStove (worst case probably):

Board: 3d 6d Qd

equity (%) win (%) tie (%)
Hand 1: 10.6607 % 08.70% 01.97% { JcJs }
Hand 2: 89.3393 % 87.37% 01.97% { JJ+, 66, AdKd, AQs, AdJd, AdTd, KQs, AdKc, AdKh, AdKs, AdQc, AdQh, AdQs, KdQc, KdQh, KdQs }

No idea what ranges people have at 20/40, but I don't think this is very wrong. So it's a horrible call.

MrPillowTalk

Im not mad on the call.

There are basically two profitable ways to be playing that game you either need a healthy stack to play right say 5k+ or else Ive seen some guys use a shortstack strategy buying in for 1 - 1.5k, but your stack size gives you really tough decisions that if you had a bigger stack would be easier to decide and if you had a shorter stack would be a no brainer.

As played I probably fold, depending on how tilty I am.

Flipper

MrPillowTalk wrote:

Im not mad on the call.

There are basically two profitable ways to be playing that game you either need a healthy stack to play right say 5k+ or else Ive seen some guys use a shortstack strategy buying in for 1 - 1.5k, but your stack size gives you really tough decisions that if you had a bigger stack would be easier to decide and if you had a shorter stack would be a no brainer.

As played I probably fold, depending on how tilty I am.

Ya, I kinda agree that it is a suspect call. I think another factor in me calling was that I was only in for 1,000. My own opinion on short-buyins is to take more chances to allow you to have a shot at landing a big score in one sitting. Taking down that pot would have put me +4k for that session and I would have had a chance to win a lot more. With all this taken into consideration, I think u can see why I gambled.

Gholimoli

jimbling wrote:

no... it's 2.5:1, delanec8 is correct there. You're counting the 1400 that he hasn't put into the pot yet as winnings.

this is correc .i just went by what Flipper said.
you are getting no where near what you need in that case .
again as i said his range crushes you .

fuzzbox

Fold, you are almost never a big favourite, and often a big dog.

RoundTower

I think if this is a close decision, you should check the flop instead. I suppose as played I would fold, since you feel he is not aggressive postflop.

Doc Farrell

Fold. No wait! Call! No wait! Fold! yes definitely fold.
(just giving you a sneak insight into my psychological processes for making high stakes decisions)
Call! (give us a loan of a fiver, will ya...)

Hectorjelly

I think you should raise more preflop, and fold to his raise. Its the classic situation, where you are either drawing almost dead or its a coinflip. In fact it was almost the best case scenario for you, and you were actually not the favourite.

You say that one of the reasons you called was because you were only in for 1k. Without beating around the bush this is a significent error. What you bought in for has no bearing on your opponents cards and if you are a winning player any large deviation from what your normal decision would be due to irrelevant factors is going to cut down your edge to the extent that you may be the live one.

Gholimoli

Hectorjelly wrote:

I think you should raise more preflop, and fold to his raise. Its the classic situation, where you are either drawing almost dead or its a coinflip. In fact it was almost the best case scenario for you, and you were actually not the favourite.

You say that one of the reasons you called was because you were only in for 1k. Without beating around the bush this is a significent error. What you bought in for has no bearing on your opponents cards and if you are a winning player any large deviation from what your normal decision would be due to irrelevant factors is going to cut down your edge to the extent that you may be the live one.

HJ ,
i think what flipper meant by buying in for 1K was that he was trying to use short stack strategy.
even though IMO he incorrectly used it here there are obviously differences when playing short stack than when playing deep stack.

TacT

I have a question flipper. Let's say you are dealt 55 and know your opponent has AK. Are you going to be looking to get it all-in everytime in cash play? Personally I like to avoid these situations like the plague when playing for cash but I'm curious about the higher stakes players views on these coinflips or marginal favourite situations from both sides -- you have 55 or AK?

Flipper

I don't fully understand the question... I will never "KNOW" he has AK but I suppose if he told me and I trust him, it would depend on my stack vs his and also (i'm sure some will disagree with this) if I'm winning or not. I might be inclined to gamble if I'm losing but if I'm winning I might try to avoid these situations.

If it's a case of "he probably has AK", then I don't like 55 much - doesn't have a whole lot of substance. Something like 88 or 99 would be much easier to call with. After all, a lot of people seem to play midium pairs a lot like AK in a cash game (willing to race for the money). Just my opinion but, HJ, Goli, pillowtalk etc would probably offer more sound advice than me. I'm more of an omaha player.

Gholimoli

The question is not really a good one.
55 is slightly ahead of AK which means if the two opponents are putting in the same amount and that hand is played to the end then 55 will win slightly more in the long run than AK would.
This is a good proposition and to avoid it is not advisable at all as it doesn’t make sense.
An edge is an edge no matter how big or small.
Obviously the above is if im 100% certain my opponent holds AK.
Having said that there is argument for passing in this spot.
And that is if you feel that you can get your opponents stack later by taking advantage of bigger edges.
That is to say that the opponent plays so badly that you are certain to have a bigger edge than the coin-flip situation where your edge is small.
Again that’s not to say you should pass the 55 hand .the simple fact is that situation will make you money. The reason why you may pass the 55 hand is because you have a higher chance of loosing that bet (nearly 50%) and loosing that bet may prevent you from taking advantage of the higher edge situations that may present them self’s later.
For example if you are certain that a 60%/40% situation will present it self soon ,then it can be correct to pass a 55%-45% edge as the latter has a higher % of losing which MAY prevent you from being able to take the 60%-40% .
In a ideal world where its perceived that your bankroll is infinite (you will never go broke) then it can never be correct to pass the 55 as even losing that bet a huge number of times will never prevent you from taking advantage of the 60%-40% .
I hope this makes sense.

TacT

I should have worded it differently or given a few more hand examples to get the point across but gholi has somewhat answered. As a by the way back on topic, I thought it was a rancid call myself and am folding there 99.9% of the time but as with all questions poker related, it depends on many factors.