I give you a hand with a poll

[dbitel]

OK, time to explain.

Its a concept know as WA/WB, which stands for way ahead/way behind. It for spots where if you're ahead, then your opponent has very few outs and if you're behind, then you have very few outs. Now there are a few situations that we can class as WA/WB, and some don't fit in with this generalisation, but most the time in a WA/WB situation we will have a hand that is of medium stregnth and by betting, worse hands fold and better hands call/raise.

This situation is a perfect example of that (hence why I picked it). A few people for some unknown reason said that A4 will fold if we bet the flop. This is clearly wrong. NO-ONE will limp/call A4 preflop just to fold to a flop cbet when an ace flops. Some other people also said that villain will lead the flop if he had the ace. This is also wrong. EVERY1 c/c or c/r the flop with the ace here (leading this flop with the ace is obv bad, as it misses out on a cbet.) ANYWAY, as I was saying, If we can't fold out A4, its obvious that we can't fold out a better hand by betting. Next question, can we get a call from a worse hand. Answer...maybe....but only just. 89 for instance *might* call us on the flop, but so what? We're only getting 1 street of value out of him, so it doesn't really matter where we get it.

SO, if we bet this flop and he folds, have we really accomplished anything? Well we've won the pot, thats a good thing, right? Well, yes and no. We've won teh money, so thats obv good, but all we've done is made him fold a hand that was most probably drawing to 0-5 outs. Next question: could we play the hand in such a way so that we could have got MORE money from his 44/78/QJ etc etc. Answer...YES, we could have checked.

Look up through the post. Look how many people have said that checking is bad, because otherwise on the turn, he will bluff with his bad hands and make us fold. Its amazing quite how close every1 is. Every1 sees that, but not enough of you have taken it that 1 step further. Rather than folding to a turn bet...CALL A TURN BET! You've all said yourself that he will bet just about every hand he has, and we're ahead of just about all of those hands, so pretty obviously, calling on the turn is the best move, as we've now induced a bluff.

So consider the 2 options you have up to the turn if he has 44/QJ/67 etc. either, we can bet the flop and win the $10 pot. OR we can check the flop, let our opponent see 2 cards and possibly outdraw us, but make him pay $8 to do so. Without doing any major maths at all, it very obvious the better choice is to check the flop. Sure we win the pot LESS OFTEN, but more importantly, when we win the pot, we are winning a BIGGER POT. Now as the situation is a WA/WB one, we don't get outdrawn all that often, so the bigger pot is WAY more important than losing the pot once or twice.

Now comes the tricky part. if there is never a river card, very obviously as I hope I have shown, checking is best and please believe me when I say this (these ideas are not made up by me, they are from the top online players, way better than all of us) thats so far, its really not even close. Put yourself in villains shoes. You limp preflop with 67s and call a raise. Flop comes A-high and you check and so does the preflop raiser. The turn gives you nothing, but he checked the flop, so you decide to bet the turn as a bluff. WTF IS THIS....HE CALLED!!! Whats going through your head now? You obvoiusly think he has a decent hand. Most probably an ace and maybe an even better hand that he's slowplaying. But its pretty obvious that he has SOMETHING, or else why would he have called the turn? So on teh river, you have sweet FA. What are you going to do? Well obv you're not going to bet, because you know he has a hand, so he'll call you, so instead you bet.

Now I've played a lot and a lot (probably over 300,000) hands of online poker in the last few years, and I see this exact proccess the entire time. Players take 1 shot at the pot when you show weakness. And when you show strength again, they freeze up. So if after you call his turn bet, he fires on the river, he really really will have your KK beat 95+% of the time. (NOTE: if you are playing vs an aggresive/bluffy player, you should also check the flop, but you should just call the river as well as the turn)

OK, so I really hope I've now shown you why checking is so so so much better if we're ahead. What thought if we're behind? What if he has Ax? Then obviously we want to put as little money in the pot as possible and obviously we want to see as many cards as possible so that we can hit our king. So, what flop action accomplishes these two tasks best, betting or checking?

Lets follow the hand through: lets say we check the flop and he bets $7 or w/e on the turn and we call. We have now paid $7 and seen both the turn and river cards and are very close to showdown. What if we decided to bet $7 on teh flop though? He can C/R us and we have paid $7 and seen no more cards! or maybe he will call and lead the turn, and again we have paid $7 and just seen 1 more card. OR VERY BEST CASE, maybe he just call AND checks turn and then obv we check. THEN we see the turn and river for just $7. But even that best case, is just the normal case if we check the flop!


So, to conclude, the reasons why checking flops in position with WA/WB hands like this are:

We induce bets from worse hands
We see all the cards for the same price
For metagame for the times we check here with a set
Because we get to showdown with more ease
Because we are less predictable (we don't just bet flop no matter what....we keep our opponent guessing)
We still gain information, just by simlpe knowledge of how people bluff

 

[Irexes]

2) Without reads, my standard line is to call turn and fold river (ie. lose exactly the same when behind as i would had I bet the flop)

Which means

- you have zero fold equity

- you give him the opportunity to bluff you off the best hand

- he gets a chance to hit trips (or improve his hand to beat you depending on his holding) on the turn

- you are heading into calling station land and playing very passively.


There's reasons to check this on occassion but call folding the turn I don't think is one of them.


If you bet the flop, somewhere between half and two thirds the pot your EV must be better than calling the turn for a similar amount. Particularly f you plan on folding the river. I am intrigued to see the maths that demonstrate otherwise.

 

[Irexes]

I didn't read your long post before mine before writing.

Certainly get close to the maths there, but you are equating the size of your possible flop bet to his predicted turn bet. You can control the size of your own bet, you can't control the size of his, so how high a bet relative to the pot are you calling on the turn?

Are you folding to any bet on the river of any size (unless a very loose player who bluffs a lot)?

Seems to me there's a whole bunch of little leaks in the call the turn model that add up to a whole lot.

And I don't think many players equate calling the turn with strength. More often it's perceived as chasing or falling in love with a preflop decent holding (as evidenced by the raise). It's very hard to imagine someone with AK AQ, (which are the only Ax that fit the preflop action well) checking the flop and calling the turn.

And finally once you've done this, the other players see your KK and start writing lots of notes.

 

[Irexes]

Christ I'm tired, I missed the whole second page of this before those two posts.

As I say I can see rationales for checking and I'm sure the call on the turn is +EV, I'm just not convinced it's more +EV than betting the flop. I have more concerns about the river.

(then again 6max ring isn't my forte)

Good thread.

 

[Dorkus Malorkus]

Rex/db,

I could make a long post here but I'd just essentially be regurgitating bits and pieces of what you've both said, so I'll spare everyone.

As I implied originally I think it's a close decision and I stand by that. I think the discussion goes some way to illustrating this.

 

[stormswa]

yea

im with DK here, I think there are plus's and minus's to both ways. I dont think its as cut and dry as this is right and this is wrong. The new guy's way is way interesting and I never thought of playing it that way so its kinda neat to see a new way to play a hand that I hadnt thought of. That is why we are here is to learn different ways to do stuff.

 

[x-Longshot-x]

OK, time to explain.

Its a concept know as WA/WB, which stands for way ahead/way behind. It for spots where if you're ahead, then your opponent has very few outs and if you're behind, then you have very few outs. Now there are a few situations that we can class as WA/WB, and some don't fit in with this generalisation, but most the time in a WA/WB situation we will have a hand that is of medium stregnth and by betting, worse hands fold and better hands call/raise.

This situation is a perfect example of that (hence why I picked it). A few people for some unknown reason said that A4 will fold if we bet the flop. This is clearly wrong. NO-ONE will limp/call A4 preflop just to fold to a flop cbet when an ace flops. Some other people also said that villain will lead the flop if he had the ace. This is also wrong. EVERY1 c/c or c/r the flop with the ace here (leading this flop with the ace is obv bad, as it misses out on a cbet.) ANYWAY, as I was saying, If we can't fold out A4, its obvious that we can't fold out a better hand by betting. Next question, can we get a call from a worse hand. Answer...maybe....but only just. 89 for instance *might* call us on the flop, but so what? We're only getting 1 street of value out of him, so it doesn't really matter where we get it.

SO, if we bet this flop and he folds, have we really accomplished anything? Well we've won the pot, thats a good thing, right? Well, yes and no. We've won teh money, so thats obv good, but all we've done is made him fold a hand that was most probably drawing to 0-5 outs. Next question: could we play the hand in such a way so that we could have got MORE money from his 44/78/QJ etc etc. Answer...YES, we could have checked.

Look up through the post. Look how many people have said that checking is bad, because otherwise on the turn, he will bluff with his bad hands and make us fold. Its amazing quite how close every1 is. Every1 sees that, but not enough of you have taken it that 1 step further. Rather than folding to a turn bet...CALL A TURN BET! You've all said yourself that he will bet just about every hand he has, and we're ahead of just about all of those hands, so pretty obviously, calling on the turn is the best move, as we've now induced a bluff.

So consider the 2 options you have up to the turn if he has 44/QJ/67 etc. either, we can bet the flop and win the $10 pot. OR we can check the flop, let our opponent see 2 cards and possibly outdraw us, but make him pay $8 to do so. Without doing any major maths at all, it very obvious the better choice is to check the flop. Sure we win the pot LESS OFTEN, but more importantly, when we win the pot, we are winning a BIGGER POT. Now as the situation is a WA/WB one, we don't get outdrawn all that often, so the bigger pot is WAY more important than losing the pot once or twice.

Now comes the tricky part. if there is never a river card, very obviously as I hope I have shown, checking is best and please believe me when I say this (these ideas are not made up by me, they are from the top online players, way better than all of us) thats so far, its really not even close. Put yourself in villains shoes. You limp preflop with 67s and call a raise. Flop comes A-high and you check and so does the preflop raiser. The turn gives you nothing, but he checked the flop, so you decide to bet the turn as a bluff. WTF IS THIS....HE CALLED!!! Whats going through your head now? You obvoiusly think he has a decent hand. Most probably an ace and maybe an even better hand that he's slowplaying. But its pretty obvious that he has SOMETHING, or else why would he have called the turn? So on teh river, you have sweet FA. What are you going to do? Well obv you're not going to bet, because you know he has a hand, so he'll call you, so instead you bet.

Now I've played a lot and a lot (probably over 300,000) hands of online poker in the last few years, and I see this exact proccess the entire time. Players take 1 shot at the pot when you show weakness. And when you show strength again, they freeze up. So if after you call his turn bet, he fires on the river, he really really will have your KK beat 95+% of the time. (NOTE: if you are playing vs an aggresive/bluffy player, you should also check the flop, but you should just call the river as well as the turn)

OK, so I really hope I've now shown you why checking is so so so much better if we're ahead. What thought if we're behind? What if he has Ax? Then obviously we want to put as little money in the pot as possible and obviously we want to see as many cards as possible so that we can hit our king. So, what flop action accomplishes these two tasks best, betting or checking?

Lets follow the hand through: lets say we check the flop and he bets $7 or w/e on the turn and we call. We have now paid $7 and seen both the turn and river cards and are very close to showdown. What if we decided to bet $7 on teh flop though? He can C/R us and we have paid $7 and seen no more cards! or maybe he will call and lead the turn, and again we have paid $7 and just seen 1 more card. OR VERY BEST CASE, maybe he just call AND checks turn and then obv we check. THEN we see the turn and river for just $7. But even that best case, is just the normal case if we check the flop!


So, to conclude, the reasons why checking flops in position with WA/WB hands like this are:

We induce bets from worse hands
We see all the cards for the same price
For metagame for the times we check here with a set
Because we get to showdown with more ease
Because we are less predictable (we don't just bet flop no matter what....we keep our opponent guessing)
We still gain information, just by simlpe knowledge of how people bluff

These are your only two holes in your theory.
- Aware opponents can easily pick up on this. Which means if we'll call a turn bet after checking behind on the flop, but then fold to a river bet, aware opponents will simply double barrel the turn and river and make us fold everytime since we're playing our hand face up, since we'd bet an ace onthe flop if we had one but check when we dont.

- Sure A4 may not fold to a flop CB -- but if they call and check the turn, they surely would (or at least should) fold to a turn bet! If they don't then fine, Bet big Aces all three streets (and bet them more than you usually would) and get paid off large sums of money off of these calling stations


P.S. The above bolded makes me puke

 

[dbitel]

longshot,

1) how many hands do you think it will take until an "aware" opponent picks up on what hands you check on the flop? Considering this situation comes up what? Once every 1000 hands maybe? probably less often than that? And EVEN if he did see that once every 1000 hands and DID pick up on it, its still not at all a problem for a few reasons. Firstly, once he adjusts, all we have to do is re-adjust better than him. Since we should consider ourselves better than most other players, this will be pretty easy to do. So, if we get our opponent to double barrel into us un exploitable amount (which is what we will have done) all we need to do now is to call the river bet and we're getting even more value out of our KK! Secondly, obviously it would be bad play to be checking only KK here. But thats not what I suggest. I would also check A3-A7 here, check sets a good % of the time as well among checking other hands here with small frequences. So we're not turning our hand face up at all.

2) You're really really deluding yourself if you think that the best way to play the hand is to bet the flop AND turn here. Even all the guys who thought betting flop was best admitted that if called, its best to just give up. Also, as my stats show, I've played as high as 600nl, and I'm still yet to find any player who will limp/call a hand like A4 and fold to 2 barrels. (And yes, I DO bet big aces all 3 streets vs them and this is how I make money!)

3) what about the bolded section makes you puke? I'm going to presume that you mean you think its a bad spot to check a set? As thats all I can think you could mean. This is just about the best spot possible to check a set. I've not got Theory of Poker on me, as I leant it to a friend, but in it it has a section on when it is right to slowplay, and it gives a list of criteria. I think you'll find that this spot fits all of those (small pot, cant get outdrawn, he can hit a secend-best hand etc.)

 

[dbitel]

and FWIW, on the forum I normally post on, I posted the same question as a sort of controlled experiment (as no offence to you guys, but the players there are obviously a lot better. Thats not meant as a knock, its just a pretty obvious fact). And the results were completely the other way. 90%+ of the people who replied to the post, said that checking was clearly better and every1 agreed that it wasn't close

 

[Irexes]

and FWIW, on the forum I normally post on, I posted the same question as a sort of controlled experiment (as no offence to you guys, but the players there are obviously a lot better. Thats not meant as a knock, its just a pretty obvious fact).

Must be -EV for you posting here then. It's about as necessary to have a dig at the members here as it is for the other chap to say that the comment about trips makes him want to vomit.

Can you answer my questions about the size of bet you are prepared to call on the turn and river as that will enable some pretty solid maths based EV evidence to be developed?

 

[dbitel]

Must be -EV for you posting here then. It's about as necessary to have a dig at the members here as it is for the other chap to say that the comment about trips makes him want to vomit.

Can you answer my questions about the size of bet you are prepared to call on the turn and river as that will enable some pretty solid maths based EV evidence to be developed?

is it -EV me posting this stuff? yes and no. Yes, b/c i'm educating others, no as i probably don't play vs you guys and even if I did, you'd still have to be able to use these concepts correctly.

But thats neither here nor there. Nick asked me to post here. So as a friend of his, I'm doing so.

Like I said, I wasn't having a dig at CC at all. I was merely stating a fact. The other site has players with wsop bracelts. Have won WTP events around the world and play in teh biggest games online every day.

I'm happy to call a PSB on teh turn. And I wouldn't call more than 1/2 pot on river after calling pot on turn

 

[Irexes]

For info, here's a cardschat article from FPaulsonn relating to the concept in Limit where the maths is much more clear.

https://www.cardschat.com/blog/06/27/the-profitable-calling-station/

 

[Irexes]

is it -EV me posting this stuff? yes and no. Yes, b/c i'm educating others, no as i probably don't play vs you guys and even if I did, you'd still have to be able to use these concepts correctly.

But thats neither here nor there. Nick asked me to post here. So as a friend of his, I'm doing so.

Like I said, I wasn't having a dig at CC at all. I was merely stating a fact. The other site has players with WSOP bracelts. Have won WTP events around the world and play in teh biggest games online every day.

I'm happy to call a PSB on teh turn. And I wouldn't call more than 1/2 pot on river after calling pot on turn

Given that there are additional leaks in calling the turn rather than betting the flop (the 4% chance of a pair hitting trips) this must be a less profitable approach than betting between half and pot-sized on the flop. The additional call of the half pot sized value bet on the river must make it less +EV, particularly as the pot doubled in size on the turn.

Scrap any fold equity at all and I can't see how this can be demonstrated otherwise.



So if the pot is $10 on the flop you can either bet $5-10 and take it down if he hasn't got an Ace.

If you check the flop he bets anywhere between 5 and 10 if he has an Ace (or even if not) and you call. You also call a half pot bet on the river of up to $10, which he is only likely to make if ahead.

On the few occassions he hits trips or some bizarre runner-runner you lose EV as well.

I'm sure it's still +EV but I can't see how it is more so than betting the flop.


Just to add, I'm not knocking the concept here, I think that in the example given it doesn't pan out.

As for the other site I just thought it was an unnecessary comment.

 

[dbitel]

irex,

you havent facotred in any value we get from worse hands there at all

 

[Irexes]

Well that's the question. Is the value gained from worse hands making a bet on the turn greater than the value lost from the loss of initiative on bet size, the suckouts and the river calls?

 

[dbitel]

considering 90+% of his hands on teh flop are worse hands, yeah!

 

[Irexes]

Not sure where the 90% comes from more than 1 in ten would be an Ace I think. And obviosly not all the hands you are ahead of will bet. I would also suggest the size of bet from the hands you are behind that you call would be larger than the size of bets from those you are ahead.

As Dorkus (and I) said early on it's not cut and dried and there are cases for betting and checking. You were adamant initially that the "correct" play is to check in this example I'd just like to suggest that it is not clear cut at all but a pretty complex long-term EV problem.

I'm off out for day, good discussion

Rex

 

[x-Longshot-x]

DB. Please respond to this from another player on another forum. Thank you.

But for #1, fine, if you're now calling a turn and river bet (after an aware opponent will double barrel) opponents are also double betting Aces against you, and your losing more money with KK. And they are going to begin to fire larger bets than usual as well costing you even more money... if you start folding to larger bets then they know how much it'll take to double barrel the river on you. And while this particular hand may happen one out of every 1000 hands or so (KK vs 1 opponent with position on a drawless board with an ace) loads of similiar situations (TT JJ QQ instead of KK, some kind of straight or flush draw present, QQ and a King flops etc) happen much more frequently. On this board I doubt you'd play QQ JJ or TT different than you would KK here.

If as you said you check with Ace rag in this spot, do you plan on calling down a turn and river bet in that situation? You don't realize Ace Rag is only slightly better than KK here, it's in the same general range of strength after this flop. So what it boils down to is

You bet the flop when you've connected strongly with it

You check the flop if it brought a scare card, or if you have a baby ace or whatever -- basically if you aren't that strong but have showdown value you check behind -- unless you have a monster (a set in this spot)

So basically it's still declaring your hand - so opponents simply either

- Double barrel the turn and river if you'll call the turn and fold the river

- Value bet the shit out of their hands against the calling station if you'll call them down

It seems you (he) is assuming a few key things here

- Opponents will always bluff then turn if you decline to CB the flop

- Opponents are calling stations and will call down with any ace (if this is true like I said, checking is the far superior play and simply betting ( and overbetting) large aces and making tons of money off of them is the way to go. It'll be painfully obvious what we have, but if the opponent is simply not smart enough to play beyond Level 1 Poker, then it's fine since all that matters to him are his cards.

Like I originally said, the key is to remain unpredictable and switch up your play. Do I dislike a check here? No. I don't dislike a bet here either though.

- If you were up against two opponents how (if it would) would this change your mindset on this board

- If a flush draw was present how (if it would) would this change your mindset

-If a straight draw but the board remained rainbow was present how (if it would) would this change your mindset

- If your opponent checked the turn after you checked back the flop, now what's your turn action?

 

[stormswa]

hey

longshot who was the other player, zybomb?

 

[x-Longshot-x]

longshot who was the other player, zybomb?

Yep

 

[Styrofoam]

It is a pretty obvious bet here.... if he has a set, he's check raising almost certainly. if he calls and checks again, you get a free card on the turn, and if he folds you win the hand.

lets not forget, there are 3 reasons to bet 1) value. 2) winning the pot right out. and 3) information. This is simply all three of them. You're putting a bet out to see where your kings stand. Chances are you're ahead since no one bet the ace. Anyone who calls almost certainly has an ace, and you should hope to check it down at the end. Otherwise fold if they bet.

 

[stormswa]

really

It is a pretty obvious bet here.... if he has a set, he's check raising almost certainly. if he calls and checks again, you get a free card on the turn, and if he folds you win the hand.

lets not forget, there are 3 reasons to bet 1) value. 2) winning the pot right out. and 3) information. This is simply all three of them. You're putting a bet out to see where your kings stand. Chances are you're ahead since no one bet the ace. Anyone who calls almost certainly has an ace, and you should hope to check it down at the end. Otherwise fold if they bet.

you would check-raise a set there I sure as hell wouldnt, I would cold call in a second with a uncordinated board and the preflop raiser raising into my set. I would wait till turn for sure to make any bet into this pot with set.

 

[Styrofoam]

You're probably right on that.. i'm used to playing limit poker though...so a check-raise is usually the play you see there

After reading this thread, i've learned a bit more than i thought i would...and i might consider checking here.....one problem I don't like is that i cannot control what villain does.... people tend to over-bet the pots...in any case, after the new guy explained things, i think checking *MIGHT* be the best course of action...although I have a hard time giving up position.

 

[stormswa]

oh

You're probably right on that.. i'm used to playing limit poker though...so a check-raise is usually the play you see there

After reading this thread, i've learned a bit more than i thought i would...and i might consider checking here.....one problem I don't like is that i cannot control what villain does.... people tend to over-bet the pots...in any case, after the new guy explained things, i think checking *MIGHT* be the best course of action...although I have a hard time giving up position.

im actully torn in this hand I dont know if checking or betting is correct play. I think it comes down to the situation.

I dont believe there is any perfect play in poker everything depends on the situation.

 

[dbitel]

lets not forget, there are 3 reasons to bet 1) value. 2) winning the pot right out. and 3) information.

There are a lot more reasons to bet in poker than just 3. But you've managed to chose 1 that doesn't exist (winning the pot right now) and probably the least important reason to bet in poker (information)