Bob Ciaffone's April Quiz

Here are two scenarios from Ciaffone's April quiz in Pokerpages that you may want to comment on.


Situation No. 1


You have AhKh in the small blind. A "professional" under the gun raises. Everyone folds. What do you do?


Situation No. 2


You have pocket jacks in the cut-off. UTG folds. The next guy raises. Next chap folds. Next one coldcalls. A couple more fold. Your turn. What do you do?

I remember this quiz and the answers, but here is what I would do anyway.

1. Call the raise and any reraise by the big blind. If no A or K or flush draw on flop I fold, otherwise I bet and reraise if raised.

2. I call. If no cards higher than 10 hit the flop I play one raise and call a reraise. Call down unless A,K or J hit the board. If J then obvious raise.

1. I would usually call, sometimes raise. When out of position with this hand, against a good player who is likely to have a good hand, you are more likely to need to hit a pair or better to win. For this reason, a hand like AKs shouldn't be too worried about letting the BB in for cheap. You also gain a good deal of deception. If the pro happens to have AQ or AJ, you will get paid off much better if you didn't reraise preflop.


2. Again I would vary my play, but lean more towards reraising. I don't want the button to call, unless he's a complete moron or otherwise likely to call with two cards both smaller than jacks.

I haven't read the quiz but here's my take.


1. With AKs tend to just call as it sets up a play on a more profitable round (like check-calling the turn and betting the river). IMO, a professional will tend toward early open-raises with pocket pairs and tend to dump the hands I dominate, which means I'm looking toward hitting the board and then raping him, instead of pushing hard until the end. I also don't have much in the way of multiway action and am strong enought to not mind if the big blind calls. If he tends to raise more liberally here and limp with big pairs I'd probably reraise.


2. 3-bet with JJ to drive out the button/blind overcards and buy the button.

Situation #1 - call


Situation #2 - raise

call (reraise sometimes)


reraise most of the time.


hate situation 1.

Situation 1: If by "pro", we mean someone with the usual HPFAP UTG raising standards, he has AK-Q (12 ways), AK-Js (9 ways * 66%), KQs (3 ways * 66%), AA-QQ (12 ways), JTs-87s (16 ways * 33%), JJ (6 ways * 50%), TT-77 (24 ways * 33%). This boils down to 6 ways (12%) you are dominated badly, 25 ways (52%) you are about even money (tied or overcards vs. pair), and 17.3 ways (36%) you are dominating him (outkicking or overcards vs. undercards). Since your initial pot odds are 3.5:1.5 and your starting hand is usually better or equal to UTG, but UTG will have position to outplay you with, I'm going to call this a coin flip for which of us is favored to win. I'm not going to worry about the BB much, since I can probably get him out on the flop the roughly 80% of the time he flops less than top pair by check raising UTG, should I so desire. So, I would usually just call and see what the flop brings before getting too crazy.


Situation 2: The cold caller probably doesn't have AA-QQ, so I'm usually going to reraise and hope to knock out the button/blinds and make this a 3 way pot. I would dearly love to act last on this hand, so I can see what my opponents do when an overcard flops after my show of great strength preflop. If the button/blinds are loose enough that I expect at least one caller from among them when I reraise, I would instead just call preflop and hope to flop a set cheaply against 4 opponents.

In hand 1, by just calling you can represent more hands on the flop. The danger is giving the BB a cheap call, but your hand is strong enough to handle the pressure. I bet the flop regardless (I may check if an A/K falls).


In hand 2 you can't afford to flat call. The big pot may well entice the button and blinds in. If you are behind, at least you have position.

He suggests folding Ak (suited or not) in the sb when the professional player raises UTG.


He also suggests folding the JJ in the other situation.


Maybe someone who knows Bob (like Jim Brier...btw, where has he been lately) can have the Coach explain his thinking on these two hands. Obviously, I strongly disagree.

1. Raise

2. Call


natedogg

Comrade Dogg,


This is not a laughing matter. The Party must show a unified front to the public. We are the Vanguard.


#1 - I call because pro plays good and will not lay down a better hand than mine after the flop.


#2 - I raise to hopefully keep it 3 way action. JJ is an OK hand in 3 way pot.


If button calls 3 bets I'm ok if sb and bb also call. not an unheard of scenario in these parts. If just one other person calls three bets cold then I begin to cower like a whipped puppy dog.

I know I'm showing my weak/tightness again, but I can think of one or two very tight players who I'd fold AK (suited or not) with position, so I'd certainly toss it in the sb. I know this sounds silly, since this is limit hold'em we're talking about... But against players who only raise with the big 3 pairs and AK, I don't see much of a reason to get involved.


I realize few if any players play this predictably... But in Ciaffone's example he specifies "professional" which I'll take to mean "expert" (professional doesn't bother me nearly as much as expert :>)). Now, even if he'll sometimes raise with TT,99,98s or AQ, I find the rarity along with his expert status, means that I still don't see any big deal in folding.


JJ is a little different for me, since I'd consider myself to have positional value along with a playable hand for two bets. I'm guessing Ciaffone's main problem is the cold caller, although neither you nor he specified his criteria for calling a raise cold. I'd still play JJ even if he were reasonably tight and again this would be due to my position along with the possibility of having the best hand. You think I lose $$ with all this fretting?

I can also see problems if this cold caller were a very aggressive in the JJ example. The kind of player who would call this raise with hands like AJs, ATs, KQs, etc. and then raise the flop with overcards. Or play an overpair of TT very aggressively. This factor alone might present enough problems for JJ to make folding pre-flop very close.

With just the information given in these senarios I would likely threebet in both instances, I certainly wouldn't dream of folding.


I can't imagine Bob plays this tight, whenever he would call or threebet you'd know he has the nuts and you would just fold unless you hit your hand.


If the players were described as super tight rocks then it would be a different story, but describing someone as a "professional" means to me that there raising standards might be quite loose compared to a rock.


Shawn Keller

I haven't read all the posts in this thread, but let me state the following. You can always construct examples where playing extremely tight can be the correct play. But you have to ask yourself how realistic these examples are? In my experience, most professional players are a little too loose and aggressive in early position, so you should virtually never fold AKs no matter what your position. However, if you were against a person who played excruciatingly tight up front, especially if he raises, will never make a funny play, but then plays extremely well from the flop on, this fold might become marginally correct if no one else was in. However, I know of virtually no players like this, and this includes top hold 'em professionals.


I have just posted a review of Championship Hold 'em by McEvoy and Cloutier on our Books/Software forum. This book suffers from the same type of problem. If you play hold 'em and are always overly concerned about a better hand being out unless you hold the nuts, you should only be able to win against very weak competition. You will let too many free cards drop off, miss profitable betting opportunities, fail to knock other players out when it is correct to do so, and will simply fold too many hands that can be played for profit (and sometimes these folds will prove to be very expensive if made late in the hand).

I agree that against certain opponents, I will fold AK to a raise. I know one player in my home game who would be insulted if you called him a rock(b/c a rock is too loose) when he's even or ahead. I fold anything less than KK when he raises and I'm not get proper odds to hit a set. I used to get frisky w/ QQ and AK, but it only about 1 session to realize he ONLY raises AA or KK in holdem. A friend of mine and I started a joke that the worst spot to be in was holding QQ when this guy raised.


However, I don't think any 'pro' players suffer from this, so I doubt folding AK is the best play against them.

I'll even go one step further. You put this guy in a middle limit hold 'em game in a casino cardroom and I doubt if he would win at all. Part of the reason for this is that I would expect his extremely weak/tight play to carry over to the later streets.

.. that he's a NL/PLHE player, where the most important thing IS worrying about a better hand than your's being out.


Tom McEvoy has yea problems, but being overly experienced at NL/PL ain't among them. Nice guy, though.

You may be getting a visit from the Ministry of Truth sometime soon. I agree with you about the unified front, but the radicals in the party have put forth the compelling argument as follows:


1. Raise because you want it heads up. AK could very easily hold up unimproved vs. this player. If you both catch a pair, he's probably going to get trapped for a lot of bets. You on the other hand, cannot be trapped by catching a pair. Folding KJ is reasonable here. Not raising AK is not reasonable.


2. I'm conflicted on this one. You're probably right. Raise. Thank you comrad.


natedogg

"Now, even if he'll sometimes raise with TT,99,98s or AQ, I find the rarity along with his expert status, means that I still don't see any big deal in folding."


But you will also then fold TT,99, AQ and the like when he raises with AK. This guy has the best of both worlds against you: When he has AK/ AQ, you fold your medium pairs. When he has the medium pairs, you fold your AK/AQ.


Now, you too are a solid player. Your calling of his raise from the sb no less should worry him more than his UTG raise should worry you.


I acknowledge that I am overstating the above to make a point... nevertheless...

But being weak-tight isn't good NLH/PLH play either. So I don't entirely buy that explaination.