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PLaying the Big $55. Havent seen the villian play a hand in the 1st 9 hands.
Both 3k start stacks.
Blinds 15/30 i raise 120 utg+1 with JJ, villian in MP flats, HJ flats & BB flats
Flop 8d 2s 3d, BB checks, i raise 210 into, villian calls, HJ & BB fold
Turn 5h, i decide to check to pot control and see what the villian does, he jams all in 
I was confused what to do 
Thoughts please
December 24, 2013
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first and foremost, pot odds time!
The pot on the turn is 915 (120×4+15+210×2) Villain shoves 2670 (lol) into 915. The pot is now 3585 and it costs you 2670 to call. You need to have 43% equity against villain's range to break even here. His overbet looks like a “i'm buying this now”, but i want an idea on his range and not the marginally important bet size first.
(s= suited, anything else is suit specific)
hands that beat you that could play this way- 85s, 22, 33, 55, 88, A4, 64s
hands that you beat that could play this way- 99, TT, A8, Ax diamonds (including A5d and A2d), 98s, T8s, 78s, 67d
I did this really quick, as i'm heading out the door, but value to bluff/overplayed value there is nearly 1:1. Run your hand against that range (and then adjust it based on what you think) and if you're doing better than 43%, it's a call 🙂
June 3, 2012
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Sooooo weird. I hate spots like this.
My general thinkning is that this is a fold. The flop has gone 4 ways and the villan can easily have a set/ straight here. Even if we are ahead against a combo draw etc i feel we shouldnt be calling off here. Id be folding, making a note and looking forward to see him spazz again when i have more then just a pair.
TPE Pro
December 6, 2012
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Liverpool015 said:
Sooooo weird. I hate spots like this.
My general thinkning is that this is a fold. The flop has gone 4 ways and the villan can easily have a set/ straight here. Even if we are ahead against a combo draw etc i feel we shouldnt be calling off here. Id be folding, making a note and looking forward to see him spazz again when i have more then just a pair.
Nice post, Liverpool, but have a look at what JST did in the post above yours. It's basically a more mathematically rigorous version of the same line of thinking. Instead of just saying “Well you could be beat, or ahead but not crushing” he put ranges and numbers to those things and (if he'd had the time) actually calculated his equity vs the equity he needed. Of course your post is more in keeping with what's practical to do in game, but doing the more rigorous analysis helps to improve your judgment and intuition when you need to make a quick decision.
The problem with just waiting for him to do it again when you have more than one pair is that the whole table is waiting for him to do the same thing, and only one of you is going to get the money. This may be the chance you were waiting for!
February 18, 2013
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I think the math is really useful and doing it out of game will give you more of a feel what to do in game but having said this it's pretty difficult while multi tabling or even single tabling to be able to make this a math based decision with a countdown clock ticking in the background, well it is for me anyway. I think 100 blinds deep and so early in the tournament with no read it's an easy fold and I'd be looking for better spots to add to my stack – this might be too nitty and giving up an early opportunity to double up but we can make this sort of mistake early on by folding and still win the tourney, we can't win the tourney if we call here and are crushed. It's also a weird spot which isn't going to happen very often I think so we can't exactly balance against it happening by sometimes checking our sets here, and also we don't really want to check our sets here as we want to keep building the pot.
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December 6, 2012
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Al29 said:
I think the math is really useful and doing it out of game will give you more of a feel what to do in game but having said this it's pretty difficult while multi tabling or even single tabling to be able to make this a math based decision with a countdown clock ticking in the background, well it is for me anyway. I think 100 blinds deep and so early in the tournament with no read it's an easy fold and I'd be looking for better spots to add to my stack – this might be too nitty and giving up an early opportunity to double up but we can make this sort of mistake early on by folding and still win the tourney, we can't win the tourney if we call here and are crushed. It's also a weird spot which isn't going to happen very often I think so we can't exactly balance against it happening by sometimes checking our sets here, and also we don't really want to check our sets here as we want to keep building the pot.
Right, that's why do it away from the table, so your “gut decision” will be more accurate in game.
I'm not saying this is necessarily a bad fold in this spot, but I really don't like this “Well I can't win the tournament if I call and lose” line of reasoning. You probably aren't going to win the tournament anyway. It's hard to win tournaments. The way you do it is by getting chips, and the way you get chips is by making +EV plays. If you think folding here is -EV, then certainly fold. But don't just ignore the EV and decide you aren't going to call because you might lose all of your chips.
What if next hand or a few orbits from now you get KK v AA against someone who barely has you covered. You'll lose all your chips and have no chance of winning the tournament. But if you'd made a +EV call here and caught the right part of your opponent's range, then you'd survive the cooler and still have a chance of winning the tournament. Passing up good spots because they are “risky” is, itself, risky.
December 24, 2013
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Foucault said:
Passing up good spots because they are “risky” is, itself, risky.
^^^
February 18, 2013
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I'm not risk averse, one could argue I embrace risk due to the fact I actually play tournaments at all with my current skill level!
I just think unless I do the math and I'm 60/40 here I'm likely going to pass up on calling, lets say you do the math and are 51/49 favourite – would you snap call here every time? It's just so early in the tournament, and I'm sure you'd get better opportunities to build your stack. Shouldn't we be happier to take riskier spots in correlation with the number of blinds we have? I don't mean calling someone's shove when you have him well covered and you aren't sure if you are ahead or behind, I mean decisions for your whole stack.
The problem with doing the math is the above seems like such an obscure case that it hardly seems worth doing the math at all, the next time you are faced with an identical situation with a similar hand, stack sizes and board texture you'd have forgetten the math by then anyway. And sometimes trying to think about the math for less regular situations feels like you could end up in paralysis by analysis.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not being purposefully obtrusive here, perhaps just a little dumb, but am hoping you take the time to reply (again), maybe I can get a Mike McDonald 'Aha' moment
December 24, 2013
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[FONT=courier new][SIZE=12] Board: 82
3
Equity Win Tie MP2 48.30% 48.30% 0.00% { TT-88, 55, 33-22, A8s, A4s, T8s, 98s, 87s, 85s, 64s, AdJd, AdTd, Ad9d, Ad7d, Ad6d, 7d6d, Ad5d, Ad3d, Ad2d } MP3 51.70% 51.70% 0.00% { JJ } [/SIZE][/FONT]
December 24, 2013
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and if you see that you have 51% equity in the pot, yes you have to call, but not because you have 1% edge. because you don't. you have 51% equity the literally what's in the middle. if there are chips in the middle and you fold, you are giving them away. it's the same as putting chips in the middle and not being dealt cards, at least in my eyes, for a couple of reasons.
first and most importantly in my mind, those chips in the middle are no longer yours. you may not think that way right away. it's sort of intuitive and common for people to not realize what sunk costs are and then properly utilize that information in life even if they do understand it.
it's sort of like someone in a card room plopped $900 onto the table while you and this guy are playing $1/2. somehow you got to the turn with no money in the pot because it went limp, fold, check and then the pot got raked lol. so ya. 900 dollars on the turn dropped on to the felt by our gracious floor manager. you have $2670 in front of you, a pretty good stack for 1/2. You and your opponent don't have cards in your hands, but ranges of cards. This room is really high tech and doesn't make any sense. You're probably dreaming about poker or something. But these dreams will give you aha moments sometimes (I get them anyway) even when the situation doesn't make sense lol. So. you know there is $900 in the middle. your opponent shoves his $2670 in the middle. You also somehow know from our ranges that you have 50% equity in the pot. That means $450 of that is yours! Making the call on the turn knowing you have 50% equity in the pot nets you 15bb in this tournament.
Now that I've typed this out, I dont like it because youre sort of then ignoring that we did put money in so we can't treat a call all in as a means to justify chasing the chips we put in already, but that is not what we're doing. my example may have suggested that though. idk. lol. but regardless, there was some arguing on 2+2 and probably real discussion something like a decade ago about accepting a coinflip the first hand of the tournament. long story short, there is no one in the world good enough at tournament poker to deny themselves the benefits of having 2x starting stack in the beginning. i still don't think i' have the stomach to take a flip first hand of a high stakes tournament (it was talking about the main event) the very first hand, but ya know. math.
June 3, 2012
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Foucault said:
Liverpool015 said:
Sooooo weird. I hate spots like this.
My general thinkning is that this is a fold. The flop has gone 4 ways and the villan can easily have a set/ straight here. Even if we are ahead against a combo draw etc i feel we shouldnt be calling off here. Id be folding, making a note and looking forward to see him spazz again when i have more then just a pair.
Nice post, Liverpool, but have a look at what JST did in the post above yours. It's basically a more mathematically rigorous version of the same line of thinking. Instead of just saying “Well you could be beat, or ahead but not crushing” he put ranges and numbers to those things and (if he'd had the time) actually calculated his equity vs the equity he needed. Of course your post is more in keeping with what's practical to do in game, but doing the more rigorous analysis helps to improve your judgment and intuition when you need to make a quick decision.
Thanks Andrew, really appreciate it when a coach takes the time to reply. You make a good point and actually further down you make an even better one about risk. Thanks again
The problem with just waiting for him to do it again when you have more than one pair is that the whole table is waiting for him to do the same thing, and only one of you is going to get the money. This may be the chance you were waiting for!
February 18, 2013
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Great posting jacob, even if it does make my head hurt a little lol
So it seems we agree, the math says you should call, but we wouldn't lol.
I'm still confused with the line that just because you have the equity that you 'have to call', why? In my mind this is different from saying a guy shoved his 8BB stack and I have him covered, I only have 56 offsuit but am getting 2 to 1 so I have to call, because these situations come up often and over a period of time it's +EV, and in this situation even if I lose I'm still in the tournament.
The situation above seems a lot rarer and even if you are getting just enough equity to call based on the math you are still coin flipping, now I know tournaments are difficult to win but to me you don't win a tournament by taking every slightly +EV coinflip and wait for the day where you are on the right side of every coin. Sure you have to run pure to win a tournament but I want to keep coin flips down to a dull roar if possible and preferably where either a) they won't cripple my stack or I'm down to 20BBs or less and I need to take a coin flip to try to get back to 30BBs +, at which point I can try to use position and aggression to rebuild my stack at lower risk than calling a weird jam for all my chips.
I have an image of yourself slamming your head off the table reading this and shouting 'Nooooooooo', lol, maybe I need some more convincing, I'm certainly not against doing the math and have to admit I don't do enough of it, partly because ranging what a person has in a situation like this seems difficult to me – I think the guy's shove here would be more weighted to sets and over pairs than stone cold bluffs, and I don't see how we can rule out QQ+ and AJ plus from the equation, I see people do some very strange things online, taking unorthodox lines preflop with premium hands.
TPE Pro
December 6, 2012
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Al29 said:
Great posting jacob, even if it does make my head hurt a little lol
So it seems we agree, the math says you should call, but we wouldn't lol.
I'm still confused with the line that just because you have the equity that you 'have to call', why? In my mind this is different from saying a guy shoved his 8BB stack and I have him covered, I only have 56 offsuit but am getting 2 to 1 so I have to call, because these situations come up often and over a period of time it's +EV, and in this situation even if I lose I'm still in the tournament.
The situation above seems a lot rarer and even if you are getting just enough equity to call based on the math you are still coin flipping, now I know tournaments are difficult to win but to me you don't win a tournament by taking every slightly +EV coinflip and wait for the day where you are on the right side of every coin. Sure you have to run pure to win a tournament but I want to keep coin flips down to a dull roar if possible and preferably where either a) they won't cripple my stack or I'm down to 20BBs or less and I need to take a coin flip to try to get back to 30BBs +, at which point I can try to use position and aggression to rebuild my stack at lower risk than calling a weird jam for all my chips.
I have an image of yourself slamming your head off the table reading this and shouting 'Nooooooooo', lol, maybe I need some more convincing, I'm certainly not against doing the math and have to admit I don't do enough of it, partly because ranging what a person has in a situation like this seems difficult to me – I think the guy's shove here would be more weighted to sets and over pairs than stone cold bluffs, and I don't see how we can rule out QQ+ and AJ plus from the equation, I see people do some very strange things online, taking unorthodox lines preflop with premium hands.
There are times when folding for all your chips with a 30% shot of winning would be a huge mistake. If, for instance, you were getting pot odds of 4:1. You can't just look at your equity in a vaccuum, you have to look at how much equity you have compared to how much you'd need to make a call profitable. The latter number is almost always lower than 50%.
TPE Pro
December 6, 2012
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Also hands aren't +EV “over a period of time”. They either are or they aren't, it's not a function of how many times you get into a given situation.
February 18, 2013
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Also hands aren’t +EV “over a period of time”. They either are or they aren’t, it’s not a function of how many times you get into a given situation.
Sure Andrew but the distinction I’m trying to make badly or perhaps incorrectly is there is a difference between a common EV call or an EV call where you are as you say getting 4 to 1 with 30% equity and a call such as the example above where the gap between equity and chance of winning the hand is very narrow and dynamics are uncommon as with the example in this hand.
Are you saying you would call in the above situation?
On a slightly different tack I just read Nate’s article you retweeted (many thanks) – do you think the hand above is better played as a check raise or even a check call rather than a cBet or is this less the case with 2 callers?
I really hate the shove on the turn but I see a lot of this online, certainly at the lower stakes where people overshove to make it look like a bluff and often it is a monster – I think that’s why my gut tells me to fold even if the math says otherwise. Again this may be illogical thinking, does Carlos do any kindergarten tutoring? I may need his services!
October 6, 2010
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common EV?
I think you are just getting the situation confused with us having 1:1 pot odds, in which case it comes out that we need more than 50% equity (have 1 unit to call to win 2). Thats the only reason 50% is the relevant number when we talk in a vacuum.
February 18, 2013
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When I say a common EV call what I mean is a common situation for which you are +EV, i.e. a 2 to 1 call on a shortie shove into your stack which you know is +EV to call due to pot size, unless you think he is only ever shoving with over pairs to your 2 unpaired cards. The example in this thread although perhaps +EV is not a common situation.
Anyway, best for me to draw a line under it, I feel like the fat kid pushing the door that clearly says 'pull' at school for the gifted, lol.
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