You do the math, or not

I'm first up for $15-30 so I take a seat in the only other game, $3-6. I'm not one of those mid-limit players that's better off not playing lower limits for lack of respect of the chip color. I can fold for any amount.


So I wasn't screwing around when I made it three-bets on the button with AQ knowing full well it would be capped (at five bets). At least five of us saw the flop of K-10-x, two clubs. I had the ace of clubs.


Let's say that at this point I decided to call any and all raises on the flop, or even whattheheck put in a raise. How bad could that play be? Of course it matters exactly how many others are in. But in these games, you know how it is, there's at least three players and maybe six going in to the turn card. On this hand I think it was five way, and yes, capped again on the flop.


The turn card was a blank. As so often happens, the tailfeathers tuck and we politely put in one bet each on the turn. The river, DING, offsuit jack. About seven total bets went in on the river, two of them mine.


My wide-view mathestimater says that preflop and on the flop I was in bounds, and that on the turn I'm still okay since I didn't have to call two cold. And that any number of turn bets, one at a time, would have been "correct."


But wait! Without the exact pot size and exact number of players in the pot, we can't determine where the line is drawn between correct and incorrect. True, and I doubt that any player has ever been in a pot like this, facing a turn bet, and been on the verge of calling, and then done the math, and found out that folding was the right play by just a touch, and then changed his mind and folded.


Tommy

The call on the turn wasn't even close to being wrong even with only 3 outs. Ok if it was going to be capped on the turn again and you only had 3 outs it wouldn't be so great.

As I'm sure you know, being able to calculate exact odds on the spot is virtually never important in hold'em (I even hear the mathemeticians here saying that from time to time).


Unless you're drawing to a case card and you know it, I'd say you can justify calling with pretty much any nut draw if you're getting 32-1.


Doesn't really require any calculus.

Your still underestimating the odds you were

getting.


Lets say 5 players called the preflop cap.

Thats 25 small bets.


On the flop your getting around 25 to 1

alone on your backdoor flush draw. Combined with the gutshot, its still a good call knowing that

most of the players will call 5 bets again on the flop.


There are 25 big bets in the pot,

you can add in 2 more big bets(minimum) on the

river, + the players who already called the turn

(lets say 3) so thats 30 to 1.


Now using the method from Abdul's site to compute

your turn odds, Outs x (Bets+1) >= Unseen Cards.


Outs x (31)>= 46.


Therefore its such an easy call with your 3-4 outer,

you could have had almost 1/3 of the action you did to make calling correct.


So you don't even have to ponder how many players were in, and like you said even if its close and mathematically is a slight fold, you should still call in these spots for other reasons.


You probably could have correctly called 3 bets cold on the turn /images/smile.gif

I suspect that everyone here would have called on the turn and known it was right to do so without doing the math, just as I did. By spending so many words on a no-brainer turn decision on a particular hand, I camouflaged the thoughts that came to mind during the hand, which are ...


Let's say the pot-odds + implied odds on the turn are exactly known and are just a smidge less than the drawing odds, thereby making the call unanimously incorrect, but not by much. It's a close decision, so close that the only way to make the right decision is to do the math at the table. I wonder how many winning players would take the time to do so, and then make their betting decision based entirely on the answer.


The majority of the time, with normal-sized pots, it's not even close. We know to draw to our flushes and not to draw to our small pocket pairs. So there again, on-the-spot math calculation doesn't come in to play, even when the

'exactly knowable' implied odds condition is granted, which it rarely is in real life.


I guess I'm still not sure where I'm going with this. Maybe I'm looking for an excuse for being so math-lazy at the table. Or maybe I'm looking to justify that laziness as energy conserved for more significant things. But then, what can be more significant than drawing odds when drawing?


Tommy

"I wonder how many winning players would take the time to do so, and then make their betting decision based entirely on the answer."


If you know the exact pot- and implied odds you're getting, then you should be able IMO to simplify the situation and able to take the correct descision with only a small fault margin. To achieve this, I myself do a lot of math on this kind of hands away from the table, and therefore get a feeling how much your odds needed will differ when a certain condition is changed.

This is very important IMO.


So in your example you dont know for sure if you have 4 or 3 outs and if you draw to a split pot. To know how this approxiamately affects your odds needed is important to know (by doing the math away from the table). If you get the feel for this, you'll also often be able to determine the right action in comparable spots.


A nice post about such problem was made by David Shaw on the small stakes forum I believe. He calculated exactly the course of action you should take with KK on a A76 flop is you know that 1 player has an A, and one has a straight draw. What odds do you need to fold, call or raise, given that a raise will get you a free card. Now I've did comparable calculations myself before he posted it, and I gave the correct answer with only a small fault margin without having the exact numbers. None of the other 5 or 6 respondents came with the correct answer. So again, I think it's important to get a feel for the math in situations like this.


You dont have to calculate it at the table; you should have done you homework ;-)


Regards

Excellent post. In reading a lot of posts over the years on this forum I've gained insight by analyzing the situations the best I can mathematically. This is especially true in a lot of the "big pot" situations that are posted. As an aside I'm really impressed with the advice posted. In this thread I think the collective advice was excellent. In HDPM's recent post about a problem hand nobody had posted so I started to formulate an answer and I said forget it because I knew that all the points I was going to make would be made in the collective reply.

but graphing bankroll vs hands..take second derivative..set equal to zero...solve for real positive answers..this will determine the max of your br as you sink into oblivion...gl

then go one step further..that's the point...gl

I think most of the time alot of people have a decent idea of what to call w/and what to fold. ANd most do not know the exact size of the pot but know enough of what is approximately correct to have a guideline of what to do.


W/o going to great detail in the hand you gave, even if you know it will be capped on the flop and there are 5 others in you will be getting about 11-1 which is enough for gutterball and backdoor nut flush draw.


(Im assuming the cap is 4bets). On the turn there are about 24 BB in the pot before any action takes palce so it would hard to not have odds for your draw... (if only 3 (including you saw the river and the turn was capped then youd be getting 32-4 which probably isn't good enough, but if 4 saw the river (and the turn was capped), youd be getting 36-4 which is slightly negative (and very negative if there is a flush against you)....

Even if the call was slightly negative (which it wasn't) I would still do it to avoid blowing a fuse if I would make my draw. Drawing at -0.5BB is better then tilting away 10 or 20 BB's...


Not that I have a tilt problem. No no, never ever...


Sincerely, Andreas

Well I keep track of the pot size by habit now so I always a an idea of what the exact odds are. needing them comes up rarely but a lot of times i'll feel more confident in my decisions when i now i'm clearly right to call or fold. sometimes it is close with 3,4, and 5 outters.

A month or so ago I made a 'good fold' and would have taken down a $900 on the river had I called (20-40 game). It seemed like a good time to take a bathroom break and get some fresh air /images/smile.gif


Rob