Given the difficulty I’ve had recently getting heads up action, I’ve put some thought into how the risk of provoking a quit ought to factor into my decisions. It seems there are certain situations, usually winning or losing a big pot, that greatly increase the chances of an opponent quitting. If I have a solid edge on the guy and no immediate prospects for finding another opponent, this translates into a definite loss of equity. Thus, I’ll sometimes pass on a marginal shove or call if I think my opponent is the sort to quit after a big win or loss. Similarly, I think I ought to pass sometimes on a very thin call or value bet to avoid making clear to an opponent that he is getting outplayed. I’m not talking about passing on hundreds of dollars of equity, but rather spots that are probably slight +EV. For example, I can’t find the HH, but here’s a call that got me quit yesterday:
We were playing 5/10 NLHE. Villain min-raised the button to $20, and I called with K7o.
The flop came Js 9s 5h. I had no spade. I checked, he bet $20, I raised to $55, and he called. The turn was the Ks. I checked, and he checked behind. The river was the 3s. I checked, and he bet $90. After some thought, I called, and he showed 87 with no spade. Then he quit.
I do think the river decision here is close. On the one hand, given that Villain probably has a pair when he calls flop, there’s something like a 70% chance that one of his cards isn’t a spade. And I think he usually bets the turn if both of his cards are spades. His unpaired card will be a spade less than 25% of the time. So ignoring his river value betting range for a moment, the odds aren’t that great that he has a spade when he calls flop.
Then again, I did think he probably had some showdown value based on how he played his hand (an assumption which turned out to be wrong in this case). Randoms aren’t great at turning made hands into bluffs, but on four flush boards they do it a little more often. They also tend to have very tight value ranges. Like, I’m not sure he bets the Qs, at least not this big, and I doubt he ever bets Ts or worse. So I wasn’t too concerned about him bluffing with a better hand, but I had my doubts about how often he’d feel he needed to bluff on the river. It was a close decision, and if I knew he was going to quit if I got it right, I would have folded. It was really a lose-lose situation for me.
I also avoided a pretty marginal pre-flop 6-bet against a different opponent, which worked out very much for the best. It was only the third hand of our match, but I could sense that Villain was very aggressive. He’d 3-bet my first button open, raised his first button, and here he 3-bets my button open again:
Full Tilt No-Limit Hold’em, $20.00 BB (2 handed) – Full-Tilt Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com
Hero (SB) ($4010)
BB ($4050)
Preflop: Hero is SB with A
, 8
Hero bets $60, BB raises to $200, Hero raises to $456, BB raises to $1100, 1 fold
Total pot: $912 | Rake: $0
Results:
BB didn’t show
Outcome: BB won $912
It’s certainly possible that he chose a small 5-bet size to induce a shove, but it’s also possible that he knew I’d resent his 3-betting me the first two hands of the match and was putting my 4-bet to the test. Combined with the fact that a suited Ace has respectable equity vs his calling range, I was very close to shoving. I decided, though, that win or lose he might very well quit if he called the shove. If he really was this aggressive, I figured, I could take advantage of that in other, hopefully better ways later. And I did:
No-Limit Hold’em, $20.00 BB (2 handed) – Hold’em Manager Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com
Hero (BB) ($6695)
SB ($1871.50)
Preflop: Hero is BB with A
, 9
SB bets $50, Hero calls $40
Flop: ($120) 5, 9, 6
(2 players)
Hero checks, SB bets $120, Hero raises $333, SB calls $213
Turn: ($786) 2 (2 players)
Hero checks, SB bets $786, Hero raises $6302 (All-In), 1 fold
Total pot: $2358
Results:
Hero had A, 9 (one pair, nines).
Outcome: Hero won $7873.50
Full Tilt No-Limit Hold’em, $20.00 BB (2 handed) – Full-Tilt Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com
Hero (SB) ($4935.50)
BB ($3638.50)
Preflop: Hero is SB with 6, Q
Hero bets $60, BB calls $40
Flop: ($120) 6, 6, 10 (2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets $77, BB raises to $210, Hero raises to $388, BB raises to $800, Hero calls $412
Turn: ($1720) 8 (2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets $444, 1 fold
Total pot: $1720 | Rake: $0.50
Results:
Hero didn’t show 6, Q (nothing).
Outcome: Hero won $1719.50
No-Limit Hold’em, $20.00 BB (2 handed) – Hold’em Manager Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com
Hero (SB) ($4000)
BB ($4575.50)
Preflop: Hero is SB with 4, 6
Hero bets $50, BB calls $40
Flop: ($120) Q, 5, 6 (2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets $77, BB calls $77
Turn: ($274) K (2 players)
BB bets $190, Hero calls $190
River: ($654) J (2 players)
BB bets $450, Hero calls $450
Total pot: $1554
Results:
Hero had 4, 6 (one pair, sixes).
BB had A, 7 (high card, Ace).
Outcome: Hero won $1553.50
And he didn’t quit after that one (not that it’s actually that tough of a call).