Was going to post something fun and motivational about upcoming MSPT stuff, and then had probably my worst poker call of all time. I guess it might be tied with some other stuff, but still. I don't even understand why or how I do this to myself, but I do. So posting this for the public shame, and so I can feel even more like garbage than I already do right now.
Location: Regular Home Game
Stakes: Uncapped 1/2 NL/PLO/
PLO8
Dynamics: Villain in hand is tricky,
bluff-happy, and a good hand-reader. We're extremely deep (~1.7k).
Preflop: UTG limp, EP makes it $10, there's a call, and a loose, splashy player in MP makes it $35. BTN calls, I call in the SB with
and original EP raiser calls.
Flop ($150)
I lead $150. Folds back around to BTN, who tanks for maybe 45 seconds (he takes a long time very often), and calls.
Turn ($450)
I lead $380, and villain again tanks for about 45 seconds before calling.
River ($1,210)
Yes, that is one of the worst cards in the deck for me. I tank for 20-30 seconds and check. Villain takes another 30-40 seconds and moves all in for $954. He's certainly capable of
bluffing in big spots, and turning made hands into bluffs, but it's just so hard for him to not have a boat here.
But yup, I took probably 2 minutes with it and made an absolutely, mind-bogglingly horrendous call just to get shown the good ol' KK54.
Granted, it's not like he's getting an amazing price on the turn, but if he has implied
odds to my stack, his call is okay. It's pretty ****ing gnarly though because he needs about 3.38:1 to make the call if he knows I have a flush. Occasionally I'm also running a big bluff with just the Ac, and he's not going to get paid on the river. Let's call it maybe 10% of the time (seems like a reasonable frequency).
So he has to call $380 into $830, and he'll make his hand ~23% of the time. 90% of those times, he gets paid off, cause I'm horrendously bad, and 10% of the time he just wins the pot because I was bluffing and I give up on the bad card. Let's say I fire the third barrel on brick rivers too and he's just going to fold brick rivers.
EV(his call with KK54) = (0.23)*((0.9)*($1,784) + (0.1)*($830)) - (0.77)*($380)
EV(call) = (0.23)*($1,605.60 + $83) - (0.77)*($380)
EV(call) = $388.38 - $292.60
EV(call) = $95.78
So a couple big assumptions here. First is my bluffing frequency. Obviously, the lower my bluffing frequency, the better for him, since he gets paid off more often.
Since I'm over-caffeinated and still annoyed about this hand I started playing around with a spreadsheet that lets me input a few things, and spits out the overall EV of the villain's turn call. The constants are things like the pot sizes, bet sizes, and how often the board will pair. The variable things are stuff like how often I'll have bluffs, how often I'll show up with quads when the board pairs, and how often I take certain lines with the specific hand types when the board does or doesn't pair. (For example, I'm never x/c the river with the bare Ac when the board does anything, but I may sometimes shove the river with the bare Ac when the board doesn't pair.)
From playing around with some values, I think absolute best case scenario for him is that his call is +EV to the tune of +$200 (when I'm never capable of folding the river when behind, and when I don't successfully bluff rivers even when the board doesn't pair). Worst case scenario, he's losing roughly $100 by calling. Not the most horrendous thing in the world given the potential upside I suppose.
With what I consider to be realistic numbers based on how often I spazz call here (way too often), his call is definitely profitable, most likely in the +$60-100 range. Basically while I still feel really shitty that I'm making this profitable for him, I can at least be pleased with how I played flop and turn, creating a small enough SPR that his implied odds aren't handing him quite as much EV as it felt in the moment.
