strategy question for expert

i posted this question earlier and though i appreciate everyone for answering, i didnt quite get the kind of answers i was looking for, so im posting again in a different forum


the basic idea of this question is when to raise assuming you know you will be called

lets assume im playing in a 5 handed game with loose-passive players (except myself)

to use a specific hand as an example

player 1 posts the blind (only one blind in this game)

2,3,4 calls, im on the button and raise with AKo, the blind folds, everyone else calls

(9 bets in the pot)

the flop is something like 2 7 K rainbow

2,3 check, 4 bets, i raise, 2,3 fold, 4 calls

so now im heads up with player 4 and lets assume hes holding Kx and that he doesnt have 2-pair

the outcome of the hand is irrelevant

my question is this:

should i have raised preflop when i know im against bad players who will call me anyway?

my thinking is this:

on the one hand, i think the preflop raise is bad, because then when i raise on the flop, my opponent gets 11-1 odds which is almost what he needs to chase me so its not a horrible call, whereas had i not raised preflop, he gets 8-1 odds, making his call much worse. (i realize i better player would have folded Kx both preflop and vs a raise after the flop, but were assuming bad players here)

on the other hand, i think the preflop raise is good, because im putting more money in with the probable best hand and even if i give my opponent better pot odds, my post flop raise still has a positive ev, right?


the trouble is that im not sure whether im gaining more by causing my opponents to make amistake preflop or postflop

so, which play is correct and what is a good example of properly manipulating pot odds in a limit game?

any help would be greatly appreciated

thanks

One thing to keep in mind is that the goal in poker is not really to win pots but to win money.Raising preflop with the best hand gets more of your opponents money into the pot when the advantage is with you.Sure that will inflate their odds on drawing against you later but that just serves to attract more of their money into the pot.To maximize your profits the thing to work on is being able to fold big starting hands when they fail to develop or get beaten early on.

This is actually a very complex question. Does the EV gain from preflop raises make up for the EV lost when the raise makes the opponent's postflop strategy correct? It may or may not, depending on the hands involved. One way to study the question is by the use of simplified models like the ones we sometimes contemplate on this forum. Perhaps someone can come up with one.

I, too, have thought about this issue quite a bit and have come up with the following approach:


I believe (though I can't prove, and am not particularly interested in proving) that a starting hand which loses value as the number of opponents increases is hand that you should NOT raise with preflop if you know you will get a lot of callers. The classic example hand is AK off. This hand loses value more than any other hand as the number of opponents increases (which I can prove). So a preflop raise will only justify continued multiway action after the flop on behalf of your opponents. By calling preflop, you allow yourself the opportunity to limit the field after the flop with a bet or raise into a non-threatening board and thus play the hand the way it plays best; against one or two opponents.


For hands that don't lose value against multiple opponents, like pocket Aces (which is the best hand against one or ten opponents), then a preflop raise is worthwhile simply as a value raise.


Also, for hands which gain value as the number of players increase, like 10-Js and big suited aces, a raise is worthwhile because it affords you the opportunity to draw at a nice pot with lucrative pot odds from late position if the right flop comes.


Craig H.

I think if you look at the loose game win rates of fairly tight passive players that emphasize postflop trapping instead of preflop raising you'll find that they're consistently lower than more aggressive preflop raisers. For the same reason, loose passive players tend to lose more than players that (incorrectly) play just as loose but raise before the flop more often.


Aside from the obvious problem of the loose caller being dominated before and occasionally after the flop, raising forces opponents to make checking and folding errors with the larger pot. For example, say that you open-raise in middle position with AJ and the flop comes K93R. Your only opponent has T8s in the small blind. After the flop you're only about a 3-1 favorite, so for one bet your opponent should certainly take a card off if he knew what you had. He often won't, however, because your raise created the threat of his hand being nearly dead. Further, had you not raised, he might have bet the flop trying to represent a king or a nine, correctly figuring that without a pair you'll let this small pot go. So even when you have the best hand after the flop, the raise often sets up a coup.


A similar effect happens when you're against a field of tenacious types that won't give up until the last card. If you're in position and they'll tend to check to you, they'll make an awful collective mistake of letting you draw to a gutshot or top pair for "free." Refusing to exploit this by ignoring opponent tendencies and blindly firing at a missed flop is probably the biggest mistake preflop raisers make, not the raise itself.

"This hand [AKo] loses value more than any other hand as the number of opponents increases (which I can prove)."


You are saying that if I play AKo against one opponent, I shoud expect to win more money per hand than when I play it against two.


I'm pretty sure this is incorrect. How would you go about proving it?

"This hand [AKo] loses value more than any other hand as the number of opponents increases (which I can prove)."

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I'm pretty sure this is incorrect.

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So am I ! In fact it is.

No... perhaps my use of the word "value" was inaccurate. What I mean is that the relative rank of AKo compared with other starting hands changes more dramatically as you add opponents than any other starting hand. Against 10 opponents, there are more than 20 hands which stand to do better than AKoff. This information is published in several charts, but all you have to do is run a simulation on Pokerprobe or other software using AKo against different numbers of opponents.


The reason why its "value" changes so much is because it is such a powerful heads-up hand but has such little value as a drawing hand against several opponents.


Craig H

Right, it's easy to mix up the dollar value of a hand in a given situation and the frequency with which it wins in that situation, as well as it's win frequency in a cold simulation where every hand sees the river and more realistic scenarios. Also, even though additional opponents might add value to a hand in terms of its dollar win rate, the incremental gain might be tiny, and come at a cost of unwanted risk (higher std), which most players tend to value.


BTW, HPFAP claims that AK/AQ and AA-QQ "lose value as the pot becomes more multiway." This statement has been much-criticized. Risk factors aside, I don't think this is correct with AA/KK but there's a point where it becomes true with AK/QQ, although it probably varies depending on your position and the nature of the field. Even then, AKo, QQ and probably AQo increase in dollar-per-hand value in a loose game with at least one additional opponent before additional opponents begin to cut down their margins, so it's not a linear relationship.


Bottom line: unless the particular situation allows you to win more through deceptive slowplaying, always raise with AK and AA-JJ, and almost always -- virtually always -- raise with AQ and TT, regardless of how many players you expect to call.