rolled up 10's MUCK???

paradise 4-8.


i'm first to act after a 3 brings it in and hold trip 10's, i limp, 1 other limper after me with a K door, then a player in late position with a Q door raises, the bring in folds, i call, other limper calls.


on fourth, i catch a 7, the limper gets a suited J, and the Q gets a 2. the K checks, Q bets, i call, waiting to raise on 5th, and the K raises, the Q and i call. at first i think its a free card raise but he'll be first to act on 5th and if he checks i figured the Q would bet into him so it is less likely to be for that reason. i put him on a pair of J's with probably AK kickers and probably a 3 flush.


on 5th, the Q catches another Q to pair his board (i realize i might be in very big trouble now), QQ bets out, i raise, the K thinks for awhile and folds, Q reraises, i think for a loooooong time and muck.


i felt that Q would not have the nerve to raise on 3rd against a higher door (the K) unless he had the Q's and felt that K would have raised himself if he had the pair of K's.


what do you guys think?, i hated throwing away those 10's but thought it was the right play at the time.

Why would you slow play three tens? Not that great. People could think you're raising with aces down or something. I would have bet the hell out of it.

good point

Sorry if I sounded abrupt. It's tempting to slowplay three of a kind, but unless it's kings or aces, I feel vulnerable. People pick up draws, etc, to keep them around.

Hi Dobson,


Given that the K had already checked, I think the Q might have raised with several things including AA/Q or KK/Q or AK/Q as well as the obvious pair of Qs. His play on 5th would be automatic regardless of his hole cards. I think I would have called to the river.


Also, I tracked my success with rolled up sets for a year or so and found I did marginally better raising on 4th instead of waiting till 5th. Smaller pots, but more of them. As zach pointed out, waiting till 5th with As or Ks is probably better.


DJ

I had rolled jacks in a recent $1-5 live game, my opponent paired his doorcard queen on fourth and bet $5 (I did not put him on trips at this time, he had only limped on 3rd and could have anything). I raised and got it head up. On 5th he caught a third queen and I called his bets on 5th and 6th hoping to fill (and that he wouldn't). I didn't, so didn't call river, but he showed me a full. He'd started with a small pair and queen kicker.

You should have raised the probable Queens on 3rd Street, to see if you could get it heads up. On fourth street, you should have re-raised the King doorcard. The initial limp on 3rd street was OK, but slowplaying thereafter is a mistake, especially against overcards.

I don't like the fold at all, but i don't mind slowplaying those trips until 5th. Tens are actually less prone to drawouts than any other trips because they block straights (although slowplaying them against a Q and a K doorcard is about the worst time to slowplay rolled tens).


The K could be anything but is unlikely Kings as he didn't raise the Q). The Q may be Queens but could also be many things even (22)Q.


And also even if he does have trip Queens, as he is representing and will no doubt represent whether he has them or not, you are not in as bad a shape as you think, unless your cards are all dead or he has already filled. The pot is offering good odds, take them.

you spent 2 bets on 5th, and then gve up. for the same price, you could have gone to the river and made a decision there. I would have either muched for the first bet on 5th, or called.


Who cares about knocking out the king in this spot? You probably do much better letting this player overcall.


This really depends on the player - some will not raise the limping K (esp. if this player likes to limp w/ big pairs) without having kings or aces.


Your raise on 5th pretty much exposes your hand, so any value you would have gained there, you lose on the later streets - esp. if he now folds KKQQ, which he would have otherwise bet twice (and you'd want him to) and call the river with.


Good luck.


Dan Z.

you hit a 1 in 425 hand and you want to get it heads up(1 in ~1100 if you consider the rank of the trips)? This is total results based analysis. If you don't slowplay this hand, what are you going to slowplay? You want those hands in there picking up draws(a.k.a. excuses to piss it in). Get the pot big enough that they can't let go then jam it up. Tough break his pairing the door Q. Incidently I think calling is clearly correct, Queens or Aces up would be played exactly the same way, but I'm not going to crucify anyone for that fold.

Are you serious?


The pot probably is big enough to chase even if he did have trip ladies. Youre getting 10-1 on this street and even if you just mindlessly paid off youd be getting 12-3.


Bad fold.

yeah you're probably right, its been eating away at me.

i just thought that if he did have 3Q's we both had the same chance of filling and i was just sort of rolling the dice, and he'd be the favorite the whole way through.

sure it's a crapshoot but the pot is giving you nice odds. don't agonize over it though, move on. it's obvious you learned from your mistake.

It doesn't matter that he has is favorite if the pot is offering you the right price.


He could also have other hands other that three queens. ANd then you are making a huge mistake by folding.

Like most of the other posters, I would have called him down because of the pot odds.


A play I think you should have considered is just calling on 5th street. We all "plan" on raising on 5th because we were rolled up but the situation has changed. Your raise accomplishes two things and they are both negative. You eliminate the KJx when he is drawing nearly dead (he has to catch one of the 2 remaining J's)or runner runner. He is not getting the pot odds to be chasing and his chance of winning is minimal. The second thing that happens is that you give the open Q's a chance to reraise, forcing you to pay three bets with the probable 2nd best hand.


Personally I find it very difficult not to raise on 5th if that was my original "plan" but there are situations when you must reconsider and one of those situations is when an opponent has paired his door card and it is higher than my trips.

You slowplayers are assuming that Bigger Pots = More Profits. It just ain't necessarily so.


Your profit comes from your opponents' errors. Pot size has nuttin to do with it. But don't take my word for it. Read The Theory of Poker like you ought to.


If you just call on third on this particular hand, your opponents will play correctly close to 100% of the time. That's because the K (probably on a 3-card flush) will get a whopping 8-1 immediate pot odds and a minimum 13-1 implied odds to chase the flush, while the Q is getting INFINITE pot odds. That's ZERO additional profit for you in the long term, no matter how big the resulting pot is.


If you reraise, however, it becomes Theory-of-Poker incorrect for either player to call. At least one of them is likely to do so, and in Paradise 4-8, both will probably call - one might even pop it back. That's all pure profit for you in the long run.


The only time you'll come out ahead by just calling is if the K is actually a pair rather than a flush draw, and now it's TOP-wrong for the K to call even for $2. But of course it's even more wrong for the K to call for $6, which a 4-8 player is likely to do with a pair of kings, so you should still reraise even if you think he was limping with kings.


Slowplaying should be reserved for situations where all of your opponents will play correctly if you fastplay. In practice, this usually means slowplaying trips on third when a raise is likely to win only the antes because your opponents have nothing at all. But you have to get into a pretty tough game before you're likely to see opponents who are good enough to put you on trips and lay down a big pair or a flush draw with an overcard, so you should just about never slowplay trips in a typical game unless you're pretty certain you'll get no callers if you raise.


TRLS

1. This is a bad fold. The pot is big enough that the combined chance of your opponent only having two pair and the possibility of you filling and him not makes a call worth it. I would probably raise again.


2. As far as the slowplay I think the slowplay is correct. While Lin makes a good point there is another aspect to this that is ignored, and that is that they players may play perfectly on third street (which i doubt anyway) they can make a bigger mistake later which they cannot do if they are not around. an example would be if you do not raise and catch a small pair on the board by fifth street. Also having the third player in makes a big difference in profit if they can be strung along until fifth street and will call "for the size of the pot" with almost no chance of winning. by slowplaying the K may very well hang around. It is not an easy decision, however.


Pat

Yes but what happens if your opponent has two pair? then you have made a tremendous mistake, much bigger than playing on with three tens vs. three queens. this simply cannot be ignored, and at 4-8 you will likely get shown enough funky hands that a fold has to be right almost all the time to be the correct long term play.


Pat

Lin, I admire your odds calculations. I'm lousy at math, especially on the fly, so I keep re-reading "Theory of Poker" and a couple of favorite probability books, in hopes of getting better. Do you have any suggestions for practicing calculation of odds & outs so as to get quicker and more "natural" at it, to the point of being able to do some quick and dirty figurin' during actual play?

I have read it, and I understood it. the theory that you're referring to says every time your opponent plays correctly(that is to say, the same way he'd play if he knew what your cards were) you lose money and every time he plays incorrectly you gain money. I know that's not an exact quote but I don't have it in front of me. Part of that is disguising your hand. If the Queens guy saw that you have trip T he wouldn't have bet into you, so he's not getting infinite pot odds since he's putting in $4 this round, just because he initiated betting doesn't change the fact that the card is costing him $4. if dobson raises it'll be $8 a round straight through. if he waits till 5th it'll be 16 cold to the K and 16 total for Q guy. perhaps more if the K wants to re-raise his flush draw or queens up get's aggressive.

I'm interested enough now in this thread that I'd like to do some calculations for my own benefit--but I've never played the Paradise, so don't know the ante and bring-in.

You're right that the Q made a $4 mistake with his first bet on third, but raising gives him a chance to make ANOTHER $4 mistake. If you don't raise, you're letting him see fourth street for $0 additional cost, which is in effect the same as giving a free card, or "infinite pot odds."


In any case, the Q is not the big problem here. It's the K hand you should be worried about because there's a significant probability that the K is on a three-flush. Not raising gives the K correct pot odds to call with a flush draw. Trips are far more likely to lose to a flush draw than to an overpair. So you absolutely positively must raise to get the K to either fold (improving your chances of winning) or to pay a premium to beat you. If the Q also calls, that's a bonus, but it's not the main reason for raising here.


TRLS

Frankly, I think it's better to just work situations out in advance and memorize them, rather than trying to do it at the table.


There are some odds tables published in various books. Roy West has odds tables for seven stud in his book - memorizing them would be a good place to start.


For counting "outs" on third street, 42 is the magic number in a full game, because there are 10 cards you have already seen (three in your own hand, and seven other door cards). So for example if you have trip tens and you suspect an opponent has a higher pair, that opponent has two outs on third to improve to a better hand than yours - i.e., the two other cards of the same rank as his pair. This gives him odds of (42-2):2 or 40:2 or 20:1. If once of his outs is dead because it is some one's door card, then his odds are (42-1):1 or 41:1.


A completely live three-flush has 10 outs to improve to a four-flush, so the odds are (42-10):10 = 32:20 = 3.2:1 against that happening.


You can use these examples to figure other common situations, such as how often a three-straight will make a four-straight, how often a pair will improve to trips or two pair, how often a hand with two overcards will make a big pair, etc.


Of course the actual number of unseen cards varies according to the number of players in the game and the number of players who stay in on each round. But precise calculations aren't necessary for most purposes. If for a full or nearly full game you use 42 on 3rd, 38 on 4th, 35 on 5th, and 32 on 6th, you will be close enough for a typical somewhat loose low or mid limit ring game.


TRLS

what happened, did you finally start coming over to the stud side of the room? Good to see you posting here.


Pat

when you're done with those calculations can you let me know what your results/conclusions were?

thanks

dobson

Pat,


Thanks for the nice post. Actually, twice in my "career" I have been almost exclusively a stud player - once at the riveroat's 10-20 game, for two different stretches on Paradise, playing usually 10-20 but lower stakse as well.


I think stud is a lot more fun to play, but hold 'em hands are better for discussing strategy - the reads are more clear and the betting/calling/check-raising strategy is more interesting and varied.


Thanks for all the good stud posts over the past few months.


Good luck.


Dan Z.