Making use of a good read

[knightunner]

Suppose you are in a situation heads up against an opponent with an equal stack to yours.

You hold AKo, and the flop is 3 clubs, jack high. Neither your ace or king is a club.

Your opponent checks to you, and you place a token bet, roughly 1/16 of your stack. Opponent calls.

Turn is a red king. Opponent checks, again you bet the same amount (a total of 1/8 of your stack). Opponent goes all in.

At this point, somehow, whether by telepathy, or seeing his cards, you know that he holds King x, where x is a card that hasn't paired on board. Kx also contains one, and only one, club.

Do you call?

Even with the math in front of me, I am unsure of this one. There is a 9/45 chance he will make his flush, beating you. A 1/45 chance he holds another king, again beating you. The odds that he holds an ace, forcing a split pot if the flush doesn't hit is 3/45, leaving you with a 32/45 chance of winning the hand. Does the fact that you aren't completely pot committed effect your decision?

Just wondering what others think of this.
~knight

[Cerril]

Just for simplicity we'll call your hand AdKh (any AKo no club would suffice with the same results, but for an example it helps to specify), and that there's no T on the board, so you can't beat KK with a straight (and also no 9, as explained below)

1/45 you're drawing dead, 3/45 he's on a freeroll (KcAs/Ah or KdAc; with 9 outs to take the pot and 35 to split), 41/45 he's got twelve outs assuming no possible straight draws (which means no T, no 9 on the board).

So his wins are 1/45*1 + (3/45*(9/44 + 1/2*35/44)) + 41/45*12/44 = 2.27% + 4.1% + 24.85% = 31.2% for him if he could read your cards.

That means you'll win vs. a random hand and draw nearly seven in ten, which makes it an easy call.

There's a whole lot of math there and I could very easily have made a mistake. What it comes down to though is that if you call he's got you beat less than one in ten, and will draw out less than one in four the rest of the time.

[Nottom]

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leaving you with a 32/45 chance of winning the hand. Does the fact that you aren't completely pot committed effect your decision?


[/ QUOTE ]

Why would you not call a bet when you are a better than 2-1 favorite to win the hand?

Unless you are playing with money you can't afford to lose (in which case of course you shouldn't be playing), this is an easy call.

[Louie Landale]

You say your sure his kicker is either a club or the case King? Then he has 3 more outs to beat you making you a 2945-29) or 29:16 favorite and the opponent has bet his whole stack.

WaHoo. What's not to like about that? Call his whole stack. If he didn't bet the whole thing then raise the rest of it.

If you were say a 25:20 underdog to win this hand then you can use pot-odds calculations to determine if you should call: if his all-in bet was about 5x the size of the pot you'd have a close call; if its less its an easy call.

You ARE ..err.. should be "Pot Committed" when you have the best hand.

- Louie

[knightunner]

Does the situation change early on in a tournament setting? (I should have specified this in my original post, sorry).

~knight

[Nottom]

If your read is accurate, no. You can pass up small edges early in a tourney, but this isn't a small edge.

If for example you felt there was a 75% chance he had K+club, and a 25% he had a set or made flush

Now you will win somethign like .7(.75) + 0 = 52% of the time ... thats a small edge and you should probably fold in a tourney although you might call in a cash game.

[pokerclacker]

you should be more inclined to call this early in a tourny, especialy if there's a rebuy incase you get sucked out on. having a big stack early in a tourny (when used right) can be a huge advantage.