Q:Game is 2/5 and involves three players:
A-$350(SB)
B-$500(hero, MP)T/T
C-$650(Button)
action is limped by1 player(B) to Button that raises to $25, folds to BB and he re pops it for $85 total… now here is the question, given a hero read of extremely strong ranges on at the very least the BB and quite possibly the Button, isn’t this in fact a call as opposed to a fold even though we know we are probably behind?
let me lay out some thoughts… if we perceive a squeeze by a single player, this is certainly a raise in position… however, we’re playing against an initial raiser that is still left to act behind us after we potentially make the call.
Here is where I diverge from my fellow players… I submit that I can logically make this call at times because given my read, I am fairly certain that these two players have potentially very strong hands… strong enough to carry on with the action post flop given a non threatening board. I think this is extremely important component because in order to carry on in this hand, we’re going to need to impose very strong implied odds to make this call profitable given a set’s roughly 8:1 odds. We’ve already dropped $5 on this pot and we’re going to need implied odds of at least +8:1 in order to make this mathematically break even… so roughly another $640 behind(which we have as there is a total of 890 effective left in A/C stacks). I realize that most players use a 10:1 ratio in order to comfortably make a set mine profitable, but I had said to my friends, that I might even be willing to go to $100 in this situation(or perhaps even $125 if the SB had re-popped for the initial raise-$25 and a stack of red-$100).
To the man, they say there is no way I should be making this play and this is a pure fold, no questions asked.
Certainly, I would NOT make this play 100% of the time in my personal game as the implied odds are very close to break even and not sustainable/positive expectation… however, I contest that I can make this Pre-Flop Float at times given my read of V(s)strength, and very close to even implied odds.
A. Hi, thanks for the question dealing with the often-tricky problem of calculating implied odds and set mining. Your instinct about generally being more inclined to call given strong ranges for your opponents is correct. Nonetheless, I would fold here.
The single biggest reason is that you are not closing the action. If you believe SB has a very strong range, strong enough to count on stacking him with any regularity when you flop a set, then you must also fear the possibility that he will raise again. So you may not get to see the flop for $80.
Even if you were closing the action, though, some problems remain. One reason that many players, including myself, use a rule of thumb of needing a 10-to-1 average return (which is not the same as merely having ten times your investment between the pot and the remaining stacks) is that a set will not win 100% of the time, particularly not against two players.
I’m not sure I understand what you’re saying in the final paragraph. If the call isn’t positive expectation, then you shouldn’t make it ever. If it is, then you should always make it. I don’t see any cause for a mixed strategy in this situation.
In short, it’s important to recognize that the 10-to-1 rule already represents extremely generous assumptions. You can’ t discount it further on the grounds that your opponents have strong ranges, particularly when you aren’t closing the action. In fact I just posted a similar hand where I folded TT pre-flop despite putting my opponent on an extremely strong range.
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thank you very much…
I very much appreciate your opinion and your time in laying out what I feel is pretty much the solid/normal view by solid profitable players(including my view more than 95% of the time) in as far as folding without guaranteed proper odds(either implied or pot)… we are in total agreement.
I think this fold is definitely the safe normal play, and even though that play(folding) is not positive expectation, it is Not negative… it’s neutral.
Surely the argument that anything that is not negative expectation can be considered a positive… but what I am trying to illustrate/say in the final paragraph is, I think that there might still be situations where value can he realized even though positive expectation of a that particular play might fall slightly below break even, and it still might be worth the attempt as long as that play is not done every time the situation arises. When you limit the attempts, you limit the damages of making that negative expectation call.
We’re gambling here… but we’re trying to gamble with the intent of receiving very solid Value based on stacking of our opponents(hence the read of strength pre flop).
Once again, we’re in agreement that a negative expectation play is still that, negative.
“positive expectation of that particular play might fall slightly below break even”
Are you a politician by trade? 🙂
Slightly below break even = negative, yes you will lose less if you fold here 95% of the time than if you fold 0% of the time, but you will lose even less if you fold 100% of the time. If it’s not positive expectation, then you lose money every time you do it.
lol… thank you. I try to be non confrontational and understanding in all walks of life.
One thing I would like to address… and don’t get take it wrong as we’re simply talking about theory… but just because something(a course of action/play in this case) is or has negative expectation, doesn’t mean that the play is going to result in negative Equity every time you make it. You are DEFINITELY going to loose the a percentage of equity(negative) in relation to the probability projection given a long time line, but you still have have some possibility to make equity(positive)on those occasions where the projections go into the positive(hitting a set)… in this case about 1 in 8 times as a round figure. Yes, there are times when your set will NOT be good, and yes there are also times when you’ll flop quads or a Full House(extremely fraction gains, perhaps .001% because they just do not happen that often).
I think this idea/line of thought is borne out of the fact that margins of positive expectation are, and continue to grow, ever increasingly razor thin and that perhaps there are areas in the game where on the surface a play might look to be negative but still have some value to them as long as the use of those plays are not executed every time the situation arises.
I think the main tipping point to making a call in this position at times, is definitely the read of strength of the other two players… which seems to be counter intuitive to a call.
Michael,
Equity is the average result you would expect over a large number of samples. If you made a play with an EV of -$10 one million times, you’d expect to be down roughly $10 million dollars at the end of that trial. It’s very possible that you might win money on any given trial, but that doesn’t make it a profitable wager to accept. That’s just gambling with a negative expectation.
It’s just like a slot machine. You are losing theoretical money every time you put a coin into a slot machine. Of course it’s possible for you to win, but that doesn’t make it a winning play.
so yea you’re saying just because something is negative expectation doesn’t mean you can’t make money with that action sometimes… you are correct… but the fact is, you can’t just base it off of those times you make money… you have to base it off a lot of trials… at that point you’ll see that you lose money overall… sometimes you’ll make money but it’ll be more than offset by the times you lose money…
it’s like we’re playing dice… you win if it rolls 1, i win when it doesn’t… sometimes you’ll hit a string of 1’s and make money but overall, i will win given a big enough sample…
Sometimes I get stuck being a devil’s advocate just because… but using your dice analogy, if the dice were skewed so that ‘1’ was the largest side, wouldn’t there be a point that the ‘1’ side would be large enough(assuming larger side is proportional to coming up more often in a roll) to make this bet profitable? Maybe a better argument to take would be if hero was somehow a professional dice roller and could roll a ‘1’ more often through skill or the dice are weighted?…there’d be a point which taking this bet is profitable even though on the surface it looks to be -EV
This particular case is a pretty clear fold, to me, due to the fact the action is still open after hero calls and I suppose the stacks are too shallow. However, there is a point at which the other properties of the game, be it the skill of hero/lack of skill of other players, etc… (skew of the dice/skill of rolling/deviations of the die) can overtake the negative expectations, no?
I don’t advocate straying very far, we probably aren’t as skilled as we think we are, but I think other factors allow a slightly -EV play overall to be a current +EV play sometimes?
I don’t advocate straying very far, we probably aren’t as skilled as we think we are, but I think other factors allow a slightly -EV play overall to be a current +EV play sometimes?
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I think that is what I am alluding to.
Clearly, we all agree that this IS a fold based on any theoretical math based model. What I am trying to say, and have said already is, that perhaps we can make this flop call at times as long as certain statistics are associated with the hand… such as deep stacks with certain type of player that will be willing to stack off.
I am not advocating trying to stack off to squeeze, this whole conversation is based merely on calling that three bet raise to see if we can connect with the flop.
Fred,
Which bet would you take?
1) If dice rolls 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 I pay you a dollar. If it rolls 6 you pay me a dollar.
or
2) If dice rolls 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 I pay you a dollar. If it rolls 6 I pay you 7 dollars.
or
3) We flip a coin. If it lands on heads I pay you two dollars, if it lands on tails you pay me one dollar.
or
4) Same coin. This time we both put in a dollar and Andrew adds a third to the pot (he isn’t involved in the coinflip). We flip and winner takes all 3 dollars
ALL OF THE ABOVE
Poker is trying to get yourself in these situations as many times as possible. Although I may win in any of the above situations in the short term, over time I stand to lose if I take those bets over and over and you stand to gain in each of them.
The skill in poker is to get other people to take my side of the above bets (except the 4th, we are both +EV there) more often than we are on the losing side of them ourselves. Interestingly, I am usually on the losing sides in poker too, which is why I tend to be very popular at the home and casino games in my area!!!
anyway… good conversation guys. and thanks for at least listening to my Original proposition.
Been away taking my turn to feed the mouse in Orlando .. he just never seems to be ‘full’ does he?
Not quite the ‘side pot’ topic I was looking for but close. Overall I think that this is a fold due to the ‘limp re-raise’ scenario from a solid player with another solid player involved with a fairly good assmption that you cant get all of each players chips into the middle .. especially if you see a Flop. But I also think there are some angles here to look at in regard to the EV discussion.
We generally want to put ourselves into positions where we have a good expectation of a positive outcome .. but we are also gamblers and we need to look at each situation as it presents its self as well as the outcome of similar situations over time. The gambler in me says if we see a situation where a ‘gamble’ will pay off bigger than ‘normal’ then we may want to lesson our reliance on the math. Is this situation here better than ‘normal’ to get paid off?
Of course we need to hit or be able to make the others think we hit if we see a Flop. But is the ‘gamble’ for a bigger than normal win change the way we look at EV? If you normally risk $30 to set mine and ‘miss’ 7 in a row … $210 lost … does it make sense to go after a bigger win on the 8th try … lets say for $210 … $420 net won (or more in this case) if against 2 opponents!! Of course if you miss this play you are now effectively 14 ‘tries’ behind your ‘norm’ of a $30 risk as well.
Although we generally can recalculate EV for every hand (even every street) arent there enough good players out there that will NEVER allow us to call with positive EV? Or are we just supposed to avoid them when they are at the table with us? When do we get to gamble?? Or can we just use the excuse that we were floating a street and just conveniently hit our card!! I may be goofy (my favorite character) in my thinking but if you want to get in line to play a few sessions I would be happy to do so just for the learning experience.
^ that is a great post… you seem to be one that does get my original “drift”.
By the way, since this has been up for a while now, the hand did play out in this way:
Hero: fold’s TT
C: villain called the $85
Flop: 10xx… both players go all
A Villain goes all in with QQ,
C villain calls with AA,
board runs out with no improvement for either…
I think the player left to act is really a sticking point for many, as it is for me also… heads up it’s a bit more clear, but poker is not always cleanly clear cut.
certainly with one player and 265 effective behind, it’s not making much sense to call off the $85, but with another players big stack… perhaps it is, specially if we think he is strong. I think in fact, I would be willing to suggest that making a call with TT after the $85 sb raise would actually tend to freeze the buttons actions most of the time, even when he has AA. Not wanting to let two players go, a flat here by the button with AA makes a lot of sense and is hence part of the initial read by hero… that of strength.
A few sticky points here .. Are you ready to call all-in here if button re-raises .. against at least one other overpair for sure? I think I can flat the $85 sometimes and hope the button has the QQ in this case and flats also. Even with ‘all the money in the middle’ I can fold pre-Flop now knowing FOR SURE I am behind. I have to make a read as to which, if not both, player(s) has/have the over-pair(s) and if I think I am flipping or better (AK-AQs-smaller pair) in the side pot .. Then maybe I can go all-in pre-Flop and hope to win side and get lucky in main pot. If you win a side pot of net $150, then your ‘net’ odds in the main were basically 4 to 1 ($1050+ pot, $200 net risk) .. not worthy of a set mine operation, thus our willingness to gamble in this spot of ‘higher’ return.
I dont want to mislead you into thinking that putting money in beyond the $80 to flat is wise here .. especially against these 2 players. I am advocating the pre-Flop flat call ‘risk’ in order to get your reward when you hit this actual Flop. Any additional chips earned here will be earned after the Flop.
RARELY will you see AA choosing to go to the Flop against more than one player when they can re-pop it. I think even though you saw the board run out in ‘disappointing’ fashion that you actually saved $80 in this hand and avoided making a pretty reckless all-in call or shove when action returned to your chair. What you were hoping for was for the hands to be switched and the $85.00 to be flat called by the QQ on the button so you could get to the Flop and go from there. If you flat any Flop bet the action may stop since it is 3-handed.
It comes down to your read on the opponents and your willingness to disregard the math and gamble. I have seen plenty of times when three-way all-ins went to the 99/1010/JJ hand and not the AA/KK/QQ hands that were way out in front pre-Flop. I am glad we were ‘drifting’ together .. see you at the tables.