Nate tha' Great
10-09-2004, 10:51 PM
Every now and then I make a post where I throw some [censored] out there and see if has any tracion. I'm going to try that again here, so feel free to chime in with your thoughts.
I went through a phase a while back in which I was playing a fair amount of Stud. One thing you learn very quickly in Stud is to consider the impact of dead cards; you know the identities of 7 cards on 3rd street, and more and more cards as they are revealed on the other streets, and these can have a huge impact on the correct decision at various points in the hand.
In Hold 'Em, you do not have this luxury, but it is sometimes possible to perform a probabilistic assessment of your opponents' likely range of holdings.
For example, suppose that you have 66, and are involved in the hand against two other opponents, both of whom are loose and fairly passive. One player has limped in EMP and the other player is in the BB. The BB is shortstacked, but plays conservatively. You are in the SB.
The flop comes T62 rainbow and the action goes: you bet, BB raises, EMP 3-bets, you cap and they both call.
On the turn, a blank falls, and the action goes: you bet, BB calls. EMP 3-bets. You cap. BB calls, putting him all in, and EMP calls. You now are now playing a side pot with
On the river, another blank falls. You bet and EMP raises again. You need to determine whether it is better to 3-bet or just call.
Suppose that you do not believe that you would get this kind of action from EMP unless he has a set, as he is ordinarily very passive. Since he can't have 66, he either has TT or 22, meaning that in the absence of other information you are exactly 50:50 to have a better hand than him. You also think that he will just call the 3-bet if he has 22 (we have said that he is conservative), but of course will cap if he has the nuts, which means that you would rather not 3-bet since you would lose 2 additional bets the half the time that you are behind and win 1 additional bet the half the time that you are ahead. In order words, you need to be a 2:1 favorite in order to justify the 3-bet.
However, you *do* have another piece of information available to you, which is that the BB liked his hand well enough to raise the flop, and then withstand a lot of action on the turn. Because he is ordinarily a passive player and because the board is drawless, you think there is a very strong likelihood that he has a T, which gave him top pair on the flop.
If BB does in fact have a T, then you are in a much stronger position against EMP. This is because there are now only two T's unaccounted for in the deck, providing EMP with just one way to have TT, versus 3 ways for 22. You are now a 3:1 favorite to have a better hand than EMP, and should go ahead at 3-bet, even at the risk of a cap.
This example is a bit contrived, and I suspect that, in general, there aren't a lot of examples in limit hold 'em in which the implied identity of dead cards makes a whole lot of difference.
In no limit hold 'em, the impact of dead cards is potentially more profound. Take a look at this post (http://http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showthreaded.php?Cat=&Number=1114050&page=0&view=c ollapsed&sb=5&o=14&fpart=1) from the NLHE forum. Hero is faced with a close decision as to whether to call a large, all-in bet. One reason why I do *not* think that Hero should call is because of the impact of dead cards. Specifically, there is a good chance that one player has an underpair, and the other one also has AK or AQ. Hero needs to improve to beat the underpair (e.g. he needs to hit an A or a K). This is a bad situation for hero, not only because he may be drawing to a split, but also because there will be only 4-5 pairing cards in the deck, rather than 6.
Can anybody think of other examples in which dead cards could impact a hold 'em decision?
Is anybody getting anything at all from this?
-Nate
I went through a phase a while back in which I was playing a fair amount of Stud. One thing you learn very quickly in Stud is to consider the impact of dead cards; you know the identities of 7 cards on 3rd street, and more and more cards as they are revealed on the other streets, and these can have a huge impact on the correct decision at various points in the hand.
In Hold 'Em, you do not have this luxury, but it is sometimes possible to perform a probabilistic assessment of your opponents' likely range of holdings.
For example, suppose that you have 66, and are involved in the hand against two other opponents, both of whom are loose and fairly passive. One player has limped in EMP and the other player is in the BB. The BB is shortstacked, but plays conservatively. You are in the SB.
The flop comes T62 rainbow and the action goes: you bet, BB raises, EMP 3-bets, you cap and they both call.
On the turn, a blank falls, and the action goes: you bet, BB calls. EMP 3-bets. You cap. BB calls, putting him all in, and EMP calls. You now are now playing a side pot with
On the river, another blank falls. You bet and EMP raises again. You need to determine whether it is better to 3-bet or just call.
Suppose that you do not believe that you would get this kind of action from EMP unless he has a set, as he is ordinarily very passive. Since he can't have 66, he either has TT or 22, meaning that in the absence of other information you are exactly 50:50 to have a better hand than him. You also think that he will just call the 3-bet if he has 22 (we have said that he is conservative), but of course will cap if he has the nuts, which means that you would rather not 3-bet since you would lose 2 additional bets the half the time that you are behind and win 1 additional bet the half the time that you are ahead. In order words, you need to be a 2:1 favorite in order to justify the 3-bet.
However, you *do* have another piece of information available to you, which is that the BB liked his hand well enough to raise the flop, and then withstand a lot of action on the turn. Because he is ordinarily a passive player and because the board is drawless, you think there is a very strong likelihood that he has a T, which gave him top pair on the flop.
If BB does in fact have a T, then you are in a much stronger position against EMP. This is because there are now only two T's unaccounted for in the deck, providing EMP with just one way to have TT, versus 3 ways for 22. You are now a 3:1 favorite to have a better hand than EMP, and should go ahead at 3-bet, even at the risk of a cap.
This example is a bit contrived, and I suspect that, in general, there aren't a lot of examples in limit hold 'em in which the implied identity of dead cards makes a whole lot of difference.
In no limit hold 'em, the impact of dead cards is potentially more profound. Take a look at this post (http://http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showthreaded.php?Cat=&Number=1114050&page=0&view=c ollapsed&sb=5&o=14&fpart=1) from the NLHE forum. Hero is faced with a close decision as to whether to call a large, all-in bet. One reason why I do *not* think that Hero should call is because of the impact of dead cards. Specifically, there is a good chance that one player has an underpair, and the other one also has AK or AQ. Hero needs to improve to beat the underpair (e.g. he needs to hit an A or a K). This is a bad situation for hero, not only because he may be drawing to a split, but also because there will be only 4-5 pairing cards in the deck, rather than 6.
Can anybody think of other examples in which dead cards could impact a hold 'em decision?
Is anybody getting anything at all from this?
-Nate