I've Asked Before, But Now I'm Begging... (NLHE)

[ML4L]

Hey all,

Paradise 1/2 NLHE. I've got a stack of around $350, my primary opponent has me covered. He is a good, aggressive player who knows that I am capable of laying down a hand. The game has gone suddenly gone short-handed, and I get A /images/graemlins/spade.gifK /images/graemlins/diamond.gif on the button. CO open-limps, I raise to $10, BB calls, CO folds. Heads-up; the flop comes:

K /images/graemlins/club.gif6 /images/graemlins/spade.gif5 /images/graemlins/spade.gif

He checks, I bet $16, he calls. Turn comes:

2 /images/graemlins/diamond.gif

He checks, I bet $35, he calls. River comes:

7 /images/graemlins/club.gif

He moves all-in; there is about $125 in the pot and I have $267 left. Call or fold?

ML4L

[tewall]

Here's a mathematical answer. I'll round your 267 down to 250 to make it easier.

His best uninformed bluffing strategy is to bluff 2/5 of the time (which is 250/625). Your best uninformed calling strategy is to call 1/3 of the time (125/375).

If you will call his bluffs less than 1/3 of the time in this situation, then his bluffs will make a profit. If you think there is a better than 40% chance he is bluffing, you should call. If you think it's worse than 40%, you should fold. If you're not sure, you should call 1/3 of the time.

[AleoMagus]

In this situation, what could he have? he's not gonna call the raise preflop without decent cards, so it is unlikely he has a set or two pairs. He's also not gonna call those bets with 89 hoping for the gutshot. He might have 89s trying for spades, but again - is he gonna call ten bucks preflop with that?.
On the river, I'd consider a set of kings or pair of aces a possibility. He might slowplay kings or aces before the flop hoping for a raiser. Then he lets you bet it all the way. Not how I'd do it, but some guys play like that. It just seems like too much money to run a bluff with, especially with you betting strong the whole way, and so few scary cards on the board. There is no flush, an unlikely straight, and a lot of very unlikely sets and two-pairs.
Unless he's a bad player and doesn't realize how obvious a bluff would be here, he could only have AA, KK, or (doubtfully) 77 or 89s. These all have you beat.
I'd fold

[tewall]

"Unless he's a bad player and doesn't realize how obvious a bluff would be here ..."

I like your analysis, but don't get this sentence. You've just argued why a bluff wouldn't be obvious. It's not a bad player that's likely to try a bluff here, but a good player. A good player might try it precisely because it's not expected, and he'd try it against another good player who would realize that and have a good enough chance to lay down his hand to make it worthwhile.

[tewall]

Now for a non-mathematical answer. I agree with Shub314 that you should fold for two reasons.

First of all, there's a principle that says that when a person's latter actions are inconsistent with the former actions, the latter are more likely to be correct.

The second is if you ask the question, why is he all of a sudden betting?, the answer that pops into my head is he's afraid you won't bet if he checks (and you probably wouldn't). So he's betting hoping to get paid.

I don't think there's a 40% chance he's bluffing.

[1800GAMBLER]

Quiz.

Fold (10). Call (7).

His quiz is player dependant though, but your opponent bet the river instead of checking, that gives him some credit.

Prize for knowning the quiz maker.

[AleoMagus]

Yeah. Good Point. Still, I wouldn't consider this a possibility unless I knew the player and he knew me, and he had enough respect to think I could lay down the best hand following that line of reasoning with that board. That may be the situation in this example, I don't know. I am curious what happened in this example - ML4L, what did he have? Did you fold?

[tewall]

I think it would take a very good player to pull this off. Assuming there's nothing to draw at, the person would have to have had this plan from the get go. His plan would be to check twice, let the person bet at him twice, and then take the pot away from him at the river, and expect that that line of play would pay off. That would be quite a feat! A much more common variation of this would be to check/call the flop and then check/raise the turn.

[tewall]

Ciaffone.

[TAFKAn]

Hint: there is a max buy in to this game.

[Mark Heide]

ML4L,

This situation depends on what your opponent thinks you have and possibly what you think he will call your preflop raise with. Most players will not bluff you on the river unless they have seen you make laydowns.

Good Luck

Mark

[ML4L]

Hey all,

Thanks for all of the responses. The result is that, after some thinking, I folded. I was very tempted to call because the seven was such an innocuous card that I felt like he had been on spades and just wanted to take a stab at the pot. But, he very easily could have had 9s8s or a hand like 76. I still can't make up my mind whether I think it was a good fold or not, but at least the overwhelming sentiment here is that it was...

I've made a number of posts before about situations such as this one (i.e. playing AK after the flop for big bets), and I don't feel as though I'm getting much better at it. But, maybe it just takes more playing/studying...

Thanks again.

ML4L

[ML4L]

Hey Jay,

Actually, seeing your post reminded me that one of the Ciaffone quizzes describes a hand nearly identical to this one. In that situation, he gave 10 points to folding and 0 points to calling, which makes me feel better about my fold on the end here... Thanks for jogging my memory about that part of the book.

ML4L

[1800GAMBLER]

No problem, the hand was very similar. I thought he gave 7 to calling though. Didn't check the book.

[cjx]

I think you should call him down. He probably wouldn't call your opening bet with a drawing hand with two players in (though the CO then folds) which says to me he had to have something worthwhile preflop, could have been a middle/smallish pocket pair, but I believe it's one of four hands, AA, KK, AK, AQ. I'm almost certain he had AK.