What’s Your Play? Weak Overpair, Four-Bet Pot Results

The situation in What’s Your Play? Weak Overpair, Four-Bet Pot demonstrates the importance of starting your hand reading early. If you aren’t already thinking about your opponents’ ranges pre-flop, it’s easy to misjudge once you see the flop and the action. The question to ask is not, “What hands will give me action on this flop” – against that range, we’re crushed – but rather, “Given the pre-flop action, what hands will continue on this flop?”

The read I provided was that each opponents were likely either a nitty regular or a loose recreational player. Although we don’t know which, neither is likely to slowplay an overpair pre-flop in a large, multi-way pot. The button functionally never has KK+ and rarely QQ. There’s a slightly higher chance that CO is going for some spazzy slowplay, but the chances of that are at least as good as the chances that he’s made bad pre-flop and flop calls with TT or even weaker hands that have now flopped either a pair or a draw. As soon as I see the pre-flop action, I tell myself that I am not going to worry about better overpairs being out there. Against one player, I’m prepared to play a flopped overpair like the nuts.

Button’s jam into Hero’s very strong line and CO’s seemingly strong call should give us pause. If we rule out overpairs, that leaves just sets and big draws as plausible jamming candidates. Small pairs are not especially likely three-betting hands for him, though.

If we knew that CO were folding, we’d be risking roughly 60 BB to win 180 BB and would need 25% equity. If we give button a couple of combinations of big draws (AcTc, AcJc, and AcQc, assuming he would jam AcKc preflop, which isn’t a guarantee) and all of his 77 but no 33 or 55, Hero has 29%. Throw in 9c 8c and Hero’s equity jumps to 33%, so you can see that the decision is extremely sensitive to the relative likelihood of sets vs big draws in Button’s range.

If we call and CO overcalls, we only need 20% equity, but our equity may drop a bit due to the added risk of his showing up with a set, QQ, or big pair. Realize, though, that this won’t happen 100% of the time, and also that a CO loose enough to show up with 77 is also seeing the flop with 88, 99, and TT, and may not have the discipline to fold them. Giving him some but not all of each of these types of hands, it’s not a great outcome for us:

Button: 57.168% { 77, AcQc, AcJc, AcTc, 9c8c }
Hero: 16.040% 15.70% { JdJh }
CO: 26.791% 26.45% { QQ, TT, 77, AcQc, AcJc, AcTc, 9c8c }

Still, if CO folds half the time and Hero has 33% equity when he needs 25%, and half the time CO calls and Hero has 16% equity when he needs 20%, Hero still comes out ahead by 4% of ~60 BBs, or roughly 2.5 BBs.

Of course I didn’t crunch those numbers in real time. My thought process went like this: “There are only a few hands that could beat me, so focus on those. Better pairs probably jam preflop, CO either folds small pairs pre-flop and/or is so loose that he still has TT in his range, BN probably doesn’t three-bet small pairs all that often, and I only need to win 20 – 25%. Call.” And it worked, sort of:

PokerStars – $1 NL FAST (6 max) – Holdem – 6 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4: http://www.pokertracker.com

BTN: 103.43 BB
Hero (SB): 112.01 BB
BB: 100 BB
UTG: 100 BB
MP: 90.3 BB
CO: 131.74 BB

Hero posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) Hero has Jd Js
fold, fold, CO raises to 2 BB, BTN raises to 6.5 BB, Hero raises to 18 BB, fold, CO calls 16 BB, BTN calls 11.5 BB

Flop : (55 BB, 3 players) 5c 7c 3d
Hero bets 26 BB, CO calls 26 BB, BTN raises to 85.43 BB and is all-in, Hero raises to 94.01 BB and is all-in, CO calls 68.01 BB

Turn : (328.45 BB, 3 players) Qc

River : (328.45 BB, 3 players) 8s

Hero shows Jd Js (One Pair, Jacks) (Pre 53%, Flop 47%, Turn 0%)
CO shows Ts Th (One Pair, Tens) (Pre 18%, Flop 5%, Turn 0%)
BTN shows Jc Ac (Flush, Ace High) (Pre 29%, Flop 48%, Turn 100%)
BTN wins 308.49 BB
Hero wins 17.16 BB

An important takeaway here is that it’s not sufficient simply to say “I’m either way behind or flipping, so I fold.” You don’t need a lot of equity to get it in here, so the relative frequency of those two outcomes matters a lot. You have to do some light hand reading to figure out which is more likely and by roughly how much.