A2JT hand

[M.B.E.]

Loose seven-handed Party 15/30 LO8. Two limpers, I raise on the button with A/images/graemlins/spade.gif2/images/graemlins/spade.gifJ/images/graemlins/diamond.gifT/images/graemlins/club.gif. SB folds, BB threebets. The limpers call, I call. Should I have capped here?

Flop 8/images/graemlins/spade.gif8/images/graemlins/club.gif6/images/graemlins/club.gif (12½ small bets).

BB bets, the other two both call, I call.

Turn A/images/graemlins/diamond.gif (8 big bets)

BB bets, the other two both call. Should I fold here? Anyway, I call.

River: K/images/graemlins/spade.gif (12 big bets)

BB bets, next player raises to $60, next player calls $38 all-in. Now what?

[howzit]

in a multi way pot, the turn is a fold w/no redraws and no real high hand.


I'd be interested to see the betting on the turn on a 5 or 7 offsuit. If there is considerable action is it better to stay in hoping the action is from the high hands?

if the turn is a four or three and you get one of hte limpers to call a bet and you assume you might get quartered, is it better off to just fold OR raise hoping to knock out the other nut low?

[dcasper70]

you run away screaming like a little schoolgirl. /images/graemlins/shocked.gif

Seriously, you have no low and BB is broadcasting his ace.
So for high, you have to pray he's got AJ or worse, and if anyone's sitting on an 8, KK, AK, AQ, 66 (it is a loose table....)

Hell, I muck this on the turn on a 1/2 table...

[kitaristi0]

Raise PF is fine, but I wouldn't cap. It seems quite likely that another A2 is out there.

On the turn I instamuck. You have no low and Top pair with a jack kicker for high against 3 other players.

If you misclick the turn and accidently call, then the river you must fold with one of the 3 other people suddenly waking up and raising.

This is the second post about a hand like this (Beset's is the other). What am I missing here? Why is there any question that this is a fold on the turn? Are the players at these higher stakes games that loose that you think you have a shot with a counterfeit low and aces up?

[Buzz]

M.B.E. -
1st betting round - Fine.

[ QUOTE ]
Should I have capped here?

[/ QUOTE ]

You could cap. Call is O.K. too.

2nd betting round - Fine.

The flop is paired but you have no part of the pair. Does one of your opponent who saw the flop with you have an eight? Hard to say. If they were playing random cards, they have 12 cards between them. You can see your own hand and the three cards on the flop. You don't know the location of a total of 45 cards, including 43 non-eights.

The probability one of your three opponents has an eight is
1-C(43,12)/C(45,12) = 1-0.53 = 0.47.

There is also a slight chance an opponent has a pair of sixes. That's roughly
3*3*43*42*6/2*45*44*43*42 = 0.013 or 0.014. Something like that.

0.47+0.013 = about 0.48.
A probability of about 0.48 means it's a coin flip as to whether an opponent has an eight (or a full house) or not.

Meanwhile, you have nothing much going for high - mostly only the back-door nut spade flush draw which is worth about one out. To play on for high, you'd want the flop to have one (or preferably more than one) of the following:
• a pair of aces, jacks, tens, or deuces,
• two spades and no pair (other than one noted above),
• KQX without two or three cards in the same suit (unless spades) where X is any rank (but not another king or queen), or
• AJX, ATX, or JTX (top two pairs).

Maybe I left out something, but the basic idea when you don't have a pair in your own hand is that in order to play for high you want to see at least two cards on the flop you can use to make a straight, a flush, a full house or better. That's oversimplistic, but pretty close.

Your starting hand had a decent shot at scooping, but the flop didn't cooperate and now your chances of winning high are remote, which means you're (realistically) only playing for the low half of the pot.

There's no cause for concern. Your object before the flop should always be to scoop. But playing for only half the pot after the flop is pretty normal. Oh, there's an off chance of backing into high, and sometimes when you end up with a hand that will probably only win for low if everybody sees the showdown, by betting aggressively you can induce better high hands than yours to fold (so that you end up scooping after all).

A word of caution: Some individuals play too aggressively in an attempt to induce better high hands to fold. You need to use discretion.

But at any rate, immediately after this 6-8-8 flop, you have a only very, poor chance to end up with the winner for high if all three of your opponents stick around to see the showdown - so we say that you are only playing for the low half of the pot.

However, you do have a fine draw for the nut low. There are 16 cards that would make the nut low for you (treys, fours, fives, sevens), 6 disaster cards (aces and deuces that counterfeit your low), and 23 blanks (the rest of the deck). And there are two cards yet to come.

The probability you will end up with the nut low on the river is
(16*15/2+16*23)/990 = 488/990 = 0.49. In other words, you should expect to end up with the nut low on the river about half the time and you should expect to miss about half the time.

3rd betting round - Rats! Disaster has befallen you! Fold! You had a nice draw for low but have been counterfeited! If that isn't bad enough, now somebody else probably has made a low, so that even if you somehow manage to win high it will only be for half the pot.

[ QUOTE ]
BB bets, the other two both call. Should I fold here?

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes! Absolutely! Fold!

Maybe you're thinking you now have two pair (aces and eights) which might win for high. But your jack kicker is not very good. Still... your aces and eights might win for high. I just don't think it's very likely.

4th betting round - Gee. Now I don't know what to tell you. When you should fold, but instead continue, it's hare to know what to do. You have two pair, which might be a winner. I don't think it will, but maybe I'm wrong. Your opponents are all betting and hanging in there, but maybe they all have lows. Maybe somebody with the nut low but a worse high than you is trying to bump you out.

It doesn't make any sense to call a bet on the third betting round and then fold on the fourth betting round when the river probably didn't promote to a winner any opponent's hand that couldn't already have beaten you for high.

In other words, this particular river probably doesn't change any opponent's hand from a loser for high to a winner for high. If somebody didn't have you beaten for high after the turn, they probably don't have you beaten for high after this particular river card.

[ QUOTE ]
BB bets, next player raises to $60, next player calls $38 all-in. Now what?

[/ QUOTE ]

If you fold the winner, you're a chump. If you call with a loser, you're a chump. That's what.

Next time avoid this dilemma by folding to a 3rd round bet when you're counterfeited on the turn.

Buzz

[Buzz]

[ QUOTE ]
if the turn is a four or three and you get one of hte limpers to call a bet and you assume you might get quartered, is it better off to just fold OR raise hoping to knock out the other nut low?

[/ QUOTE ]

Howzit - You're not realistically going to knock out another nut low by raising.

Case I. Holding A2TJ with 6683 on the board, you have virtually no chance to win high. However, you're looking good for low.

If nobody bets before the action gets to you, you should bet. However, if somebody ahead of you bets, I think you should just call. There's the double danger of getting counterfeited on the river or getting quartered for low.

Case II. But if we change the board a bit to J683, holding A2TJ you have the nut low plus a pair of jacks for high. In that case, if somebody ahead of you bets, you should raise. Your object is to promote your pair of jacks to a winner, possibly knocking out an opponent who would otherwise end up taking the high half of the pot.

See the difference? In case I you don't even have a pair for high. In case II a raise may induce two pair or a straight draw to fold leaving your pair of jacks as high and garnering you 3/4 of the pot if the opponent who bet happens to also have the nut low.

Buzz

[benwood]

I don't like the cap here.Your hand is flop specific.
Your A2 is devalued after the 3-bet because of the possibility of sharing the low if you make it,& you have no back-up for your low.You are only single suited,& the J,10 are very flop dependant cards.I would prefer to see the flop before I continued to be aggressive.

Flop:Correct.You have played the first 2 rounds very well,imo.You have kept the pot small enough to be able to get away from it if something goes wrong in this inflexible situation.

Turn:This is the reason for not building a large pot with a non-flexible hand.I would fold here.If you call,you're putting in at least 2 BB's to try to win 4 BB's.

River:Fold.

1st off I would not have raised this preflop with only 2 limpers ahead. You need at least 3 and preferably 4 to pump it. Your high draw with this hand is tenuous, nut spades and weak top end straight, with a bad kicker to your Ace.
On the flop - I'd muck it. You're only playing for a possible 1/2 the pot and most likely will be 1/4rd. The BB probably had A2 also, and possibly with backup for low. This is a bad flop for your hand, just release it. Everything else after that just gets worse for you.

JMO - Knoll

[M.B.E.]

To recap:
My cards: A/images/graemlins/spade.gif2/images/graemlins/spade.gifJ/images/graemlins/diamond.gifT/images/graemlins/club.gif

River: 8/images/graemlins/spade.gif8/images/graemlins/club.gif6/images/graemlins/club.gif A/images/graemlins/diamond.gif K/images/graemlins/spade.gif (12 big bets): BB bets, next player raises to $60, next player calls $38 all-in.

I folded the river, then BB threebet, the other active player capped, BB called.

BB got three-quarters with A/images/graemlins/club.gif2/images/graemlins/heart.gif3/images/graemlins/heart.gif9/images/graemlins/diamond.gif.

The other active player got half the low side with 2/images/graemlins/club.gif3/images/graemlins/spade.gifJ/images/graemlins/spade.gif9/images/graemlins/spade.gif.

The all-in player got nothing, with A/images/graemlins/heart.gif3/images/graemlins/club.gif5/images/graemlins/heart.gif7/images/graemlins/heart.gif.

If I had called all the raises on the river, I'd have won half the pot with my AJ beating BB's A9. Obviously it was my river fold that pissed me off and led me to order the hand history and post it here. But even as I was posting it, I saw that my call on the turn was a blunder. I suppose my thinking at the time was that neither of the preflop limpers could have an 8 because they would have raised either the flop or turn with trips or better (which they certainly would have -- just look at how they played what they actually were holding). Still, the BB could well have had trips or a boat already, and if not I was basically drawing to a jack or ten which might win the high half, or a trey which would likely win me a quarter but maybe not even that. There was only a very small probability that my A2JT was the best high on the turn, even though that turned out to be the case.

Thanks very much to everyone for all the responses in this thread. Buzz's analysis was spot on: [ QUOTE ]
It doesn't make any sense to call a bet on the third betting round and then fold on the fourth betting round when the river probably didn't promote to a winner any opponent's hand that couldn't already have beaten you for high.

[/ QUOTE ]
As an aside, I know I make tons of errors playing L08 because I get slaughtered when there are several good players at the table. But I have been making money playing 5/10, 15/30, and 20/40 online, because even though I'm bad, I choose tables where most players are much worse than I am.