Very aggressively played draw

2/2 Pot-limit Hold'em. 6 handed.


One player limps, and the cutoff raises pot, making it $10 to go. I call from the SB with Ac3c, and the big blind and limper call. 4 players $40 in the pot.


Relevant information. My stack is little over $400, and the preflop raiser has me covered. I am pretty sure that the preflop raiser has a big pair (I would rather not say why I think so). Also relevant is the fact that this is the first time I have played with the preflop raiser, and I have played almost no hands all night.


The flop is Qc 5c 5h. If I bet the pot, I think that the preflop raiser will raise pot if he has queens up or better (unless he has queens full, in which case I think he will just call), and fold all other holdings. Check-calling or check-raising will leave me with an uncomfortable number of chips left on the turn if I don't improve. I decide to lead instead, and I bet the pot ($40). The BB and limper drop, and the preflop raiser raises pot (making it $160 to go). I am sure that the preflop raiser is not full. Since I have one ace in my hand, it is twice as likely that the raiser has kings than aces, so on average, I will have about 10 outs twice (and a small redraw against me). Just calling would leave me in a very tough spot on the turn, so I decide it better to raise all in, making it somewhere around $400 to go total (about a $240 re-raise; I don't remember how much it was exactly, but it was around there). What do you all think about the play on the flop?


Result: The preflop raiser ended up calling. The turn was an ace and the river was a 5, giving me fives full of aces. My hand was good and the other hand was not shown.


(I did not offer to make a deal, because I have been thinking about the metagame considerations Ray Zee mentioned in response to an previous post, and I'm still not sure what I think about it; until I put more thought into it, I am going to probably stick for the most part to Zee's advice not to do business).

LOL!


why play the hand if you put him on a big pair???


my guess is that the player you beat took up some more money from his pocket and won his money back that same night!?!?

Assuming your read is perfect, you did fine.


However. It's really important to take into consideration that sometimes your reads will not be perfect. If he has QQ here, you're dead to running aces. If he has AQ, all you have is the flush draw, and a Q kills you. And besides, your draw isn't big enough to be willing to put all your money in on the flop, especially if your A isn't good.


I would be inclined to bet at the pot, and drop if he raises you. After all, if the player is that readable, you might as well wait for a time when you actually have him beat, rather than drawing thin to beat what you believe to be a good hand.


- target

I'm not sure why I'm bothering to respond to such a mean post, but human nature is a strange beast I guess...


When I have in front of me 50 times the amount it costs me to call (50*8=400), probably 2-3 opponents, and the preflop raiser has me covered, I would suggest that Axs is more playable than you think, and that the raiser having a very strong hand detracts less from my hand than you think.

target,


I was hoping you might respond. I really respect your opinion (and there are few whose I do on the high stakes forum). Thanks for your post.


Your point about the possibility of my being wrong is well taken. I will do an EV calculation that takes that into account. Here's the thinking behind the EV calculation. I think that we probably agree that calling the raise is a bad play, that the right play is either to fold or reraise. If we agree on that (I realize that you never said this explicitly), then the only question is whether raising or folding is a better play. Let's look at how often the preflop raiser would have to fold to my raise in order to make the raise correct--this should in turn give us a good sense of whether the raise is a good play or not.


There are 3 combos of QQ, 6 of KK, 3 of AA. I will give QQ only 1/10 of its "fair" weight because of my read (I will talk later about how a heavier weighting would affect the analysis).


(.35*10)/31 + (.41*20)/31 = .377 (note that I ignored the equity from running aces)


I'll assume that the final pot size was $850.


.377*850 - (415-50) = -44.2


240*X = -44.2 --> X=.18


This analysis basically says that the preflop raiser would have to fold to my reraise 18% of the time to make my reraise the right play.


If I gave the QQ a one-half instead of one-tenth weighting, the anlysis would like this...


(.35*10)/35 + (.41*20)/35 = .334 (still ignoring the equity from running aces, because it's not much)


.334*850 - (415-50) = -80.9


240*X = -80.9 --> X=.34


This analysis says that the preflop raiser would have to fold to my reraise 34% of the time to make my reraise the right play.


This analysis should give some basic idea of how often the player would have to fold to make my raise correct. For instance, if the player would fold half of the time, the reraise is clearly the correct play. I think that the chance of him folding was probably about 1/3, and I think that my 1/10 weighting is probably closer to correct (because I think that the read was pretty solid). So, I guess I like my raise.


All comments welcome.


-Dan

Do you really think that he's going to fold AA/KK a third of the time there?


I don't know the player, but I've never seen someone who could do that unless they knew the other player *really* well. And in this case, you're clearly capable of pushing hard on a flush draw, so I doubt that he's going to fold here nearly as much as 33% of the time.


Also, you mention in your earlier post that he might have queens up, which implies AQ which you ignore here. You're worse off against AQ than you are against KK on this flop.


Your analysis is good, in that you know how to think about these things. I would just suggest that if you can read this guy that well, you're much better off waiting until you have a big advantage, rather than trying to blow him off what you know to be a good hand.


People lose a lot of money playing AA and KK because they can't lay it down on the flop. Your goal should be to encourage their bad play, rather than hoping that they go against their instincts this time. Note that if he did have KK, and all the money went in, he was a favorite by about 54 to 46, and if he had AA, he was a bigger favorite than that. Also if a 5 hits, you have 3 outs agains KK, and if a K hits you have none.


I do agree that he most likely doesn't have QQ here though -- very few players would raise here with it.


- target

Keyser didn't need to be so mordant and caustic, it's true. However, I agree with him that this play is suspect.


One of the deceptive aspects of no limit is understanding implied odds. The problem with many drawing hands and/or marginals hands is that when you hit, you will only get called if you are facing a better hand. So your implied odds aren't as good as they may seem.


With A3s, you are pretty much hoping to flop a pair and a flush draw, or two pair against AK. That's a narrow range of flops. I think you will win more in the long run if you wait to play these hands with good position. Playing them from out of position against a raiser can be VERY problematic.


Your play was not terrible, but I don't think it was expert. The problem is that you are putting in a lot of money when you have read your opponent for having a made hand. Wait until you think he might have missed with AK or JJ for instance. Then you have not only a good chance to draw out, but you have an excellent chance of buying the pot too.


I generally think that trying to push out a made hand with a flush draw is futile and you end up getting a lot of money into the pot when you are a theoretical dog even if you include the (slight) chances of a fold. Those two clubs on the flop give him a LOT of reasons to call your raise. Not to mention the slight chance you're drawing dead makes the play even less profitable.


natedogg

natedogg,


What would be your preffered line of play in this situation? Betting and folding to a raise? Betting and calling a raise? Check-calling? Check-folding? (I assume not check-raising from previous posts of yours.) If your preferred line is check-calling or betting and calling a raise, then what is your preferred line of play on the turn, assuming that your hand does not improve.


-Dan

target,


"Do you really think that he's going to fold AA/KK a third of the time there? I don't know the player, but I've never seen someone who could do that unless they knew the other player *really* well. And in this case, you're clearly capable of pushing hard on a flush draw, so I doubt that he's going to fold here nearly as much as 33% of the time."


Well, this was the first time I played with this player, so it's hard to say really, but he was clearly the second tightest player in the game (I am, if anything, weak tight, contrary to what this hand may suggest). That's why I mentioned how tight I must have looked to him, though. Not playing any hands all night in a pretty loose action 5-6 handed game would definitely catch notice. So going from not seeing any flops to moving in my stack would indeed make this player seriously consider laying down. Also remember that my imperfect reading ability goes two ways. Just as I included the possibility of him having QQ, a more comprehensive analysis would have also included the possibility of him having a weaker hand. So, remember that in that 33% is included the possibility of his folding a weaker hand. Even still, the 33% number may be a little aggressive. But again, I think that the borderline should be more like 20%, and I do believe that I should think that I could get the raiser to fold that percentage (and if I'm wrong, I can't be too far wrong). There's also a lot of other things to be said for raising. For instance, I don't in general play my draws in this fashion, so I think that doing so occasionally is really important in order to balance my play, etc. Also, the preflop raiser was up a lot on the session, and my experience has been in general that players way up in pot-limit sessions tend to try to protect their win, while players stuck tend to be more willing to gamble. So I thought that this really worked in my favor. Take my super-tight image, a paired board, and lead to protect, and the possibilty that my read is wrong and the raiser has a weaker hand, and I think that we can find at least 25% of the time that the raiser will lay down.


"Also, you mention in your earlier post that he might have queens up, which implies AQ which you ignore here. You're worse off against AQ than you are against KK on this flop."


I did ignore AQ, but I similarly ignored KQ. While AQ is more consistent with the play, there are 12 combos of KQ and only 9 or AQ, so they're probably about equally likely. Also, as I mentioned before, I ignored the possiblity of all weaker hands, such as an underpair or AK, and, while each is individually quite unikely, they may add up to give me some extra chance of taking it down with my raise.


-Dan

My preferred line of play is to fold the big blind in this situation. Defending my $2 blind with A3s against an $8 raise is not a winning play in my opinion. Unless the raiser is actually a very weak player, I'm not going to be able to capitalize on a good flop without ending up with all my chips in the middle as a dog, which is what occured in your case.


However, once you see the flop, it's probably close. Check-calling is of course not an optiion. The big problem with that flop is there's several ways you could be drawing dead or at least be dead to an ace, which makes your hand weaker than it appears.


So in this specific case, I think I like betting the pot and folding to a raise. Once you get raised, your chance of winning the pot on a re-raise goes WAY down, so you don't get a lot of value by putting in a big raise as a dog that will almost certainly be called. However, the money in the pot already probably makes it around a break-even play at that point. With no pair on the board, it's probably a wash between the bet-fold and bet-re-raise all-in options.


Keep in mind I am against betting flush draws aggressively on the flop but many experts strongly disagree with me. They would probably be more inclined to defend the big blind with your hand (which I think was a big mistake) and then hope for a flush DRAW to bet aggressively with. I don't like that play myself, but then again, I haven't written any books and I haven't won a single tournament.


natedogg

FWIW, I think Axs an easy fold from the small blind in this situation against all but the most readable of opponents.

You played the hand correct in my opinion. With 400+ in each stack and only 8 dollars to call, with some more $ in the pot, your implied odds are huge. If you don't hit a good flop, you can get out easily, and will have no problem dropping a hand like top pair weak kicker. If you are a player who is good at reading hands, everytime you have a readable player raise with what you believe to be a big pair and have any hand that can break him, you should be willing to give up a small pre-flop raise. Most players cannot get away from big pairs. From what you described, he must have had KK to call your all-in re-raise. If he did- then he is a player that you want to be in that situation with. You took charge of the hand and put the pressure on him- you could have had A5 suited as easily as your A3--- you could have had QQ. The point is, you knew what he DID NOT have, and you put him to a difficult decision. In my opinion, playing a tricky hand against a readable oppopnent with a big pair is pure profit in the long run, as long as the call pre-flop is such a small percentage of your stack. What hands do players go bust with the most? Big pairs that they cannot release even under enormous pressure. Even if you lose the hand, by making this play you enhance your profits for later hands when you have the goods. Your bet out on the flop was excellent, and your re-raise even better, as long as you play this way when you actually do flop trips some of the time. Granted, he could have easily read you for your flush draw- but if you can play your made hands the same way against him, you will have the upper hand in the long run.

Your above questions illustrate how difficult it is to play your hand out of position. Fold before the flop rather than fight an

uphill battle.


Bruce

I did not offer to make a deal, because I have been thinking about the metagame considerations Ray Zee mentioned in response to an previous post...


Here's another metagame consideration of deal making that wasn't mentioned in that thred: had you made a deal here, you would have gotten to see your opponent's hand. Of course, he would have gotten to see yours too, but since you're going to show first at a showdown, he was going to get to see it anyway.