Furcoat, or lack thereof

[Homer]

Party 3/6

I'm dealt pocket sevens UTG. I limp, EP calls, MP1 raises, MP2 calls, BB calls, EP and I call. Five to the flop for 10 SB's.

Flop: 3h 7h Ad

BB bets, I call, EP raises, MP1 and MP2 fold, BB calls, I reraise, EP caps, BB coldcalls. Three to the turn for 22 SB's (11 BB's)


Turn: [3h 7h Ad] 9h

BB checks, I bet, EP calls, BB checkraises, EP and I call. Three to the river for 17 BB's.


River: [3h 7h Ad 9h] 2h

BB bets, I fold while ordering a shrimp cocktail, EP folds.


How bad was this fold, on a scale from moron to dumbass?

-- Homer

[Homer]

I immediately regretted folding, as I was getting 18:1 on the call, so I only had to be good around 5% of the time for a call to be justified. At the time, I truly thought that the BB had a flush when he checkraised the turn. When the fourth flush card came on the river, I thought that the peobability that either he or EP had a heart was close to 100%. Now I am questioning this. Are the chances that BB had something like 33 and EP didn't have a heart good enough for a call to be justified?

-- Homer

[Bob T.]

Add the loss of sleep factor into your call, and the difference between winning 3, 4, or 6, percent of the time seems small. Call, be happy when you win, and sleep well when you lose.

[Homer]

Any other comments on this hand or does everyone agree that I have an easy fold?

[SoBeDude]

I think I'd have made the crying call on the river.

But I'm guessing BB shows you the Ah?

-Scott

[Homer]

He didn't show me anything, as EP and I both folded, allowing him to take the pot down without a showdown. I think it would have been worth giving him $6 just to see a heart.

Disregarding the emotional factor, though, I'm still wondering if a fold or call is best from a purely mathematical standpoint.

-- Homer

[SoBeDude]

Upon more reflection, with the BB check-raising the turn, I'd bail. Depending on my read of BB, I might not call the raise.

good fold.

-Scott

[Homer]

Don't forget that I had a set and was only 3.6:1 against improving to a full house or quads on the river, while getting 17:1 pot odds, making a turn call correct and a fold disasterous.

-- Homer

[SoBeDude]

I don't think you should look to math to answer this question.

I think you need a read on the BB player. Against the straightforward players in my games, I'd get C/R'd there ONLY by a big hand. In my games I'd fold on the turn more than 80% of the time.

As far as what he held. ask him. in a live friendly game, I often find they'll flip 'em over if I ask, or tell me if they're mucked. Even online they often tell me, although I believe them less often since I can't look them in the eye.

I think he had you.

-Scott

[SoBeDude]

hmm. forgot about that. But you have 10 outs to improve, right? (3 each of 3 other cards on the board, plus the case 7) out of 46 remaining cards is 4.6-1.

You should call the raise on the turn, yes. then fold the river if you don't improve.

-Scott

[Homer]

Why don't I need math? It tells me whether I should call or dump on the turn.

It doesn't matter if he had me beat with a flush on the turn. My odds of improving to the best hand are much, much greater than the odds being offered to me. Folding is a mistake of massive proportions unless you somehow know for a fact that your opponent has exactly AA. I know with close to 100% certainty that he doesn't have AA due to the prior action in the hand.

Let's take a look at the expected values for calling the turn versus folding the turn.

Folding has an EV of 0 BB's

Calling has an EV of 2.35 BB's, which I determined as follows. 10 out of 46 times I will fill and win 18 BB's (16 BB's in the pot + 2 BB's from river betting). 36 out of 46 times I will lose 2 big bets (assume that I am going to call on the river just in case my opponent doesn't have a flush). This makes my EV = (10/46)*18 + (36/46)*-2 = 2.35 BB's

Hence, folding the turn is a 2.35 BB mistake.

-- Homer

[Tyler Durden]

No it's 3.6 to 1 because 36 cards don't help you and 10 cards do improve the hand.

[Barry]

Homer -

A lot depends on how you view how the BB plays. If he's a straight forward player, its hard to believe that all those coldcalls and the checkraise mean anything other than a flush draw that got there. Of course, if he's a bit tricky he could have a set or 2 pair, hoping you would all believe he had the flush, which you all did.

I've been called a fish, but I might just call 1 more BB, unless I knew him to be the rock type. As we've all heard, bad poker players call too much early and don't call enough late. If he doesn't have the flush and you fold you have made "a mathematical catastrophe" in the words of S&M. You only need to be right about 5% for this to be a +EV play.

[Homer]

Thanks Barry.

I think "mathematical catastrophes" as most people refer to them are bs. If I had a 6% chance of winning the hand and folded, it isn't a catastrophe. It didn't really cost me 18 big bets.

The expected value of calling, if I have a 6% chance of winning, is .14 big bets [.06(18) + .94(-1)]. The expected value of folding is zero big bets, so by folding I have cost myself exactly .14 big bets, not 18 big bets, as many people seem to think.

-- Homer

[Allan]

I'm not saying to call here in your hand. I'm just a little confused here regarding catastrophies. Isn't the whole point of you wondering if you should have called on the river because of the 18:1 there? I don't quite understand how it isn't a catastrophe if you fold the winning hand. Isn't the expected value .14 for that round only? Why isn't the pot taken into account? I mean if I fold the river and my opponent flips over his cards to show me A9 for two pair, I don't go thinking oops I lost .14 BB, I think f'ing 18 BB catastrophe. I read and reread your post and thought more about it but it still isn't clear to me on why you think it isn't a catastrophic mistake. Help!!!


Allan

[Barry]

Homer -

I agree with your EV analysis. My use of the term "MC" comes from HFAP using a directly on point situation. (as I remember anyway, or was it giving a free card to a draw).

At any event I think the most important consideration for the river decision here is your read on the BB. I have just finished reading Malmuth's Poker Essays I and II. A point that he makes many times is our decisions should consider 3 things:
1. How well you play;
2. How well your opposition plays; and
3. How well your opposition thinks you play.

[J.R.]

Because in the long run, if you fold here every time, you are only giving up .14 BB on average, because every 16 times or so you call you will get shown a better hand for every 1 time you win.

In the short run, the one time you fold the best hand it appears that you have lost 18 BBs, but you don't know your opponent's hand so you can't selectively call only when your hand is the best. You can only call every time in this situation and lose a BB about every 16 times for every one time you call with the best hand.

[Homer]

For this particular hand, there are two possible outcomes if I call. I will either be shown a flush, in which case I lose 1 big bet, or I will be shown two-pair or trip threes, in which case I win 18 big bets. So, if I fold on this particular occasion and my opponent needles me by showing me two-pair, I will lose the entire pot, which makes it seem like an 18 big bet mistake. However, in reality I haven't made an 18 big bet mistake by not calling. Over time, I will win 18 big bets a certain percentage of the time and lose 1 big bet a certain percentage of the time. If you average those out you will get the expected value of calling. Let's say that I think I have a 6% chance of having the best hand. If we play out this scenario 100 times, 94 times I will lose 1 big bet, and 6 times I will win 18 big bets, for a total of 14 big bets, or .14 big bets each time this plays out. If you compare this to my expected value for folding, which is zero, you can see that the mistake I am making if I fold is only .14 big bets, the difference between the EV for the optimum decision (calling) and that of folding. So, it will seem like a catastrophe if I fold and it turned out that I would have won the pot, but in reality, over time, I am only costing myself .14 big bets each time that I incorrectly fold.

It's similar to when people post about losing a big pot after being sucked out on by some joker chasing a gutshot, and someone responds, "Think of all the theoretical money you made on this hand". It may sting to have lost the pot in this instance. But over time, as the scenario plays out over and over, you will have the advantage and will win an amount equal to the expected value (or at least getting closer to that value over time).

If I haven't explained this well, you could ask some of the probability experts about it over at their forum.

-- Homer

[Allan]

[Munga30]

Homer,

With EP yet to act, you have to consider that your cost of calling goes beyond just one bet. It must include those times you call, EP raises his big heart, and SB either calls or reraises. In these cases, you have a 1 BB cost with 0% chance to win. Effectively (as in effective odds) you have to be good more than the 5-6% you get from the pot. Offsetting this might be the slight chance that you get overcalls from EP when you are best, but I think its small enough to ignore.

Munga

[AceHigh]

"I fold while ordering a shrimp cocktail"

Where do you live that you can get a shrimp cocktail for $6?

Sure looks like BB has a flush doesn't it? But I like the "pot big, me call" philosophy, so I would call here a lot just on auto-pilot. You can safely fold to a raise by EP, right?

Quick EV calc shows 25 "reasonable" heart hands, xhxh and 6 2 pair hands, sets (u can beat) he might play this way (A9s, 33 and 97s). Would he bet out on the flop, with middle pair, or slow down on the flop with 33? Lets count them as 1 hand for our purposes, so that's 25:3 odds. EV(x) = ~1BB.

But even if that's a good estimate, (and assuming I did the math correctly) that isn't factoring EP, so you didn't even loose that much. Feel better?