Cash Game Hand...

Super Sidious

Hold'em Pot Limit
Blinds 1-2
7 Seats
Hero BB - €220
Player 1 UTG - €100
Villian Button - €200

Utg raises to €5
Folds around to Villian who calls,
Hero Calls in BigBlind wit 2-4off,
flop 2-4-Ao
Hero checks,
UTG raises to €10
Villian calls
Hero raises to €35,
UTG folds,
Villian after a think, ReRaises to 135...

What should have i done next?

jimmii

Looks like he has AK and he's looking to see how strong you are. I'd be happy to put it all in and see the sick look on his face when he see's your 24 vs his AK. Could have AA and if so then you just have to suck it up! Showing our cards here will give you a pretty loose image so if you don't win the hand try take advantage of that image in the next hour or so.

phantom_lord

jimmii wrote:

Looks like he has AK and he's looking to see how strong you are.

do people actually do this regularly?

jimmii

AK couldn't really hope for a better flop than that and making it only 5 pre-flop means smaller aces are going to be calling. If this is a late night Fitz game I think people are often doing this with AK.

valor

the villain didnt raise preflop, he cold called on the button

valor

OP - some reads would be helpful - what is the villains range for cold calling on the button? what does calling the flop bet mean? how does he perceive you and your check raise into 2 players, including an UTG raiser on an Ace high flop? this hand is really difficult to analyse in a vacuum

as a general rule, I think live players are stupid and will show up with a one pair hand enough here to felt it, but this could easily be shifted to a fold if you had provided info/reads.

jimmii

So he did. I guess 44,22 become more of a factor but you can pretty much write off AA. In that case I would be more inclined to get it in.

bops

without any other info i honestly think you should fold!

Super Sidious

He was relatively new to the table, I had built up from 50 or so, so I was playing decent to the other players at the tables perspective, He was pretty well known, so im guessing he was pretty experienced.

I pushed all in for another €90-95 on top of his 135 raises, he called instantly, he had A-2, turn and river no help!

Lookin at it again, I may take more caution next time that situation comes up, but its pretty hard to get away from???

Cheers for the replys

jimmii

A2 is a bit mad. I guess some people just any ace is a good hand. Was it suited by any chance? That seems to tip some people over the edge and make them think its worth paying to see a flop. I don't see any problem with your play did your 24o get a few smiles around the table?

BigCityBanker

This is from the Fitz last night yeah? You were in seat 2?

If your gonna play 2 4 and hit the flop like that you should be prepared to stick it in.

Super Sidious

It was offsuite, and i showed my 2-4 to a few smiles alright!

bubbleking

fold here i think its almost always a better 2 pair or a set i cant imagine him playing an decent ace like that.

BuChan

bottom two is pretty tough to get away from but i think this was as an easy a spot to so as you'll find. all you beat is AK and AQ which almost certainly reraise such a small initial raise preflop, especially when on button. i would have feared the higher two pair and no one even mentioned 53 for the nuts. live games as everyone know are ultra loose so hand ranges need to be pretty huge, i think it's a mistake to put someone on the one hand you beat especially after he flat calls the original raiser and reraises a check raise.... what do you think he thinks you have. i think it's a fold.

sikes

Preflop is major spew.

Hectorjelly

I think preflop is fine, its three more and 24o is good because its so far away from peoples normal holdings.

Just because you have a play a hand like 24o or 92o or whatever doesnt mean you have to automatically stack off if you flop 2 pair or better. In the hand posted above, the villain is really playing his holding strongly, I doubt he turns up with one pair much here at all. Crucially we have bottom two pair so folding is best as when we are ahead we arent that far ahead, and when we are behind we often have no outs

Mellor

sikes wrote:

Preflop is major spew.

Agreed
There is no reason to call here, let go of the BB,
I know its only 3 more into a pot of 13, but its a terrible move,
results orientated or not. you end up in tough spots

btw the way, if the villian had AK, and you pushed, the villian has to call, even if he knows your hand, this is +ev for him,

Hectorjelly

calling a min raise preflop can never really be called major spew can it

sikes

Hectorjelly wrote:

calling a min raise preflop can never really be called major spew can it

sorry, didnt realise the size of the raise. I would still fold, but that becuase Im tighter than tight,

Mellor

Hectorjelly wrote:

calling a min raise preflop can never really be called major spew can it

spew is probably harsh, but you will end up in alot of tough situations.
If you are a good enough player to get away from a hand like above, then caling is fine imo, but if you are going broke here everytime, then folding is better

valor

i would call preflop just because like poker is boring as ****

sikes

valor wrote:

i would call preflop just because like poker is boring as ****

Yeah I would prob call live too!

However, I really cant see this ever being profitable, the hand is just so weak that it cant flop good very often at all, and we have no idea of the players ranges or anything about them. I would be surprised if we are happy to continue with the hand more than 4% of the time, so we need to make up that deficit. So we need to take 66$ on average each time we hit. Which I just dont see happening.

Now these numbers I just cooked up now and my head is a mess so I could be way off!

Goodluck2me

BigCityBanker wrote:

If your gonna play 2 4 and hit the flop like that you should be prepared to stick it in.

this is bad advice, if you think your behind fold. simple as. If you hit one pair, and think its ahead call. i dont think your reasons for calling pre flop should not come into your decisions now.
You effectively only beating AJ/Q/K if you had AK it would be an easy fold, so 24 is pretty much the same. its fold.

BuChan

saying that 3 more into a 13 pot with 42 is spewy is pretty harsh indeed i think, you can flop a big hand with the 42 most likely get paid very nicely and like hectorjelly said you don't have to stack off with it in a situation like the one being discussed here where you've hit it half way.

sikes

BuChan wrote:

saying that 3 more into a 13 pot with 42 is spewy is pretty harsh indeed i think, you can flop a big hand with the 42 most likely get paid very nicely and like hectorjelly said you don't have to stack off with it in a situation like the one being discussed here where you've hit it half way.

What big hands are we hoping to hit? We should never continue if we hit just a pair. So we are looking for 2pair, trips and a straight.

First of all we are calling 3 with the maximum potential to win 300.

We are 2% to flop 2pair, 1.36% to flop trips and to flop a straight is something really small. So say we continue on the flop with our made hand 4% of the time.

So we are 25/1 to make our hand, we are being offered 4/1 atm so we have to make up the 21/1 or win $63 on average each time we hit.

Obviously we can semibluff a straight draw, but against two oppoents and being OOP against unkowns its prob a losing play in isolation.

Now you have to consider the sitaution above where we check raise and find out our hand is no good. So we start making folds that cost us more money meaning the pots we win have to be bigger and its just an endless spiral of spew.

LuckyLloyd

This post has been deleted.

cardshark202

Yes preflop is pretty bad, you really need to be suited here.

Marq

I disagree that preflop is really bad. You're getting 4.3:1 and your hand is likely to be pretty live.
However if you're the sort of player who's going to get stacked when you flop bottom two pair and are faced with this action then perhaps folding is best.

I doubt we're ever shown one pair or worse here by the villian. I'd usually put him on A4/A2 but sets are also a possibility. AK is unlikely given the preflop flat call on the button. ditto AA. If he has any sense he's not getting all his money in here with AQ and below.

BCB wrote:

If your gonna play 2 4 and hit the flop like that you should be prepared to stick it in.

I think this thinking is really self-destructive. If you're going to play cards like this for a raise you should be sure that you can outplay your opponent after the flop. If you're just hoping to hit two pair and auto-ship it then you're unlikely to outplay your opponents over time.

Always getting it in when we flop two pair is as bad as always folding when we flop nothing.

cardshark202

Yes our hand is live but I don't think that really matters much. We need to get paid pretty much everytime we hit, and then there are the time we hit like this and are still fúcked, and the times we get it in vs like AA on a 249 flop and lose. It seems unlikely we will ever get it in behind with this hand and win, cos if we do we were drawing to between 1 and 4 outs probably. Too lazy to do the maths but I think sikes had the gist of it right earlier.

Marq

I guess I'm of the opinion that there are very few hands I am folding for what is effectively a minraise from UTG and a call from the button in any live 1/2 cash game in Dublin. the standard is so bad preflop that so far their actions mean nothing as regards the strength of their hands.

We're not hoping to get in behind with this hand Reg, we're hoping to get it in ahead or win the pot without a showdown.
to say that sometimes we get it in against the boots on a 249 board and lose is a red herring. we'll still have gotten it in in a +EV situation.

I doubt I would always call here pre-flop, but there is no way that I would always fold.

sikes

Well I obv disagree for the reasons I had given above. Calling preflop in the situation above can't ever be profitable.

Marq wrote:

If you're going to play cards like this for a raise you should be sure that you can outplay your opponent after the flop. If you're just hoping to hit two pair and auto-ship it then you're unlikely to outplay your opponents over time.

I really hate this concept that people can "outplay" someone. It's so airy fairy and bull crappy. Its not applicable in this case because we have no reads on the players and we are OOP.

When people rightfully use the concept of "outplaying" someone they are referring to some edge that they exploit over their oppoents, whether it be their oppoenents over playing TP, having a weak starting hand requirement etc. But exploiting these edges are generally kept for when you are in position. Playing pots OOP it can often neutralise any edge you have, although in this case we have no edge against these players becuase we have no info on them. Absolutely nothing, so playing these hands with the concept of "outplaying" them is just stupid. Before making a call like this you have to be able to verbalise your edge against the oppoents in so giving solid backing as to why you call. This is something that I read/heard recently but I cant remember where but I think its vitally important to a successful player.

If the OP came on and said that he knows that a weak raise UTG is something like AA/KK and he never lays down his hand ever and is weak passive, betting really weak on flop and calling huge raises and stacking off, then we can say preflop is fine but thats not the case.

Marq

sikes wrote:

When people rightfully use the concept of "outplaying" someone they are referring to some edge that they exploit over their oppoents, whether it be their oppoenents over playing TP, having a weak starting hand requirement etc.

good point, but I probably wouldn't say that if you weren't a spurs fan.

If this was an online 1/2 game against players I have no stats on I would fold every time.

but I've played too many 1/2 games in the Fitz to accept your statement that calling here can never be profitable.

Shadowless

I think people are gettin too caught up with the pre-flop action. Calling here is only a small leak (if it's a leak at all, IMO it is)

Stacking off with bottom two after a re-raise with no info on villans is a major leak.
I think this is a clear fold. We beat exactly 1 hand, AK, which itself is unlikely given the action pre-flop.

Edited to get rid of an unnecessary apostrophe.

Jesus Wept

cardshark202 wrote:

Yes preflop is pretty bad, you really need to be suited here.

People really have a hard on for suited cards.

Not talking about you specifically cardshark.

Just generally, the amount people that say 'but they are suited' makes me think that there might be only 2 suits in the deck, considering *how much* of a difference it seems to make to them.

Marq wrote:

but I've played too many 1/2 games in the Fitz to accept your statement that calling here can never be profitable.

I agree, and from what I've seen, I would expect to see the villain turn over AJ - AK here often enough...

Hectorjelly

You out play people by playing hands much better than they do, doesnt matter if your are in position or out

Slash/ED

Agreed, I dont think youve played enough live cash games in Dublin if you think theres only one hand were beating here. You'd be surprised how often you'd see this with any old ace.

Hectorjelly

sikes wrote:

When people rightfully use the concept of "outplaying" someone they are referring to some edge that they exploit over their oppoents, whether it be their oppoenents over playing TP, having a weak starting hand requirement etc. But exploiting these edges are generally kept for when you are in position. Playing pots OOP it can often neutralise any edge you have, although in this case we have no edge against these players becuase we have no info on them. Absolutely nothing, so playing these hands with the concept of "outplaying" them is just stupid. Before making a call like this you have to be able to verbalise your edge against the oppoents in so giving solid backing as to why you call. This is something that I read/heard recently but I cant remember where but I think its vitally important to a successful player.

I dont agree with this at all. A good player has an edge over average players, I dont need any paticular info over a player to know I have an edge over them; just that I am likely to play the hand well and they are likely to play the bad.

I can call here preflop because I wouldnt of gone broke with 2 pair in this manner, and I would of gotten the maximum had i been ahead. I would think it similar for marq

sikes

Hectorjelly wrote:

I dont agree with this at all. A good player has an edge over average players, I dont need any paticular info over a player to know I have an edge over them; just that I am likely to play the hand well and they are likely to play the bad.

If I want to get into this pot I need a very good reason why based on something I have seen him do not some wild assumption, this is because the I dont think its profitable to play the hand against an average player with no information. Of course this matters that you are OOP. You have the same hand in position, it has a greater expectation becuse you are working off more information.

Hectorjelly wrote:

I can call here preflop because I wouldnt of gone broke with 2 pair in this manner, and I would of gotten the maximum had i been ahead. I would think it similar for marq

I have no doubt you can get the maximum out of the hand when you are ahead and I would assume I would too, however, this will not offset the time that we miss and the times that we flop 2 pair like this and have to let it go, making the call -EV. I would estimate we make a made hand 4% of the time. Thats a huge deficit you need to make up on the flop and later streets with your hand often vulnerable.

EDIT: Made a change cos the last post makes even worse sense than this one.

sikes

This is one of the articles I read before and really changed my thinking of the game. I was going into games with the mentality that I would out play my opponents becuase they were worse than me and for the most part they were worse than me. However, when we get into unfavourable situations in isolation, like the one OP posted in this hand, we have to have some kind of edge to make up for it. In this case, we dont have any info on the villain thus making the call preflop a losing one.

I might actually edit out some of the articles cos its prob not right to copy it all.

Taylor Caby//cardrunners.com wrote:

What is Your Edge?

by Taylor Caby

Even though I primarily play poker in some of the highest stakes games on the internet, I see players make many basic errors. Usually players develop holes in their game while they are playing at the lower stakes games, but they can overcome them to remain a winning player because the competition they play makes even more mistakes than they do! These same players wonder why they repeatedly lose as they move up to the higher limits, but the simple truth is that they are making more mistakes than their opponents. In an effort to help players aspiring to move to the top of the poker ranks, today I am going to discuss a concept I have coined: your "edge." It is important to note that the concept as a whole is nothing new, but I haven't seen these principles presented together as a basis to guide to all decisions at the poker table.

First, I must define the word "edge," as it applies to playing winning poker. The simplest way to understand this term is to think of it as your advantage in a given hand over the other players you are playing against. For purposes of this article, I will only discuss your edge as it applies to making the decision of whether you should fold, call, or raise your hand preflop. This concept applies to every decision you will ever make at the poker table, but it would be very complicated to discuss in one article.

For example, your edge could be simply that you hold better cards than your opponents. It could also be that one of your opponents is on tilt and you are not. You could be in better table position than your opponent, or you could be against a player that understands next to nothing about the game. You also may have no edge whatsoever on your opponents in a given hand, in which case the obvious decision is that you should fold (this is an oversimplification as there are times you would play a hand in which you don't have an overall edge, but where the future benefits you gain from your opponent being misled about the way you play makes the play worthwhile). On the surface, this concept is very easy to understand, but it should be noted that like almost all other concepts in poker, higher level thinking complicates things greatly.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

-There are many other miscellaneous edges that are exploitable in poker. I encourage all of you to look for them yourself and incorporate them into your game.

Hectorjelly

I dont see the relevance of that article


Im going to call preflop because I am getting very good odds, to make it a profitable call.

Instead of just making up figures out of thin air, 24o will beat aces about 12% of the time, a pair will beat aces about 18% of the time. To call with a low pair here I would need to get roughly 10-1 implied odds, so since im getting about 31-1 implied odds (and thats just from the PFR) I would think its definitely profitable for me to call with 24o in that spot. 24o doesnt have much in the way of reverse implied odds.

cardshark202

wtf? We can't just put him on AA here. Also you are assuming we are going to see five cards? We aren't almost all of the time. I'm open to persuading, but this just seems terrible.

Hectorjelly

cardshark202 wrote:

wtf? We can't just put him on AA here. Also you are assuming we are going to see five cards? We aren't almost all of the time. I'm open to persuading, but this just seems terrible.

I just compared it with aces to give an idea of how powerful a starting hand it is, whats its relative strength. It really makes no difference what pair you use if is higher and doesnt interfere. And those %'s are for all 5 cards, both for pairs and for 24o. I know we wont see all 5 cards, but you take that into account. Thats why you use at least 6 -1 (actually 10-1 or more) for hitting a set, rather than 3.5-1 since you need to flop it. And here you are getting 33-1

cardshark202

Yeah but not only do you have to flop a monster, you have to get paid too, and that means someone else has to have a big pair or something. I just really can't see this being profitable.
I'm sure you will play the hand very well postflop and
will make as much as you can off it. But you will still be losing in the long run imo.

Hectorjelly

cardshark202 wrote:

Yeah but not only do you have to flop a monster, you have to get paid too, and that means someone else has to have a big pair or something. I just really can't see this being profitable.

You could use exactly the same argument for folding 22 there

cardshark202

No cos you're pretty much never folding when you hit and your hand is less vunerable to being outdrawn

Hectorjelly

cardshark202 wrote:

No cos you're pretty much never folding when you hit and your hand is less vunerable to being outdrawn

You said you shouldnt call because someone else needs to make a hand as well, you having 24 or 44 makes no diffence to the chance of someone having a big pair. i was just pointing out that its a slightly irrelevant point, because you would certainly call with a pair.

I agree id prefer to have 22 there, but I dont think theres that much difference. Remember, you already have €2 in the pot, you only need to put €3 more in. You are calling €3 with the possibility of winning €100 (and thats just from the pfr). I would call with a pair here if I was getting better than 10-1, with 24 you probably need something like 20-1, so I think its a profitable call. The button guy calling makes it mandatory IMO.

24 is actually quite a good hand for calling in this spot, because its so well diguised and is generally far away from other peoples ranges. Many players will simply ignore a paired board if its something like A22 or A44 and assume you cant have a 2 or a 4. Theres also boards like A35 and 356.

cardshark202

Ok that point may have been slightly irrelevant, but I still think you won't make enough money long term to make it profitable. Don't have the time to do all the maths now, but I think sikes said we were about 4% to make 2 pair+ on the flop, which I think is about right, so 96% of the time we are losing €3. Can we assume that we win on average €72 when we hit 2p+. I'm not convinced we will. And this is just to breakeven!
Whereas with 22, we are like 12% to flop a set, which means we only need to make an average of €22 each time we hit to breakeven.
42o performs so much worse, its just a bag of bollocks really. EDIT: Looks like my maths was way off, please see sikes' calculations below:

sikes

Hectorjelly wrote:

I dont see the relevance of that article

It was in relation to the point that you disagreed with.

Hectorjelly wrote:

Instead of just making up figures out of thin air, 24o will beat aces about 12% of the time, a pair will beat aces about 18% of the time. To call with a low pair here I would need to get roughly 10-1 implied odds, so since im getting about 31-1 implied odds (and thats just from the PFR) I would think its definitely profitable for me to call with 24o in that spot. 24o doesnt have much in the way of reverse implied odds.

I havent been making up figures I have given rough estimates.

We will flop our made hand 4% of the time, 2pair+.

So to break even:

When we have : 42o

0 = .04(x+13) + .96(-3)
x=72-13
BREAK EVEN win $59

When we have : 22

0 = .12(x+13) + .88(-3)
x=22-13
BREAK EVEN $9

Now if my maths is correct, can you see that:

HJ wrote:

I dont think theres that much difference.

is wrong. We need 2/3 of the pot to break even with 22 and we need 4x the pot to break even with 42.

Now consider the fact that when we flop a set, like when we flop trips or a straight, our hand is nearly a lock hand. However, when we have 2 pair, having been ahead on the flop, we are still going to lose 25% in the later 2 streets. Also we might not be ahead on the flop, like this case. These two points increase the breakeven point considerably for 42o.

So for the moment let us ignore the possibility of our trips, straights and sets getting out drawn. The breakeven point for 24o would look something like this considering the 50% of the 4% is a vulnerable 2 pair.

0 = .04(.5(.75(x+13) + .25(-y)) + .96(-3)

where Y is some complex function of x, which I am sure there is a good way to calculate.

However as we are out of position and are in the process of trying to make a losing play a winning one, we aren’t going to be able to know that he has just hit 2 pair. So really the only street we can save money on is the river when we have lost the turn bet. But of course of this 25% of the time, 3 of the outs on the turn is the board pairing 6 on the river. So we can obviously get away from them easily. I would say 2/3x is a fair guess for the value of Y considering that the situation above, where we flop a second best hand can also happen.

0 = .04(.5(.75(x+13) + .25(-(2/3)x)+.5(x+13)) + .96(-3)

= $83

So now our breakeven point for the hand is over 5 times the size of the pot on the flop.

Marq

what if you don't confine yourself to only winning the pot when you hit something, but also allow that you will sometimes win the pot without a showdown when you read your opponent for being weak?

I think it's silly when we're talking about exploiting our advantage over weaker players to ignore that sometimes we will get in situations after the flop where our cards are actually irrelevant, and hence it doesn't really matter what cards we call with getting those odds preflop.

I'm not saying this is a really common situation, just wondering if you would factor it into your calculations?

What about the times we win with one pair on the flop?
The times we win with one pair on the river?

BuChan

what about when the board comes 35x and the your opponents have nothing and check the flop and you see a free turn to fill your hand or possibly semibluff. or the pfr makes a weak c-bet and an you get another semi bluffing oppurtunity or perhaps call and see the river for free, or make your hand on the turn. or you check next to act bets 2/3s pot button calls and you've got nice odds for your straight draw. these also would have to be factored in along with the things marq mentioned, there are so many variables, i'm not sure it's as cut and dry as the equation above would seem.

sikes

Marq wrote:

what if you don't confine yourself to only winning the pot when you hit something, but also allow that you will sometimes win the pot without a showdown when you read your opponent for being weak?

Its not profitable for me to bluff into 2 unkowns OOP with 42o. I doubt it profitbale for you either. Also I think calling with bottom pair on the flop without some kind of draw is going to be a loser too.

Marq wrote:

I think it's silly when we're talking about exploiting our advantage over weaker players to ignore that sometimes we will get in situations after the flop where our cards are actually irrelevant, and hence it doesn't really matter what cards we call with getting those odds preflop.

Of course our cards can be irreveland but when you semi bluff its very adantageous to have some kind of outs when called but taking edges in this manner is most profitable in position, against one opponent.

Marq wrote:

I'm not saying this is a really common situation, just wondering if you would factor it into your calculations?

Well I assumed its a losing play, continuing with a pair or outright bluffing into two oppoents.

Marq wrote:

What about the times we win with one pair on the flop?
The times we win with one pair on the river?

If the hand goes check/check/check and we win, its not really helping our bad situation. If we call with a pair on the flop, its probably a losing play in isolation becuase we have no info on these players at all.

I dont think HJ is ever thinking that bluffing in this spot is whats going to make this hand profitable.