odds and scales and POOP

[Tommy Angelo]

Six-handed $20-40 at LC. I had 10-7 in the big blind. No one folded or raised. The flop came K-9-6 rainbow. The small blind checked, I checked, UTG bet, and again no one folded or raised.

The turn was a rainbow 3. The small blind checked, I checked, UTG bet, two players called and two players folded. It was my turn and this is when something unusual happened. First I started to muck on automuck because, as I realized later, apparently I've got some kind of conditioning that says, When there is no raise before the flop, and I am POOP (passified out-of-position) with a gutshot draw on the turn and no overcards, I shall checkmuck.

Then I stopped and realized that this freakishly constructed one-bet-at-a-time unraised pot might be offering the wrong price to fold. And how very unusual it was to be last to act on the turn in a multi-way pot like this, holding a hand like mine. By now I'm almost always out or heard from.

I did the math, the price was right after all, so I folded.

Calculating pot odds and implied odds is like playing musical scales on a piano. It's good that I learned the scales when I did, and well. The fingering, the muscle training for each key. Essential stuff. The curious thing is, when I perform on piano, whether on stage or in a studio, whether the music is written or improvised, I never play a scale. But there's no way I could have gotten to performance grade without having played a billion scales when I was a musical embryo. The difference between odds and scales is that sometimes I use odds during performance.



Tommy

[Mikey]

So.....the 8 did fall on the river.

Ehh....you still made the right play, i would have folded on the turn too.

[Ulysses]

And to think they thought Tommy didn't know about odds and numbers and stuff.

[SA125]

"The difference between odds and scales is that sometimes I use odds during performance."

Sometimes. Sometimes it's the numbers and sometimes it's your instinct.

Here's a question, not about this fold, but your idea on play in general.

All things being equal, if you had to pick one, which one do you pick to tip the scales for you? Numbers or instinct.


Thanks. SA125

[elysium]

hi tommy
good post. the odds are better than they appear here. the UTG....you have someone on 88 tommy. but i'm moonlight sonata here, second una corda.

do you ever do that tommy? use some of the great works by beethoven to give you easy reference on odds? i like that. you can almost pin point at which chord of C or D minor in the stanza you will be on when you first start losing audience, and what percentage of time 'everybody get up ana leave.' that's what my piano teacher used to use, an audience scale.

all the pieces would begin, 'everybody come to hear you play, ana one, ana two.' and i would play. at the end of the piece, we were graded on the number of people left in our imaginery audience of twenty. if 16 people were left, that was a B, if only 10, that was a D. and mrs. vinichi had all their names memorized, and twenty stick figurines on her notebook pad. the audience ranged in social status from cabinet ministers like lord sheffield, to CEO's mr. and mrs. rutherford; great opera tenors, actresses, waiter, chefs, rufus with the county sanitation dept., you don't like to lose him in harmonic minor; 'as bad asa he smell, he go. he say you stink!'. there was relapse joe who came for the free beer, and sometimes, at the end of a piece, i'd be hanging on for dear life in some primary chord trying not to lose uncle luey. mrs. vinichi wasn't too fond of him. 'anda you knowa what he wanta.', mrs. vinichi would say. us kids never lost uncle luey for an audience. if we totally flunked, mrs. vinichi had him arrested. 'nineteen X's ana pounda sign.',she once wrote down on my progress report.

so i listen to the music, tommy. when i see your outs in this hand, i hear moonlight sonata to the second una corda; that gives us a relapse joe held in place by the free beer, and uncle luey exposing himself with 'the noisea i poundin', giv hima the evil eyea.' tommy, i like you calling here.

[King Yao]

Tommy, I have a lot of respect for your play, having played with you numerous times a few years back. However, I think you may have miscalculated here, unless I misunderstood parts of your post. I think you had correct implied pot odds to call. Of course, maybe I made the mistake, so correct me where I'm off if you see it.

Recapping facts: you are first to act, the board is K-9-6-3 rainbow, and you have T-7, needing an 8 for the nuts. There were 6 players preflop for 1 small bet each, 6 players on the flop for 1 small bet each and 3 players on the turn for 1 big bet each. At that point, the pot is 9 big bets, with 3 players left (not counting you), you are last to act on the turn, but first to act on the river.

You have 4 cards to make your straight. There are 6 cards that you have perfect knowledge of (your two cards and the board), leaving 46 unknown cards. 42 hurt you, 4 helps you, you need 10.5-1 to have a fair value call. You need an expectation of 1.5 BB from other players in the pot when an 8 hits for you to break even.

If an 8 comes, will you have at least 1.5 Big Bets in order to make your call correct? You obviously know the players well, and have an idea of what their actions will be given an 8 hits the river...maybe you expect not to take in an average of 1.5 Big Bets on the river, but is that too conservative? I think you are likely to take in at least 2 Big Bets (a bet/call from UTG) and possibly 3 if UTG bets, one of the limpers calls, and once you checkraise, you are likely to get a caller due to the size of the pot by that time, especially if someone has two pair. Of course many things could happen on the river, if you go for a checkraise, it may get checked around. If you bet out, maybe you only get one caller, if you checkraise, maybe you actually get 4 bets in. My guesstimate 2 Big Bets on the river.

The only other possibility I can think of is that you were confident that someone had 87 thus killing off one of your outs. For someone to hold 87 would not be out of the question, but they could also easily hold hands such as KQ, KJ, KT, K9, K7, Kxs, QJ, QT, A9, Q9, J9, JT, possibly even A6 - all these hands could be easily justified by the normal LC crowd if the population of players is similiar to what it was 3 years ago.

[Dreamer]

That he advocating folding the J9s hand yet was thinking about calling this marginal hand.
From how Tommy descibed the hand I would say its a fold on multiple counts.
It looks like one player has either 7-8 or 10-8.
7-8 is death as it takes away one out and the remote out of spiking a Ten which might be top pair
10-8 also takes away top pair being out kicked.
Its marginal IF all your cards are live and nobbody has an 8.Plus they will call bets on the river
Thats a big IF, FOLD!

[mike l.]

"That he advocating folding the J9s hand yet was thinking about calling this marginal hand."

you know what? he already admitted he was wrong on that count. he just puts stuff up here like that so you will think about it, so that you will consider the fact that you dont HAVE to do anything just because numbers are bouncing around in your head saying do it. he's like jesus that way so dig it or shut up.

[Dreamer]

Yes, who needs math anyway!
Next hand.

[Analyst]

[ QUOTE ]
The curious thing is, when I perform on piano, whether on stage or in a studio, whether the music is written or improvised, I never play a scale.

[/ QUOTE ]

Sure you do. Maybe you don't play entire scales very often during performance, but you're playing fractional scales/arpeggios/chords all the time, and that's where all of the hours and years of scale practice comes in.

When sight-reading well (not too often!), I'll find myself thinking that I must've practiced Xflat minor scales at some point during childhood.

[SA125]

"he's like jesus that way so dig it or shut up."

Pass the Kool Aid please.

Just kidding. Tommy's the man. /images/graemlins/smile.gif