Time for you guys to flame me again

[gord962]

Calling a $25 flop bet lets us see a turn card, and likely a river card in position for the same price as a decent flop re-raise. We have position in the hand, we look very very strong flat calling a flop and turn bet for the same price as our flop raise. And its likely if he misses his draws or feel his hand is inferior we can expect to see a check on the river.

I like what TB said here.

Because we have position, I think it's okay to call because it gives the villain no information and he has no idea where he stands in the hand. In this scenario it would look to him like WE are on the flush draw. Also, we only have TPDK and that's just not strong enough to raise IMO. Let's call and see what the turn brings.

i dont think KQ is worth $14, preflop in a ring game.
bad bet, got you in deap, do-do

Standard PF raise is 3-4 X BB, exactly what $14 is here.

 

[Bombjack]

Big pots for big hands. Top pair is not a big hand.

 

[Zameus]

Srry, I don't understand.

When the SB bets $25 it doesn't matter what we do. He's NOT getting a free card.

If he checked and we check behind THAT's a free card.

One scenario cost SB $25 the other cost $0. Please explain what I have wrong.

 

[Dingodaddy23]

i vote call. we don't want to play a big pot with TPGK. we don't have enough info on the guy to raise and call a push would be suicide, and if we raise he theoretically could put the pressure back on us with a naked flush draw and we would be forced to muck. I call and see what he does on the turn.

 

[joosebuck]

rethinking, if he is block betting - he gave enough incorrect odds to himself to allot a call from us, i suppose.

 

[loopmeister]

Wow. The only folder so far. (Haven't read the whole thread)

If those numbers means he's tight, the bet says to me "I'm afraid of the flush draw", Which means a set, or TPTK, maybe KJ.

I think we can discount KK, since that would have seen a reraise pf (but doesn't really make any difference to the results even if I'm wrong and he was slowplaying).

You're well behind these hands (except KJ), so fold.

--

If he was loose, it would be a different story; villians range, in addition to above, would also include Kx & smaller PP. In that case I'd raise to work out which.

 

[F Paulsson]

A somewhat random analogy: A stranger hands you $5000 because he's an eccentric millionaire who happened to like your shoes. A few months later, you're putting your car up for sale for $7000. If the millionaire is interested, would you sell it to him for $2000 since he's already given you five grand?

The fact that he - our opponent in the hand, not the millionaire - has already given himself bad odds by blockbetting such a large amount doesn't mean that we can't make pay even more and that we're in fact making a mistake ourselves if we don't raise enough to make it unprofitable for him to call a raise from us. This does not make raising correct in this particular situation, but the line of thinking that leads to "I don't have to raise since he's already bet" is fussy logic.

Money in the pot does not belong to anyone but the guy who eventually wins the hand.

 

[bubbasbestbabe]

He was SB. Most likely scenario is he has A-6. He's doing what some are advocating with his bet, looking for info. Tricky position here. You need to decide, do you want pot now or milk him. If you want it at least pot bet + half.
You want to milk it, call or min. raise.

 

[Zameus]

F Paulsson,

I'm sorry but your analogy is awful. I think the phrase you're looking for is "fuzzy logic" and this isn't an example of that.

I know you're trying to point out that the bettors raise and your action are unrelated but I have to disagree with you. If the bettor has given himself horrible odds to chase his flush (if we assume for a moment we know his cards), then he's already made the mistake. We can compound his mistake by raising and getting a call but to flat call a bet when we are ahead is not a mistake in NL poker. I read that you are a limit player so I understand why you're taking this position. I'm sure you understand however, that missed bets can be made up for later in NL and you can make more money by checking some times.


Loopmeister,
Folding is incredibly weak-tight against all but the nittiest of nits (and this guy isn't). If he were 9/18/3 I could see a fold. I probably wouldn't just from a flop bet but it's probably the right play.



Bubbasbest,
A-6 Opponent is half way decent in a 2/4 game. Unless he's chosen this particular hand to make a move on us, he's not calling with A6 out of position and then leading into a pre flop raiser. A flush draw or a hand that beats us is far more likely.

Which is why we're calling and re-evaluating on the turn.

 

[F Paulsson]

F Paulsson,

I'm sorry but your analogy is awful. I think the phrase you're looking for is "fuzzy logic" and this isn't an example of that.

I know you're trying to point out that the bettors raise and your action are unrelated but I have to disagree with you. If the bettor has given himself horrible odds to chase his flush (if we assume for a moment we know his cards), then he's already made the mistake. We can compound his mistake by raising and getting a call but to flat call a bet when we are ahead is not a mistake in NL poker. I read that you are a limit player so I understand why you're taking this position. I'm sure you understand however, that missed bets can be made up for later in NL and you can make more money by checking some times.

If you think the analogy is awful, you need to explain what's bad about it. I am predominantly a limit player, but this is not a "limit vs no-limit" thing. What I'm getting at is a game theory problem. You say: "He's already made the mistake" which is exactly where the "fuzziness" (sorry about the typo) of the logic lies. He's made a mistake. The fact that you can make up for it later on, and that flat calling may be a smart thing to do in NL, doesn't affect what I'm getting at which is the idea that we're excused from raising since someone else has already bet at the pot.

If you have the nuts on the river and your opponent bets into you, of course you should raise. The fact that you make as much as you would have if he had checked, you bet and he called doesn't change that; you should still raise.

To address something specific:

If the bettor has given himself horrible odds to chase his flush (if we assume for a moment we know his cards), then he's already made the mistake. We can compound his mistake by raising and getting a call but to flat call a bet when we are ahead is not a mistake in NL poker.

You're going to have to make a very strong argument for why flat calling against a flush draw is better than raising heads-up, rather than "compounding his mistake" as you say.

 

[ChuckTs]

So dbitel - you going to give us your approach on this hand so we can flame you?

In all honesty I'm curious what it would be, though. I said raise and fold to a push, but I'm now rethinking it and I think calling is also a decent option - FP's post helped with that.

Not only for the reason's he mentions, but considering our stack sizes, we'd be raising up to around $100 (if we so choose to) which would commit a large chunk of our stack, and we could be trapping ourselves. As Bombjack mentioned, save the big pots for big hands, and KQ for top pair isn't one of them - especially vs a TAG player who's leading into us after our raise.

I know that without all this analysis, though, in the heat of the moment I raise it.

 

[dbitel]

OK. The answer here is to call. It's not because this situation is WA/WB (because it's not a WA/WB situation, due to the FD being a big part of his range) but because rasing for information is a bad idea, as I hope i will show.

If you're playing vs some1 mega agro, I could see raising and calling a push being OKish, but the worst answer out of all the possible ones I'm afraid is to raise and fold to a push.

Lets look at his possible hands. I'll presume for the time being that AA/KK/AK will always 3bet preflop...but even if he decided to mix it up and just call this time (maybe hoping BB will squeeze so he can 4bet shove), we can just lump these hands in with monsters.

1) Monsters: Only real monsters he can have here is 22/66 (AA/KK/AK a tiny % of the time). Obviously he will expect me to cbet, so he will c/r these hands a lot, but he will also lead them looking for a bet/3bet or a lead and c/r turn line quite a bit too. Obviously if he has any of these hands, we want to fold. But given that his hand isn't face up, we cant really fold (far too weak/tight imo). Obviously if he has any of these hands, calling is better than raising, as we want to put as little money in the pot as possible. i'm sure some of you might think that if we raise and fold to a push, we have the info needed to fold, so this is in fact better than calling. This is WRONG. Raising for info is normally bad, and for reasons I will explain shortly, this hand is a good example of why.

2) Air/ marginal hands. I'll lump both these type of hands together. he might be leading into us on a stone cold bluff here. he might also be leading into us with KJ/KT/77-TT type hands...maybe looking for the "information" all you guys seem so keep to try and get every hand. If he has either air or or marginal hand, he is drawing close to dead vs us. if we raise, he will fold. Obv folding is retarded if he has any of these hands. So very clearly, just calling and trying to milk him on later streets by showing some weakness on the flop is the best move.

3) Draws. I think this is a huge part of his range. A lot of nut flush draws and some KcXc hands and rarely, but some times, a non K or A high FD (I think he will c/c those more often). This is where it gets important. What I've not seen any1 do yet is consider what will be his reaction with those hands if we raise the flop. Do you really think he is leading them so he can call a raise without odds? Do you think he's leading them to fold to a raise? I think he VERY rarely calls or folds to a raise. I think most the time, he'll shove. And then what have we done? We've paid $100 AND FOLDED THE BEST HAND.


So this is why raising for information is so bad in general:

1) folds out worse hands
2) gives $$ to better hands
3) the information is not reliable a lot of the time
4) the information isnt worth the price we are paying.


basically, We are paying $100 for info on his hand. Do you think its worth it? And are we actually paying $100? Answer - NO! We're actually paying MORE than that! Why? because we also cost us the $$$ we would have made off air/marginal hands on the turn/river. We cost ourselves the $$$ from folding the best hand to a draw and we cost ourself the $$$ we could have made off the missed draw on the turn/river.

So that is why I like calling best

 

[Bombjack]

More importantly, what actually happened?