What’s Your Play? Pair Plus Draw Results

Thanks to everyone who participated in What’s Your Play? Pair Plus Draw. I was glad to have the opportunity to reflect further on the hand myself and read some comments about it, because in the moment I basically just said “Pair plus draw, strap in, let’s go!”, and regardless of whether that turns out to be the best play, it’s clearly not the best way to approach the problem.

Pre-Flop

I’m increasingly convinced that this is a fold after all. A very rough estimate is that I have about 15% equity against the Villains’ ranges and need to realize about 80% of that to make money on the call. The fact that I got a well-above-average flop and still can’t find an especially profitable option is telling, as is the fact, pointed out by many, that even if my hand improves the implied odds are not that great.

Results

I’ll start with the results, because my own play is one of the lines I want to consider and dismiss. I raised to $600, Villain 1 called, and Villain 2 folded. The turn was an off-suit J, and we both checked. The river was an offsuit 9, and while I considered shoving, I decided not to do so for exploitive reasons. Villain 1 checked behind and won with QQ.

Bomb the Flop?

While my in-game thought process was admittedly sloppy, I don’t think that, “Someone clearly has top pair or better and they’ve see you bluff before, so don’t ever raise without a set” is the best way to approach the problem either. We’re quite deep, and even for the looser UTG1 player, putting in eleven times the pot with one pair when five people saw the flop is not going to be an automatic decision. If I’m going to raise sets/two pair here, then I should have a bluffing range as well.

It doesn’t necessarily follow that this hand belongs in that range, though. As Jeff G. astutely points out, “Given that hero is calling with 7h2h preflop, I think it’s a safe assumption that hero has every combo of set(9 combos), suited two pair(7), and flush draw(55!! minus any combos we 3bet pre, if any) in his range. So we definitely want to have a check/raise range in this spot however we can easily go overboard if we’re not selective in which draws to use to balance our value hands.”

He argues for using nut flush draws for this purpose, and I think that’s partially right. As deep as we are, nut draws are disproportionately valuable, and the Ace will frequently be live. However, it does block some of the weaker hands in UTG’s range, such as AK and AQ, that he might c-bet even for this sizing into this many people. Getting a fold from him on the flop is one of the best case scenarios, so blocking his most obvious folding hands isn’t great.

You also don’t want your bluffing range to be too dependent on a single card (the Ah, in this case), because a blocker-conscious opponent can use that information to his advantage. In other words, some players are actually savvy enough to call down more often with black Aces than with red Aces because the red Aces block some likely bluffing hands. So, I think there’s a case for raising at least some non-nut draws.

Other good candidates will be gutshots, both with and without flush draws. You have to be especially careful not to go overboard with the bare gutshots, but it’s important to look ahead to the scenario where Hero check-raises and a heart peals off. Many of you correctly anticipate that it will be hard to get paid with a low flush in this scenario, and the corollary to that is that you want to give yourself some bluffs in that scenario, as Matt argues in his very good comment. If your flop raising range is only flush draws and two-pair or better, then what’s your bluffing range on the Qh turn?

The bottom line is that although this is a good spot to raise some big draws, the fact that none of my outs are nutted makes this an unideal candidate for inviting such a large pot, and I have better bluffing candidates. So I want to at least rule out the play that I made, which was raising to $600, as a good option.

Fold the Flop?

Matt also says, “I don’t think folding right away is an option. Running some equities, I think we can expect to have in the neighborhood of 28% equity against both ranges; so although we should expect both Vs to be quite strong I think we most likely have enough immediate equity to continue.”

Chris C, however, argues that, “if we’re calling then we’re calling to improve to the best hand (since I don’t think bluffing is likely to be profitable here). But the strong ranges of the villains (each of which contains sets and lots of better flush draws, all of which leave us in terrible shape) means that we often *can’t* catch up to the better hand, and that we can never be confident about it even when we do. If we end up playing a big pot then we likely lose, and if we hit but then try and keep the pot as small as possible – well, that doesn’t seem too good either.”

I’m on Matt’s side, and I think Chris is conflating some disparate scenarios. Even if Hero has difficulty putting in stacks or even two big bets as a favorite on favorable turns, he should very profitably be able to put in one. That is, if a heart turns, check-calling one bet should be profitable, and calling a second might be a more-or-less neutral-EV proposition (which also means I won’t often face the second – it’s not common that 7h 2h is behind on a heart turn). If the turn is a heart and there is no bet, I can confidently value bet the river.

The prospects are even more favorable on 7 and 2 turns. I can confidently call at least one and often two bets on these turns, can bet the river if the turn checks around, etc. Because of the good immediate odds I’m getting, I don’t need hefty implied odds when I improve. I just need to have the best hand most of the time, which I will. In that case, either I won’t often end up playing a big pot, or I’ll often be ahead when I play a big pot. It can’t be the case that I’ll routinely face multiple big bets after improving my hand and also not be able to call those bets profitably – it just isn’t that easy to be ahead of 72 on a J622 board.

I think there’s a strong case for calling, but there’s one other interesting line that one of you hinted at but no one suggested (nor did it occur to me at the time).

Small Raise?

A big part of the reason why I don’t like bombing the flop is that it sets up an easy and obvious strategy for an opponent holding an overpair or a Jack, which is to call the raise, fold if a heart comes, and call down otherwise. I was somewhat lucky that the turn was a scary enough card for my opponent that he gave me a free river, because I don’t think I could have profitably bet or check-called any turn that didn’t improve my hand. That’s in part because, given how low the SPR was at that point, most players facing a turn bet from a draw-heavy range will correctly shove rather than call if they continue to a bet.

Raising a small amount on the flop in order to deter a turn raise and give me room for a meaningful river shove is an interesting idea, though. Also, as James points out, “Both players calling your raise doesn’t change your equity in the hand (let’s say it’s 40% in the 3-way pot) vs you just calling.” I don’t think this was the point he was getting at, but in fact raising and getting called in two spots is better for me than just calling – I am 40% to win and getting 2:1 on my money. This is the kind of spot that an experienced limit player would probably recognize more quickly, because it’s common to raise hands with less than 50% equity in multiway pots in those games, but it comes up far less often in NLHE. Here, though, if I can’t fold out both players, my next preference is to fold neither. The result I got, and the one I think I’ll commonly get, was the worst.

Leo suggests raising “to something like $420…. The plan is to barrel off here on bricks, targeting overpairs, top pairs, and better flush draws that have paired up.” That would have been an interesting option, and I wish I’d considered it. Maybe next time!

Thanks again everyone.