40-80 hand
 

6 handed B&M game. I'm in the big blind with Q-9 not suited.

P1 opens for a raise. Two players call and I call.

Flop: Qh-6s-5s.

I check, P1 bets, fold, button calls and I call.

P1 is normally a very straight forward, by the book player. Except that I feel he has opened up too much for playing 6 handed. Button is relatively unknown to me. I know he plays lots of high limit poker on the Internet. I don't feel he's contributing any money to the game.

Turn: Qh-6s-5s (4c)

I check; P1 bets and Button calls.

What's my play? Any issues with previous streets?

Re: 40-80 hand
 

if the button had folded, i wouldnt mind the flop "just call," but w/ him in there i think you absolutely must raise the flop w/ TP.

as played, i raise turn unless MP is v solid and straightforward... then you might be able to let it go cheap.

Re: 40-80 hand
 

fold preflop. since you played it you might as well c/r the turn.

Re: 40-80 hand
 

"Any issues with previous streets?"

Bet the flop. After that your on easy streets.

Re: 40-80 hand
 

[ QUOTE ]
fold preflop. since you played it you might as well c/r the turn.

[/ QUOTE ]

Folding has an expectation of -.5 bb/hand. There is no way calling has this same negative expectation. It's very hard to wrap your mind around it unless you have looked at these things in a database, but having an expectation of -.5bb/hand is very, very difficult. Especially if you play well postflop.
-James

Re: 40-80 hand
 

id probly donk the flop and play it from there, the way you played it, i dont really like the spot im in on the turn, i guess raise, maybe call and bet the river

James
 

Thats definitely a huge #...could u tell us how far down your range goes in this spot from the BB pre-flop?

Re: 40-80 hand
 

i had to email tommy because i dont know how else to repsond to your post. i have started rampantly folding the blind this year. and what i told him in my email is "i cant compromise what james says with my results this last half year since i started becoming a huge blind folding advocate."

Re: 40-80 hand
 

Getting 7-1, you need 14% equity pre-flop 4 way in the BB to make this an easy call. Q9o is there. There are two things about this spot that are significant.

One is the scope of rationalizing equity and hand values is maginified immensely bewteen online and live. DB's and experience/recall are two every different things.

Second is the unquantifiable value in how a good player can play a marginal hand by winning the most and losing the least.

If you can't do the second thing, the EV and all that stuff about the first thing are meaningless. You must be able to get away from hands like Q9o, that have pre-flop value, when the only value they have for you at the moment is a possibly/probably less than good TPBK.

Re: 40-80 hand
 

James, do you know of anyway to look at pokertracker to see the expectation of calling an utg raise (6 handed) with a hand like Q9o in a 3 handed pot? Obviously you'd probably need millions of hands to get any idea. I know not many hands have an expectation of less than -.5 overall. However, it wouldn't surprise me at all to see that many do in this specific spot. That said, I think the call is fine but I think you may be oversimplifying it a bit. Indeed, it is definitely possible (likely) that you can quantitatively assess EV more accurately than I can in spots like this.