No-Limit Holdem quiz

[M.B.E.]

Suppose you’re one of seven players left in a winner-take-all NLHE satellite. Your stack is T1000, below average, with blinds 15/30. You are in the cutoff and open-raise to T100. The button (who has you covered) reraises to T300, and the blinds fold. The question is whether to fold, call, or reraise in each of the two scenarios set out below. In both scenarios you have some information about your opponent’s holding (based on a very reliable tell). You also know that (a) if you reraise all-in preflop your opponent will call, and (b) if you just smoothcall preflop your opponent is unlikely to make a FTOP-mistake on the flop—in other words, if your opponent flops the best hand he will likely get his chips in the middle, but if you flop the best hand he will likely not pay you off.

Scenario A: You have KQs and you put your opponent on a pocket pair from 55 to JJ inclusive.

Scenario B: You have 99 and you put your opponent on suited broadway cards.

In each scenario, what is your play after your opponent reraises to T300, and why?

[Guy McSucker]

Excellent question.

I think I fold the 99 and call with the KQs. Here's why.

In either case, if I push all-in, it's essentially 50-50 as to who wins. The amount of dead money in the pot is not enough to make this an edge worth playing for, so I don't want to do that.

However, I know that if I am ahead after the flop, I get to win what's in the pot with a bet. Therefore the question is whether I have pot odds right now to take the flop and get ahead, and know that I am ahead, so I can take it down with a bet.

With 99: I am getting 2-1 pot odds, and will be the favourite any time my opponent does not pair his cards or flop a flush draw. Trouble is, I don't know the values or suit of his cards. If I know he has KQ of spades, for example, then I think I will get a flop to my liking (no K, no Q, no more than one spade) just over half the time, so I could call, getting 2-1 on a 50-50 shot. But with the information I have, the only flop I can like is a rainboow one with no overcards, which are few and far between. I do not like my chances of catching a flop I like, so I fold.

With KQs: same game, but here I am looking to hit a K or Q, or flop a draw. Any of these will make me a favourite, as long as my opponent does not hit his set. I will hit such a flop almost half the time (rough calculation in my head, could be way off), and my opponent will only hit his set twice in 17 attempts, so my odds of getting a good flop are better than 2-1.

In this case, when I catch a pair or flush draw, I have to take my chances that the opponent has a set. The set is sufficiently unlikely that I am prepared to do that; this is what sets this case apart from the other, where the opponent's hitting a pair happens 1/3 of the time, and I have to fear all overcards, which will flop a very large amount of the time.

Guy.

[TheGrifter]

Scenario A: Cold call. Push in on any flop that contains a Queen/King/Ace. If he won't pay off my top pair he will fold if an Ace flops as well.

Scenario B: Fold. I don't mind getting my cards in on a coin flip if there is also some possiblity that my opponent will fold, but with only 10% of my stack involved here, I fold.

[Bozeman]

KQs: allin

99: call, bet ~200 on the flop, unless there are lots of overcards

Craig

[Al_Capone_Junior]

in scenario 1, where I have KQ and I know he has a pair JJ or lower, I flat call his raise preflop. If an ace, king, or queen comes, I go all-in.

in scenario 2, where I have 99 and I put him on two broadway cards, I push it all-in. It's a gamble, yes, but it's winner take all, and you need to get some chips. So there's little reason to play it safe at this point. There are too many flops that will miss him, but still force me to fold anyway. Therefore I'd rather take the indecision out of the hand and push it in now.

al

[Che]

A: Fold.

If you push and he calls, the T45 from the blinds makes it virtually 0 EV. No reason to risk your whole stack for that.

If you call, you win the pot when you flop a pair (and he misses his set). If this was the only way you could win, you would fold since you don't hit a pair on the flop (without him hitting a set) often enough to justify the basically 2:1 call.

However, if you flop a flush-draw/overcards combo, all the money goes in since you and your opponent are getting 2:1 for it and you're only a slight favorite. This offsets the negative expectation of the flopped-pair alone, but not by enough to justify the variance IMHO. At least that's what my guess is since I'm not actually sure how often you flop an overcards/flush-draw in this case. I just assume it's not very often (<8%?).

B: Push in. You're the favorite and you're getting better than even money thanks to the blinds contribution.

[dsw1977]

Assuming stacks started at T1000 (or T1500), it seems that you're not a short enough stack (even in a winner-take-all tourney) to want to (a) push your chips in when you know it is 50-50 and there will still be 6 players left or (b) throw another 20+% of your stack when it is unlikely you'll get paid off anything additional if you hit the flop. Unless I'm entirely outclassed at this table, I dump both hands and wait for a better opportunity with T900. But I'm a newbie.

[M.B.E.]

[ QUOTE ]
A: Fold.

If you push and he calls, the T45 from the blinds makes it virtually 0 EV. No reason to risk your whole stack for that.

[/ QUOTE ]
You're overlooking something here. It costs you 900 more to move in, and your opponent will call so you'd be getting pot odds of 1145:900, or 56:44.

That's pretty good considering that your hand is almost even money running hot and cold. At worst your opponent is a 53.5:46.5 favourite, but if his pair is 88/77/66/55, he's only a 51:49 favourite. The odds the pot is laying you are too good to pass up (despite the risk of losing your 900 stack). Folding would be an error.

Look at it another way: consider your overall Chip-EV for the hand, taking account of the 100 you've already put in the pot. If you fold, your CEV for the hand is -100. If you move in, you'll have a 48% chance of winning 1045 and a 52% chance of losing 1000, for a CEV of -18.4. Even though moving in gives you overall negative CEV for the hand, it's still better than folding by a wide margin (81.6 chips to be exact). It is a winner-take-all tourney, so "survival" per se is not an important consideration.

So folding is wrong; the question then is whether to move in or call. (Incidentally, you can show that folding is wrong in Scenario B too by the same reasoning.)

When I originally crafted this quiz, I intended that the correct answer would be to reraise in scenario A and smoothcall in scenario B. I still think that's correct but it's closer than I thought and I have to think some more about the solutions to scenario A posed by The Grifter and Al Capone Junior. One thing to keep in mind is that with KdQd if we flop a flush draw or openended straight draw we are a favourite over a pocket pair less than queens (unless it flopped a set of course). We have either 14 or 15 outs, with two chances to hit. Using that information we can improve somewhat on their suggested strategy of smoothcalling preflop, then betting any flop with an ace, king, or queen. We'd be looking for a strategy that gives us an overall CEV for the hand greater than -18.4, the CEV of moving in preflop.

[TheGrifter]

Maybe this is just me, but I have no problem putting my money in knowing I'm a coin flip to win IF my opponent is capable of folding. If I KNOW my opponent will call (In a tourney, not a cash game) I want to be pretty certain I'm a favorite....anyone else see this differently?

[PrayingMantis]

As I understand it, winner-takes-all NL tournies should be played essentially like NL ring games, i.e. CEV=$EV. It is even more so if it's early, like it seems to be in this quiz, and there are no specified ability differences between the opponents.

If so, in what way should the fact that it's a NL satellite, and not a NL ring game, change my decision here?