Drawing to two pair

Let's say it's you and three other players in, you have split 10s and 4s, totally live, on fourth. You bet and are called all around. The other players are loose and not very good, from the boards you think you might be against a pair of aces, a str8 draw and a pair of eights with a three flush. On fifth, the ace bets with no apparent improvement. No one else has anything scary, but both call. No tens or fours show. Do you call or fold here (would anyone raise, if so, why?). At this point, you've seen 18 cards, so you have four out of the remaining 34 that can help you, 7.5-1 odds -- or 3.75 for two cards. Pot is giving you 11-1. Now on sixth, you still miss and the aces bet again. The str8 draw calls and caught a card that looks helpful, flush draw folds. Tens and fours still live. 13-1 from the pot, 6.5-1 on your draw. You'll win at least one and maybe three bets on river if you fill, depending on if the str8 is there and bets into you. You'll call if the ace bets, this player is capable of betting river without two pair (and without aces!) but you will fold if the str8 draw bets.

I think you clearly have value in this scenario (which happens in loose low limit games fairly often). What I think is interesting, and a key difference from he, is that because you see so many cards having the ones you need be live significantly improves your odds.

In the example above, if you've seen a four and a ten on fifth street, the card odds go to 16-1 or 8-1 in two cards and imho you really don't have value for the call.

[John Biggs]

Dear Mr. BAA (what happened to plain old Mr. B?), you must work on your math. Given four cards to help your hand out of 34 remaining, it's just a hair more than 3 to 1 against helping if you see both sixth and seventh street. Go back and read Peter Steiner again!

As for the rest of your query, I have no clue.

in general you should raise here. calling is the worst option. folding is better than calling but raising is the best play. if you think the other players are on draws you want them to fold or at least get bad odds to keep playing.

note that you are in a tough spot and may have the worst hand. if the aces bet and both called before you (i.e. your position was different) you should strongly consider folding as the best play. the situation is also different if you can knock out the eights.

against a straight draw and a pair of aces, plus another player who may have a pair of eights and a three flush, there are a lot of scenarios where you call to the end and lose. in a low ante or no ante game it is probably a sure fold with three other players and no chance of getting it heads up or of knocking out the flush draw.

Pat

Most of my stud these days is played on Paradise, in the 2-4 game with a .25 ante, $1 bring in. In that game, you WILL NOT fold players on fourth who have called one $2 bet with a raise. In a tight game with strong players, especially players who are likely to have aces and live draws, yes this would be an early fold. In a loose game, which there have been a lot of lately, I have been making the call for the small bet.

I posted mainly because it's interesting with two pair that by fifth street if you haven't seen any of your pair cards, your draw improves in a multiway pot. At that point, pot odds and card odds seem to make staying a good play.

Hence (in part) the volatility of stud. I agree that in tighter games with better players, tossing small-mid pairs on 3rd and mid-two pairs on fourth is mainly a good play. A big part of the reason for this is that your opponents are likely to all have good draws, so you have a strong field against you AND the high pair can redraw on you to a higher full house.

[Mason Malmuth]

I'm not sure where to begin. So here are some random thoughts.

On fifth, you should raise if you think one or more of your opponents will fold. That's not usually the case in this spot. However, you do have excellent odds to continue on.

Flush draws don't fold on sixth street. I'm assuming he has for to a flush.

If the straight draw's catch (on sixth) was helpful, he would probably raise. So the card may look more scary than it really is.

On the river, if the straight draw bets, you need to be very sure of your opponent, given the size of the pot, to fold.

MM