Raising Against a Suspected Draw on the Turn |
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Posted Tue Jan 17, 2006 6:02 am GMT by xDiamond_CutteRx
This topic applies primarily to play in NL tournies and cash games, although I could also make a case for this idea in limit.
It's well known that most players today (even players who style themselves "good") simply cannot lay down flush draws on the flop, even when those odds are long against them. And all of us know that if we get them unfavorable odds, we'll someday win all the poor fishies' money... the problem is, most of us don't have unlimited bankrolls, and losing your buy-in when someone spikes a fifth     whatever, it can be emotionally draining. And the thing is, they're rarely in bad enough shape not to call with a good draw, especially if it contains overcards with that flush draw (or straight draw, whatever, but I've found it's easier to sniff out and see through flush draw-like behavior).
So one solution I've toyed with, and one that has worked for the last month or so, is to let them see 4th street with their draw while keeping the pot a relatively small size, by check-calling or betting small on the flop when I have a good but vulnerable hand like top pair. Then I wait to see if the turn is going to be a brick or a blockbuster, and play accordingly. If a blank falls on the turn, I rarely do anything fancy--I throw in a big bet; now the flush-draw player has a much tougher decision. He's getting even longer odds on his money, and he only has one card to spike his miracle. Playing over time against the same players, I've observed that they value their draws a lot less once fourth street comes, especially when the pot is only small or medium-sized.
Example one:
You have A Q . Your opponent has K J . It's a $1/$2 NL game, and the pot is $18 on the flop, which comes Q 5 3 . You bet a modest $8, and your opponent calls, bringing the pot to $34. The turn comes 9 . Now you fire in a big bet, about $30. Only rarely will your opponent call such a bet with a draw he previously thought looked like pure gold. By betting small on the flop, you got your opponent to put some money in the pot, and you avoided getting trapped if a club fell on the turn.
Example two:
You have K K in a loose $3/$6 limit game. Three opponents limp to you in late position, and you of course raise. Everyone calls (including the big blind), making the pot $31. The flop comes J 9 6 . Everyone checks to the guy in front of you, who bets, and you raise. Everyone calls again, bringing the pot to $61. The turn is the K . Everyone checks to you, and you bet, bringing the pot to $91. Everyone calls. The river is the 7 . One guy bets out, and you grudgingly call. He turns over the 10 2 to beat your set of Kings with his flush. HOW COULD HE HAVE CALLED WITH THAT GARBAGE? you scream (internally if not externally). The truth is, he made a horrible play pre-flop, but ignoring that, he didn't play especially badly on the flop and after. On the flop, it was $6 for him to call a pot of $40. That's a great spot when he has a 35% chance of making his hand by the river. On the turn he called another $6, which is understandable given that there's $67 in the pot already.
Now let's see what happens if you do a few things differently. Instead of raising on the flop, you just call, and so does everyone else. Now there's only $46 in the pot instead of $61. On the turn, when you hit a big card, you can raise the guy in front of you who bets again on fourth street. Now the people with draws have to call $12 in a pot of $64; while it may still be technically correct to call, your play cut his expectation greatly--also, there's a MUCH higher chance a bad player will muck a weak flush draw here where he would have drawn out on you before.
Opinions/thoughts?
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Posted Tue Jan 17, 2006 2:17 pm GMT by suitedaces84
The concept rarely works in limit. I see what you're getting at but you usually sacrifice too much value by protecting your hand.
You have AK. There is one limper and you raise. The BB calls and so does the limper. The pot is 6.5 SB. The flop is Axx two s. The BB checks, the limper bets. We'll assume you somehow know the BB has two s and the limper has a weaker A. If you raise the BB will be getting 4.75 + implied odds:1 and would clearly be correct to call.
If you call and wait for a blank on the turn to raise the BB will be getting 3.88:1 and is a 4.1:1 dog on the turn. His bad call will barely benefit you because the odds are so close. And if he should fold, then him folding will benefit you even less than him making a bad call.
I remember a thread a while ago where someone said something to the effect of 'if I can't give my oppoent bad odds, then his call will be +EV, so there's really no point in betting'. This is not correct. His call may be +EV but it's +EV by a smaller amount than seeing the next card for free would be. For example the pot is 10 big bets on the turn. Your loan oppoent has 9 outs vs you and checks to you. If you bet he'll be getting 11:1 on his call and will only be a 4.1:1 dog. Calling for him would have an EV of +1.15 big bets. For your oppoent seeing a free river would have an EV of +1.96 big bets.
You'll often be in situations where every option you have is +EV. You should pick the option that has the highest EV or one that gives your oppoent the lowest EV. You should not reguard whether the EV of your oppoent is positive or negative. You should choose the option that minimizes it their EV.
Posted Tue Jan 17, 2006 5:59 pm GMT by xDiamond_CutteRx
That was pretty much my original thought too, suited. My concern is primarily with low-stakes No Limit games, where implied odds come into the larger scope and protecting your hand well is possible.
Posted Tue Jan 17, 2006 6:21 pm GMT by suitedaces84
For NL it depends upon how big the pot is and how strong your hands is. It's a mistake to make a large bet with a marginal hand in a small pot to "protect it". This is especially true of an unraised pot where you flop TPWK from a blind. When the pot is small you're surrendering very little by giving someone a chance to draw out on you.
If you want to cut down on your reverse implied odds keep the pot small. You could accomplish the same thing as you described above by making a large bet on the flop then pushing on the turn. They'd only get to see one card and you'd have no reverse implied odds.
Were you refering to a shortstacked game where if they call your large flop bet they will have odds to call a turn push?
Posted Wed Jan 18, 2006 6:32 am GMT by Muck
| suitedaces84 wrote: |
You'll often be in situations where every option you have is +EV. You should pick the option that has the highest EV or one that gives your oppoent the lowest EV. You should not reguard whether the EV of your oppoent is positive or negative. You should choose the option that minimizes it their EV.
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Yep Sklansky makes this point in The Theory of Poker, but uses Blackjack as an example (I think it was splitting 8’s).
However I can understand where Diamond is coming from on the physiology of this.
Posted Wed Jan 18, 2006 10:13 pm GMT by suitedaces84
I stumbled upon this earlier today. It's by Matt Matros. I found it on cardplayer. It's a great article and applies to your question.
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Many people assume that if they could only read their opponents perfectly, they’d be poker experts. I’ve long contended that many players wouldn’t be experts even if they played with all the cards faceup.
Let’s say you’re playing no-limit hold’em and $50 goes into the pot preflop. At this point, all the cards get turned up. You have the K Q , and your opponent (damn him!) has two aces, including the A . You each have $40 left in your stack.
The flop comes down 10 9 2x, giving you a gutshot-straight-flush draw. Your opponent, for some reason, checks. But he promises to put you in on the turn if he still has the best hand. What should you do?
You should take the free card, right? You both have perfect information, so you know your opponent isn’t going to fold if you bet, and you’ve studied the odds and know you have only a 42 percent chance to win the hand, so you shouldn’t value bet. OK, you check. The turn is the 2 and now the aces move all in. At this point, you’re getting 2.25-1 pot odds and you’re a 3.4-1 dog. You have to fold; oh well.
But wait, could you have done better? What happens if, instead of taking the free card on the flop, you move in? Now the aces call, and 42 percent of the time you win $90 (the $50 from the preflop action, and the $40 the aces put in on the flop); 58 percent of the time you lose $40. So, the expected value (EV) from your all-in bet is .42 x $90 – .58 x $40 = $14.60. Hey, you showed a profit! Well, of course you did, because if the aces had moved in on the flop, you would’ve been getting the right price to call, as you were much less than a 2-1 dog, and the pot was offering that same 2.25-1.
Still, was moving in with the worst hand really a better play than taking the free card? After all, checking the flop allows you to hit your hand on the turn for free. Let’s calculate the EV of taking the free card. There are 45 cards that could come on the turn. On 11 of them (eight hearts and three non-heart jacks — the A is in your opponent’s hand), the aces check and fold. On six of them, when you pair your king or queen, you will have picked up enough outs to be getting the right price against the aces’ all-in bet — even with only one card to come. (Specifically, you’ll have 16 outs with 44 possible river cards, making you a 1.75-1 dog while getting 2.25-1 on your money.) On the other 28 river cards, the aces shove in and you have to fold. So, the EV = (11/45) x $50 + (6/45) x ((16/44) x $90 – (28/44) x $40) + (28/45) x $0 = $13.19. That’s $1.41 less than you make by moving in.
This analysis certainly seemed counterintuitive to me the first time I looked at it. The drawing hand is better off getting all of his money in with the worst hand than he is taking the free card? How can that be? Ah, but he knows his opponent will give him only one free card. If the choice were between moving in and checking it down, the straight-flush draw would obviously rather check it down. But his options are to check and see one more card, or put in $40 and see two more cards. And that changes everything. The made hand, in this case, would rather wait for a safe turn card before putting his money in, and the drawing hand would rather pay to see both the turn and river cards than get a free look at just one of them.
OK, Matt, but this is just some math problem, right? In real life, you always take free cards with a draw, and you never give free cards with a made hand — right?
Let me tell you about a hand I played in a $1,000 buy-in no-limit hold’em tournament. The blinds were $75-$150 and I opened for $400 from middle position with two red kings. Sam Grizzle called me from the big blind. Sam is a very good player who had been playing a highly loose/aggressive/tricky style.
The flop came down 9 6 5. Sam led out for $1,000 into this pot of $875. He had $6,900 behind after his bet, and I had him covered. Now, obviously Sam’s cards weren’t faceup, but I felt strongly that he had some kind of big draw, and possibly a pair to go with it. If my read was right and I raised, Sam would move all in. I would call, and would probably be a small underdog.
Instead of raising Sam’s bet, however, I just called it. The turn brought the 4 — a card I liked. It didn’t complete any of the reasonable straight draws, and it didn’t bring a flush. Sam led out for $4,000 into what was now a $2,875 pot, leaving himself with $2,900. Obviously, he was pot-committed. But my read hadn’t changed, and I set him all in. Sam called pretty quickly with the 7 5.
Doing some results-oriented analysis, if Sam and I had put all the chips in on the flop, I would’ve had a 45.4 percent chance of winning the hand. My EV for moving in on the flop was .454($16,675) – $7,900 = –$330. Yup, jamming with the kings here would’ve been a losing play against the hand Sam had.
To calculate my EV for just calling the flop, we have to make a few assumptions. First, I really do think I could’ve mucked the turn if a diamond had fallen. I’d have been in a tougher spot if a 7 or 8 had fallen. Let’s say I’d get away from those half the time. If a 5 had come off, I would’ve gotten my chips in, and doubled Sam up if I failed to catch a lucky river. Sam, by the way, was very likely to pot-commit himself no matter what came on the turn. He had a great semibluffing hand, and aggression was his game.
It turns out that my EV from flat-calling the flop, given the turn strategy I just outlined, is +$880. (The calculation would take up too much space here, but I encourage you to try it.) Waiting for a safe turn card before I got aggressive made me about $1,200 in chip EV. Sam showed he was aware of this concept when he muttered after the hand was over, “I didn’t much like it with one to come.” Even if I pay off on some of the flush cards, my play was clearly better than getting it all in on the flop. Now you might say, “Of course you did better waiting for the turn, you weren’t even a favorite on the flop!” That’s true, but changing my flop equity from 45.4 percent to 50.1 percent makes the EV of jamming the flop only +$454. I still do better by waiting for the turn to be aggressive, assuming I have a good read.
For those who are curious, the river brought the J and Sam doubled up. Notice how insignificant that result was to this analysis.
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