First hand of the day

ocallagh

2/4 NL Tribeca

No history

Stacks
Hero (Button): 394
Villain (BB): 800

Preflop
Foled to Hero on button with Kh5h
Hero raises to 14
Villain BB calls

Flop (30) [Jd 8h Qh]
Villain checks
Hero bets 25
Villain raises to 65
Hero?

Killme00

No free cards!!

Raise

Edit: Oh god..i am tired..thats two hearts not three

Yeah i agree with everyone else, call...fold a non heart turn

BigCityBanker

Chasing a draw on your first hand of the day is a bad starting point imo, It sets you in the wrong frame of mind. Fold.

Ste05

I'd call, you're getting 3:1 on a 4:1 shot, I'm sure you can eek out another bet on the turn or river if you make the flush on the turn, to make it a profitable call, if he checks the turn I check behind. Certainly Profitable, his re-raise sucks.

Whether a push is better, I'm not sure, possibly, but much higher variance. He could have anything here since we don't know what sort of player he is, so I'd just call, it also doesn't really define our hand that much that he can solidly put us on a flush draw.

LuckyLloyd

This post has been deleted.

Samba

A push is simply out of the question....leave that to the fish.


Take a card, however the problem here is if we miss our draw we will be priced out of the pot on the turn and if we hit we might not even get paid.

Which is why a fold is not inconceivable.

fuzzbox

Players who checkraise the flop are more likely to pay off if a flush hits the turn.
I call.

I also check this flop fairly often.

sikes

ocallagh wrote:

First hand of the day

you fish, could you not wait for the BB!

ocallagh

sikes wrote:

you fish, could you not wait for the BB!

lol I had folded both my blinds so techincally I suppose this was not the first hand of the day!

I called the extra 40 and folded to 80 when the board paired on the turn. boring end to stoy but felt I went wrong somewhere.

On a side not: Do people find they're getting check raised an awful lot more on Tribeca at the moment?

Hectorjelly

I think a push here would be good. A chk raise doesnt really signify a lot of strength to me here, and I dont really like calling as you have a non nut draw with no clear idea of if you will get paid off or not.

Gholimoli

fuzzbox wrote:

Players who checkraise the flop are more likely to pay off if a flush hits the turn.
I call.

I also check this flop fairly often.

.

ocallagh

Gholimoli wrote:

.

c'mon gholi, argue with HJ!

Samba

Hectorjelly wrote:

I think a push here would be good. A chk raise doesnt really signify a lot of strength to me here, and I dont really like calling as you have a non nut draw with no clear idea of if you will get paid off or not.

I agree with everything apart from your first statement let me get my babel fish as i'm not sure i understood your push statement correctly

cardshark202

I prefer pushing here. A check-raise used to mean strength but nowadays it seems most player will do it with anything, middle pair, tp no kicker, overcards aswell as the standard sets and huge draws.

I think pushing is far better than calling here. If you were a little deeper, calling and shoving any turn could also go down nicely.

cardshark202

I think checking here is pretty bad in general. I mean you should play it similiar to how you would play a big made hand.

Ste05

I don't like a push here, it allows our opponents to play perfectly. He's already made a mistake with his re-raise. (unless he has Axh) So I think we should capitalise on that and not limit his mistake to this rather small one. I'd prefer to let him make a huge mistake on the turn or river if our flush completes.

We also have position on the turn so there's no need to be overly aggressive.

Pushing is basically just gambling, we know nothing about what he has or how he plays, he seems like a donkey so chances are we're getting more than enough implied odds to call. But pushing makes him play perfect poker no matter how bad he is, he's never calling behind here. So we win the minimum by risking the maximum. Whereas by calling we can potentially win the maximum by risking the minimum.

LuckyLloyd

This post has been deleted.

cardshark202

Ste05 wrote:

I don't like a push here, it allows our opponents to play perfectly. He's already made a mistake with his re-raise. (unless he has Axh) So I think we should capitalise on that and not limit his mistake to this rather small one. I'd prefer to let him make a huge mistake on the turn or river if our flush completes.

We also have position on the turn so there's no need to be overly aggressive.

Pushing is basically just gambling, we know nothing about what he has or how he plays, he seems like a donkey so chances are we're getting more than enough implied odds to call. But pushing makes him play perfect poker no matter how bad he is, he's never calling behind here. So we win the minimum by risking the maximum. Whereas by calling we can potentially win the maximum by risking the minimum.

How can you say villain has made a mistake by raising? Thats a pretty bold statement. I would think a shove has a lot of fold equity, he's not getting great odds to call, its a straightened board, he will likely lay down a lot of hands and he's not getting great odds to call with just the nfd. I don't see how our opponent can play perfectly here. I mean he will lay down a lot of hands that beat us here.

phantom_lord

I prefer a shove to calling here.

BigCityBanker

Is a fold a bad thing? I would advocate a fold but there is plenty of talk of shoving and calling but less of folding.

I take it on the chin and fold. Am I a wimp?

Hectorjelly

Ste05 wrote:

I don't like a push here, it allows our opponents to play perfectly. He's already made a mistake with his re-raise. (unless he has Axh) So I think we should capitalise on that and not limit his mistake to this rather small one. I'd prefer to let him make a huge mistake on the turn or river if our flush completes.

We also have position on the turn so there's no need to be overly aggressive.

Pushing is basically just gambling, we know nothing about what he has or how he plays, he seems like a donkey so chances are we're getting more than enough implied odds to call. But pushing makes him play perfect poker no matter how bad he is, he's never calling behind here. So we win the minimum by risking the maximum. Whereas by calling we can potentially win the maximum by risking the minimum.

I think this is totally wrong. Its a good description of why we wouldnt push with AQ, but it has nothing to do with what we do here with Khi.

How can you say pushing lets him play perfect poker? If he ever folds any pair or even ace high he is making a mistake. The whole point of bluffing (or semi) bluffing is not to get someone to call when behind! We make a profit by folding out the best hand (which is virtually everything)

Since we have no idea of what our opponent is like its very hard to tell what range he has and if he will fold top pair to our checkraise, but it would take a very strange opponent to make pushing here not profitable. We will virtually always have around 33% equity in the pot when called, so he doesnt have to fold that much to make it breakeven.

Calling is bad here because its too large a bet, and we dont know how strong our opponent is. Also he may be bluffing or have a very weak hand, but he is still going to bet the turn most of the time which will nearly always be uncallable. If we had a read that he was strong calling would be ok, but since we dont and the bet is not big enough to give us immediate odds the choice is really push or fold. If you are variance shy or on a tight bankroll then folding is ok. If you want to dominate a game then you need to take opportunities to push your opponents around and create an aggressive image. This is a perfect spot since its at least neutral EV and probably slightly profitable.

Samba

Is it really necessary to committ our entire stack to achieve a semi-bluff?

cardshark202

Samba wrote:

Is it really necessary to committ our entire stack to achieve a semi-bluff?

Yep

fixer

HJ, putting yourself in the other guy's shoes, pick some hands for him and tell us how would you have played this against ocallagh's flush draw.

opr

Hectorjelly wrote:

Since we have no idea of what our opponent is like its very hard to tell what range he has and if he will fold top pair to our checkraise, but it would take a very strange opponent to make pushing here not profitable. We will virtually always have around 33% equity in the pot when called, so he doesnt have to fold that much to make it breakeven.

We are pushing 355 into a 118 dollar pot.

Equity = .33

EV = 118x + (1-x)((.33)(670) - 355)

= 118x + (1-x)(-134)

= 118X + 134x - 134

252x = 134

x = 53% they must fold

Maybe my maths is way off here or i am missing something but this doesn't look profitable to me ?

Opr

Hectorjelly

that questions a bit broad! I dont often chk raise and I when I do Iusually have a good idea of what im going to do if I get called/raised. Also I almost certainly wouldnt of called preflop!

Rb

Hectorjelly wrote:

I think this is totally wrong. Its a good description of why we wouldnt push with AQ, but it has nothing to do with what we do here with Khi.

How can you say pushing lets him play perfect poker? If he ever folds any pair or even ace high he is making a mistake. The whole point of bluffing (or semi) bluffing is not to get someone to call when behind! We make a profit by folding out the best hand (which is virtually everything)

Since we have no idea of what our opponent is like its very hard to tell what range he has and if he will fold top pair to our checkraise, but it would take a very strange opponent to make pushing here not profitable. We will virtually always have around 33% equity in the pot when called, so he doesnt have to fold that much to make it breakeven.

Calling is bad here because its too large a bet, and we dont know how strong our opponent is. Also he may be bluffing or have a very weak hand, but he is still going to bet the turn most of the time which will nearly always be uncallable. If we had a read that he was strong calling would be ok, but since we dont and the bet is not big enough to give us immediate odds the choice is really push or fold. If you are variance shy or on a tight bankroll then folding is ok. If you want to dominate a game then you need to take opportunities to push your opponents around and create an aggressive image. This is a perfect spot since its at least neutral EV and probably slightly profitable.

Good post, fully agree.

Hectorjelly

If we get all in the pot will be 825. We get back 1/3 of it in equity, which is 275. Weve put in 355 now, giving us a net equity loss of $80

If he folds we get 115

I cant work out the exact figure now because im 4 tabling on tilt, but he probably needs to fold around 40% of the time. If he folds half the time we get a nice profit

Ste05

Hectorjelly wrote:

I think this is totally wrong. Its a good description of why we wouldnt push with AQ, but it has nothing to do with what we do here with Khi.

I don't think that was wrong at all. How I play TPTK and strong draws are often the same in order to keep my opponents guessing. I don't have set rules for how to play certain hands in certain situations, mostly I'll raise sometimes I'll call if given good odds.

Hectorjelly wrote:

How can you say pushing lets him play perfect poker? If he ever folds any pair or even ace high he is making a mistake. The whole point of bluffing (or semi) bluffing is not to get someone to call when behind! We make a profit by folding out the best hand (which is virtually everything)

OK perfect poker was a bad choice of words, but what I'm talking about is that pushing now stops him making any future mistakes. The mistakes he might make on this flop, will win us $120. The mistakes he makes on future streets potentially make us ~$400. I know which mistakes I'm trying to get my opponent make... Pushing now makes these future mistakes impossible. There's no need to risk our whole $355 stack now, when we can put in $40 and risk that he'll pay us off if we hit, instead of risking $355 that he'll fold and we win $120. Again I'm not saying pushing is bad, I actually think it's +EV, but I just think calling is better, in this particular situation.

Hectorjelly wrote:

Since we have no idea of what our opponent is like its very hard to tell what range he has and if he will fold top pair to our checkraise, but it would take a very strange opponent to make pushing here not profitable. We will virtually always have around 33% equity in the pot when called, so he doesnt have to fold that much to make it breakeven.

As you say, we have no idea how often he'll fold so we are just pushing into the unknown. I try not and blindly gamble when at all possible. As opr says (I didn't check but it looks right) we need our opponent to fold 53% of the time to break even. I actually thought it was probably a little less.

I suppose it then comes down to people's willingness to gamble as to whether the average flop check raiser will fold here.

Hectorjelly wrote:

Calling is bad here because its too large a bet, and we dont know how strong our opponent is.

Why do you think a $40 bet into a pot of $120 with effective stacks of $315 left is too big??

We have been offered 3:1 with potential implied odds of ~10:1, on what is a 4:1 shot. Unless he is bluffing with air, he'll at least call $40 on either the turn or River if we complete a flush on the turn. Seems lovely to me.

Hectorjelly wrote:

Also he may be bluffing or have a very weak hand, but he is still going to bet the turn most of the time which will nearly always be uncallable.

I also don't know how you're presuming we'll be facing a turn bet that we can't call, he might try another C/R, he might bet another $40 or something. But I'll give him the chance to make a mistake. It seems quite obvious that this guy doesn't know how to bet, this was basically a min raise. I actually don't care what he has. But as I say I'm going to let him make a bigger mistake on the turn or river.

Hectorjelly wrote:

If we had a read that he was strong calling would be ok, but since we dont and the bet is not big enough to give us immediate odds the choice is really push or fold.

Do you really not think that if the flush completes on the turn, he won't put another $40 into the pot on either the turn or river. If he's bluffing then chances are we're ahead anyway, as the only bluffing hand that we don't beat is A high.

Hectorjelly wrote:

If you want to dominate a game then you need to take opportunities to push your opponents around and create an aggressive image. This is a perfect spot since its at least neutral EV and probably slightly profitable.

Obviously creating an aggressive image is good, but I prefer to make my opponents think I'm one way to begin with and then play the opposite, so pushing makes people think we're aggressive and our big hands will get paid off, but calling will make people think we are passive and so our bluffs will work better. It's all just swings and roundabouts really, it's just paying attention to our table image.

cardshark202 wrote:

How can you say villain has made a mistake by raising? Thats a pretty bold statement. I would think a shove has a lot of fold equity, he's not getting great odds to call, its a straightened board, he will likely lay down a lot of hands and he's not getting great odds to call with just the nfd. I don't see how our opponent can play perfectly here. I mean he will lay down a lot of hands that beat us here.

I don't think the mistake is raising, it's the amount he raised is the mistake. And as I explained above, I agree that a push has alot of fold equity, but I'm going to allow him to make much bigger mistakes later by calling with a worse hand then pushing now and make him fold some random hand. And as I said above, I chose the wrong term when I said play perfectly.

opr

Hectorjelly wrote:

If we get all in the pot will be 825. We get back 1/3 of it in equity, which is 275. Weve put in 355 now, giving us a net equity loss of $80

If he folds we get 115

I cant work out the exact figure now because im 4 tabling on tilt, but he probably needs to fold around 40% of the time. If he folds half the time we
get a nice profit

lol , Fair enough. Yeah thanks my final pot size was wrong but you are a bit out too with your figures.

Final pot size is 788 not 828 its only 315 more for villian to call , our 355 and the 118 in the pot.

Equity = .33

EV = 118x + (1-x)((.33)(788) - 355)

= 118x + (1-x)(-92)

= 118X + 92x - 92

210x = 92

x = 44% they must fold


HJ - Would i be right in saying that our stack size here makes this a bit awkward , like we would love to have around a pot size bet left as our FE would be around the same but much less risk so the amount villian would have to fold would be far less or is this bad thinking in some way ?

Opr

cardshark202

Ste, almost every player who check-raises flop bets the turn, and most players bet more than 1/6th of the pot.

Ste05

I know, I'm taking this call in isolation, and leaving the turn to whatever happens and what ever falls. We have position, and who knows what might fall, it could be a 10 giving us more outs or maybe a K, who knows, all I'm saying is I don't mind a call. And I'll see what happens on the turn.

I'm risking $40 (+ say, 33% Equity of the $120 = $39.6), so probably ~$80 hoping to win a big pot (hopefully $400, but at least $200). As opposed to risking $80 (HJ's equity calc above) to win $120.

[EDIT: Just so I don't give HJ too much ammo for tomorrow, this is obviously simplistic and doesn't take into account the times he folds to the push, but it also doesn't take into account the times he checks the turn (albeit small) or the money we win when we hit, or when we hit more outs, etc. etc. but I'm tired now and you could probably do maths on this one til the cows come home.]

Obviously 3 in 4 times it won't work out, but 1 in 4 times it will work out and I will win at least another $40, but might win the remaining $315. Same with the push, sometimes it works and we win the $120, sometimes it doesn't and we lose the $355 and other times it works out and we win $400.

I suppose it's just a different type of gamble, but one with a different type of risk.

robinlacey

just a small observation,in general i have found a check raise that is nearly/effectively a minraise but not quite to be a lot scarier than an actual minraise...

fuzzbox

I really dont think this is a good spot to semi-bluff our stack with a K-hi flush draw.

We have reasoanble equity Vs top pair hands, but we have no idea if thats what he has. We also need him to fold 44% of the time to break-even. But we need him to fold 44% of the hands that he makes a really small check-raise with on a QJ8 twotone board.

We have position, and he offers us implied odds, by charging us a not terrible price to call to see a turn, and by virtue of his check/raising hand range is stronger than normal.

I like to call when he offers me good effective and good implied odds, and I like to semi-bluff raise when his range Vs the board is weak.

cardshark202

In my experience over the last couple of months, these check-raises are weak hands trying to 'find out where they're at' more often than a huge hand. If he check-raises bigger here I would prolly just fold.

opr

I also don't like the fact that we have to put in 3X to win X on the semi bluff. I think if stack sizes were different the semi bluff all in might be better.

For example let say stack sizes left us with a pot size bet of 200.

So starting stack would have been 239.

Equity = .33

EV = 118x + (1-x)((.33)(480) - 200)

= 118x + (1-x)(-41)

= 118X + 41x - 41

159x = 41

x = 26% they must fold

I doubt in the original case when we bet 3x instead of 2x that our fold equity increases by almost 20%. Maybe my thinking is bad here but as far as i can see our stack size dictates that we can't make this play optimally.

Opr

fuzzbox

cardshark202 wrote:

In my experience over the last couple of months, these check-raises are weak hands trying to 'find out where they're at' more often than a huge hand. If he check-raises bigger here I would prolly just fold.

Its fairly difficult for him to have a weak hand on this board. AQ and KQ are the only ones, and even then he might well call.

Hes 22/9, so he probably has you toasted here.

I find that ppl raise in position more often to "find out where they are at" and that small check/raises = big hands.

cardshark202

fuzzbox wrote:

Its fairly difficult for him to have a weak hand on this board. AQ and KQ are the only ones, and even then he might well call.

Hes 22/9, so he probably has you toasted here.

I find that ppl raise in position more often to "find out where they are at" and that small check/raises = big hands.

You're mixing up hands. There is no history with this guy. We don't know if he's 22/9 or 88/57

Hectorjelly

No I think the stacks sizes are fine. I wouldnt actually push anyway, I would call the 40 and raise about what the pot was. (to about 200). I think this line is so strong he folds everything but sets and straights. If we only had a pot bet left its going to be less scary

opr

Agreed is does look less scary but i don't think its 20% less scary

Leaving you with 155 on the river ? Surely we should be putting this all in on the turn to maximise FE or do you think a pot bet looks stronger than a push ?

Opr

Samba

So how did you play the hand?

ocallagh

Samba wrote:

So how did you play the hand?

Called the extra 40 and folded to his bet of 80 when the board paired on the turn... actually I think I already posted this!