a weird, probably completely incorrect judgement pf action |
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Posted Thu Jul 13, 2006 5:41 am GMT by ki_cz
I'll admit, I have put minimal thought into this, so please don't bash, berate, accuse, harass me too badly.
Let's say you're sitting at a 6-player table with a very average hand, we'll say, 9/10s and you're in the bb. Ahead of you, there is a raise, re-raise to 4xbb, call, fold, call. So the play is to you, with 2 raisers, 2 callers, 1 folder, with 1 person left to call the re-raise.
Now, assuming that we have a solid knowledge of the players at the table, we can guess that our opponents are only going to call a raise with either high connectors (k/q) an ace in their hand, or a pp.
For a second, let's remove the pp from the equation, and are only dealing with high connectors and aces. Now that we theoretically have 4 opponents who all have pretty high cards, could we assume that essentially there are 3 kings, 2 queens and 3 aces taken out of the deck, leaving only 1, 2, 1 in the deck respectively, thereby making our 9/10 look a lot better?
I know that this theory requires a lot of assumptions, but is it something that I should even bother thinking about, or is it just plain stupid?
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Posted Thu Jul 13, 2006 6:20 am GMT by BMiller1980
Fold...Unless you flop a huge hand, you probably aren't going to get to see the turn.
What type of hand could flop that you would be willing to risk your whole stack on? a flopped flush, 678, 78J, 8JQ, T9x maybe? If you flop a good drawing hand like JQx or 8Jx, chances are you wont be getting great odds to draw out.
Factor in you are out of position and you had 2 players already cold-call a 4x bb raise. And this is completely ignoring the fact that the early position raiser could potentially reraise. It just seems to me like you might invest a lot of money for a second best hand in this situation.
Posted Thu Jul 13, 2006 8:05 am GMT by UrAteUp
Theories like this have come from every known direction in the poker world. The flaw in your theory is easy to examine. Look at the odds and see how many times 910s will beat AX, KX or even QX hands. Calling a 4xBB bet with 910 is usually asking for trouble unless the flop comes off 678s or 10109. Check the odds on that happening and you'll see why it is often better to lay these types of hands down.
Posted Thu Jul 13, 2006 8:28 am GMT by ki_cz
I just checked the odds, and the theory is somewhat sound.
In a 5 handed game, where 4 of the hands are composed of high cards, the 9/10 matches the odds of the best overcards:
A/Qs 31%
Q/Jos 5%
K/Qos 19%
A/Jos 9%
9/10s 31%
Pre-flop odds.
Posted Thu Jul 13, 2006 8:37 am GMT by shorn7
While it may be true that your cards are much more "live" due to the potential for your opponents to be holding overlapping high cards, you still have a few big problems with this hand that make your hand an easy fold IMO:
1. The initial raiser: He is yet to act again behind you and you could potentially end up flat calling, him moving in, and then you having to fold without seeing the flop. These are huge negative implied odds for you and in the long run if you make this type of play hoping he doesn't move in, you will be throwing a lot of $$ down the drain.
2. Your position: In NL and PL, you mostly want to play pair poker from early position. Rarely do you want to build a draw from out of position since a lot of times it is very easy for your opponents to see when the draw hit and get away cheaply (since you have to act first), especially with a flush. What generally happens is you will get a decent portion of your stack in before you hit and then not get paid off when you do. Not a good trade. Now, that is not to say that you always will know what you are building with a given hand preflop. But, it is safe to say that with T9s, you are more likely to build a draw than two pair or trips.
3. Your hand: I like T9s as a hand, but in this case there is more than one player telling you that you probably need to hit it twice to win the pot. Unless you and your opponents are incredbly deep relative to the size of the bet (you didn't mention stack sizes so on this I can't be sure), AND more importantly, you are up against opponents who will overplay overpairs on coordinated boards for a lot of $$, this hand will not be +EV in the long run. As a general rule, you should be looking to get paid off 20x the current bet to even consider playing a marginal drawing hand in LP, much less EP. I would doubt this is the case.
These are the types of hands that get people into trouble in NL and should be avoided. In the right spots (LP, cheap price), they can be big money winners. But in the specific case you are outlining, you just won't win often enough or enough $$ when you do to make calling a profitable play.
Posted Thu Jul 13, 2006 8:43 am GMT by ki_cz
I understand that this may not be profitable in the long run, or at all for that matter, but I do think that it is something that when taken into consideration, could make these hands a bit different to play.
My example of course was flawed, I did it just to show that there was strength in the other hands. If hypothetically there was only 1 raise, and you are the last to act, then I think that it might not be the biggest mistake to call, of course depending on many other factors.
Don't take my example as a steadfast concrete example, but I rather meant it just as the easiest way to portray what I was trying to say.
Posted Thu Jul 13, 2006 8:48 am GMT by shorn7
No question. If you change your position and make you th last to act, then the equation changes markedly. Then, assuming the bet to call isn't too large, I think calling is completely acceptable.
This illustration really hammers home the importance of position in NL. In fact, position might be more important than any other factor when deciding to play a hand, including your cards.
Posted Thu Jul 13, 2006 8:54 am GMT by ki_cz
| shorn7 wrote: | No question. If you change your position and make you th last to act, then the equation changes markedly. Then, assuming the bet to call isn't too large, I think calling is completely acceptable.
This illustration really hammers home the importance of position in NL. In fact, position might be more important than any other factor when deciding to play a hand, including your cards. |
I couldn't agree more. Obviously, the flaws in my example show that I need to work on my position game quite a bit more and how I think about it. This was more just a question about the cards themselves and how the odds can really shift with overlapping cards.
Posted Thu Jul 13, 2006 11:08 pm GMT by Jefecaminador
Like everything in poker, it depends will govern whether this is a profitable play or not. If everyone is deep stacked, if you're getting a lot of callers, and the raise isnt too big this can definately be a profitable situation. Specifically in your example I would probably be willing to play since the reraise is only to 4x the BB which means the first raise was only a min raise, hardly an indication that hes likely to push preflop. With only having to call 3 more BB into a pot thats going to have several players, i'd definately take a 109s and see what happens.
Obviously the situation changes a lot if the preflop raises were different. If the original bet was 3x BB and was reraised to 8-9BB i'd be much more inclinded to fold. The best advice I can give you is to check the pot odds every time before you make a decision. If they're good, go with it, if they're poor then pass. In the example you gave you're getting almost 6-1 odds so its probably worth calling, and thats not even factoring in implied odds.
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