Never Called Down With King High Before
 

This seemed like a good spot to do so. Villain is 90.63/8.33/1.55 over 100 hands. I've seen him make all kinds of crazy multistreet bluffs and raises.

Its 4 handed and I open raise from Button with K[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img]Q[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img]. Villain calls from the SB and BB folds.

Flop is 878 with two [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]s. Villain bets, I call.

Turn is 4[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img]. Villain bets, I call.

River is the 4[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img]. Villain bets, I call.

Its okay right?

Re: Never Called Down With King High Before
 

I don't like it. He might be loose, but he is passive. I can't think of anything that you beat. Fold the turn

Re: Never Called Down With King High Before
 

90% VPIP with an AF of 1.55 is mighty aggressive.

You played it perfectly.

Re: Never Called Down With King High Before
 

Why is it aggressive?
And how often do you win against this kind of opponent with K-high? Close to never propably?

Re: Never Called Down With King High Before
 

[ QUOTE ]
Why is it aggressive?
And how often do you win against this kind of opponent with K-high? Close to never propably?

[/ QUOTE ]

Because he is seeing 90 % of the hands and then doing more betting and raising post flop than checking and calling.

He's gonna miss nearly all the time so he is often betting/raising with nothing or very little.

I think this calldown is fine in this spot 4 handed.

Re: Never Called Down With King High Before
 

[ QUOTE ]
Why is it aggressive?
And how often do you win against this kind of opponent with K-high? Close to never propably?

[/ QUOTE ]

If villain is playing 90% of his hands and his postflop bet/call ratio is 3:2, he's betting lots and lots of hands postflop. I wouldn't be surprised to see JT, T9, J9, T6, [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img], or even some random holding like J2.

Re: Never Called Down With King High Before
 

[ QUOTE ]
He might be loose, but he is passive.

[/ QUOTE ]

As VPIP goes up, a smaller AG number means he is much more agressive than usual. I this case, villain is really agressive. I don't know exactly how the numbers work, but even an AG of 1 with a 90 VPIP is pretty damn agressive.

Re: Never Called Down With King High Before
 

I don't like calling this down, but maybe you had to be there to appreciate it. Feel the force. Rock on.

Re: Never Called Down With King High Before
 

[ QUOTE ]
I don't like calling this down, but maybe you had to be there to appreciate it. Feel the force. Rock on.

[/ QUOTE ]

Would you have folded on the river or before?

Re: Never Called Down With King High Before
 

I like it, toss.

Re: Never Called Down With King High Before
 

I do this.

I don't enjoy much about poker these days, but successfully picking off bluffs with K-high is one of the small joys that keeps me going.

Re: Never Called Down With King High Before
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
He might be loose, but he is passive.

[/ QUOTE ]

As VPIP goes up, a smaller AG number means he is much more agressive than usual. I this case, villain is really agressive. I don't know exactly how the numbers work, but even an AG of 1 with a 90 VPIP is pretty damn agressive.

[/ QUOTE ]

Think of it this way. This guy is playing at least three times as many hands as you do. Now, you also have to take into account his WtSD (if he folds a lot post flop, then the following doesn't work), but his aggression is implying that he bets and raises with just a little less than the frequency you do relative to the number of calls he makes. Given how much he has to be calling (with an appreciable WtSD), and that those hands are almost certainly the trashiest of the trash, he's got to be betting all sorts of crap. This guy is a borderline maniac.

Re: Never Called Down With King High Before
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I don't like calling this down, but maybe you had to be there to appreciate it. Feel the force. Rock on.

[/ QUOTE ]Would you have folded on the river or before?

[/ QUOTE ]
Hi Aaron,
Generally against most opponents I'd fold the flop. Against this guy, maybe I'd take a peek at the turn. The 4 that came looks pretty harmless, and the river pairing the 4 means the chances Villian made a hand are lower, so I can see some reason to continue. It looks like a toss of the coin for toss. Sometimes these guys have hands and sometimes they don't.

I'd have to have been at the table for a while and had a feel for what I thought Villian might do. For example, if he hadn't been caught bluffing in a while, I might figure he was due to try another one. If I'd just caught him in the last orbit or two, I might figure he wouldn't try one again so soon against me.

Re: Never Called Down With King High Before
 

It's not great but possibly through peer-pressure of previous posts, it does look like a bluff. Hands like J9 with a gutshot or an OESD bet the flop and turn, and then bet the river knowing they can't win any other way. Nothing feels better in poker when you're right about these things, so the pyschological value > BB's.
Plus, <u>we</u> all know you are not at risk of making this a habit, but your table might not have...

Re: Never Called Down With King High Before
 

I really don't get this. Perhaps those that are showing their support could offer explanations as well.

I can only imagine that the argument relates to this being a way to get a decent number of bets in the center.

I certainly don't think it's the best approach. The guy is willing to jam with air. Awesome. Let's go.

I think the best line is to raise flop. Previous play at the table would determine whether I'd cap or not. If he only calls your flop bet and donks turn, I raise.

Secondly, I'd don't know what your other opponents are like, but this is not so hot for your image. I'm trying to think of how I would react if I witnessed this. I'd peg you as weak. I'd probably call you a little girl (please don't take offense, I'm trying to be honest and constructive). I would then look for opportunities to stick you in between the maniac and myself, fattening my pots and making you fold winners.

In sum, I think you're costing yourself money in this hand and subsequent ones with this line. Also, competition is quite a motivational factor for me, and I fail to see how you can take any satisfaction in calling down each street. And I also think that if his inferior holding should hit while taking this line, it would be to your psychological detriment.

On the other hand, jamming this joint and being right solidifies your confidence and will make your other opponents shudder. They will not want to mess with you, and they will fear getting involved with you and him. And now, if they do, you know they have some serious goods.

Re: Never Called Down With King High Before
 

Given the my past observations and play with villain I'm satisfied with calling down here. With QJ I'd probably have to fold the flop. I'll never reveal the results [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img].

Re: Never Called Down With King High Before
 

I'd call this guy down with QJ and even some worse holdings without thinking twice about it. QJ has showdown value against a 90% VPIP guy

Re: Never Called Down With King High Before
 

[ QUOTE ]
Also, competition is quite a motivational factor for me, and I fail to see how you can take any satisfaction in calling down each street.

[/ QUOTE ]

Are you one of those guys that thinks Tai Chi is for pussies?

/mc

Re: Never Called Down With King High Before
 

[ QUOTE ]
Secondly, I'd don't know what your other opponents are like, but this is not so hot for your image. I'm trying to think of how I would react if I witnessed this. I'd peg you as weak. I'd probably call you a little girl (please don't take offense, I'm trying to be honest and constructive). I would then look for opportunities to stick you in between the maniac and myself, fattening my pots and making you fold winners.


[/ QUOTE ]

What would your weakest hand be if you were to do this? Don't forget, the other guy is going to showdown regardless so you have to beat him firstly. Plus it sounds like you wouldn't go too far if the flop didn't fit so you would be folding some of your hands. Plus you also have to beat me who may or may not have a decent hand. It's a tough job for you imo. Best bet is to grab my seat when I get disconnected. [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

Re: Never Called Down With King High Before
 

[ QUOTE ]
Also, competition is quite a motivational factor for me, and I fail to see how you can take any satisfaction in calling down each street.

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"I made the poor fool put a bunch of money in the pot with the worst hand! And I only have KING-HIGH!" That's pretty satisfying.

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And I also think that if his inferior holding should hit while taking this line, it would be to your psychological detriment.

[/ QUOTE ]

In layman's terms, "You might go on tilt if he draws out on you." That would be true of *ANY* hand, so I don't know why this one is special.

[ QUOTE ]
On the other hand, jamming this joint and being right solidifies your confidence and will make your other opponents shudder. They will not want to mess with you, and they will fear getting involved with you and him. And now, if they do, you know they have some serious goods.

[/ QUOTE ]

I have no idea where you got the notion that beating villains over the head with K-high "solidifies your confidence". I'd much rather "make money".

Re: Never Called Down With King High Before
 

I can honestly say that I've never envisioned Tai Chi while playing poker.

Have you seen the movie Hero?

Most scenes in the film resonate, especially the one where the nameless warrior fights Broken Sword.

I'm still trying to construct the analogy of calligraphy:swordplay::_______:poker, which is in some ways relevant to your question.

Re: Never Called Down With King High Before
 

[ QUOTE ]

I can only imagine that the argument relates to this being a way to get a decent number of bets in the center.

I certainly don't think it's the best approach. The guy is willing to jam with air. Awesome. Let's go.

[/ QUOTE ]

[img]/images/graemlins/confused.gif[/img]

[ QUOTE ]

I think the best line is to raise flop. Previous play at the table would determine whether I'd cap or not. If he only calls your flop bet and donks turn, I raise.


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Only thing that makes sense in your post is what you just said. Are you trying to say he should be raising more or folding more in this sort of situation?

[ QUOTE ]

Secondly, I'd don't know what your other opponents are like, but this is not so hot for your image. I'm trying to think of how I would react if I witnessed this. I'd peg you as weak. I'd probably call you a little girl (please don't take offense, I'm trying to be honest and constructive). I would then look for opportunities to stick you in between the maniac and myself, fattening my pots and making you fold winners.


[/ QUOTE ]

How is calling down a crazy player going to encourage people to take more shots at you? If anything, they'll try and run over you less. Encouraging others to show less aggression toward you in a shorthanded game is a great thing, especially if you're only playing passively against this player and not the rest of the folks at the table.

[ QUOTE ]

In sum, I think you're costing yourself money in this hand and subsequent ones with this line. Also, competition is quite a motivational factor for me, and I fail to see how you can take any satisfaction in calling down each street. And I also think that if his inferior holding should hit while taking this line, it would be to your psychological detriment.

[/ QUOTE ]

We're playing against a maniac. When you have medium hands against a maniac, you call him down after finding out where you're at. You don't raise unless your hand has a bit more showdown value because maniacs make their money by playing awful hands and monsters the exact same way, inspiring otherwise good players to get overinvolved in gigantic pots with hands they would never have called with in the first place against halfway decent players.

[ QUOTE ]

On the other hand, jamming this joint and being right solidifies your confidence and will make your other opponents shudder. They will not want to mess with you, and they will fear getting involved with you and him. And now, if they do, you know they have some serious goods.

[/ QUOTE ]

While I agree that being aggressive is a nice attribute in shorthanded, you don't take down a maniac by outagressing him, especially not on the turn and the river. You do it by picking your battles, or when your hand deserves it, calling down.

With king high decent kicker, I'm calling down lots of flops vs. this maniac unless something on the turn falls like 3 to a straight, etc. This hand was well played by Toss and I like it lots.

Re: Never Called Down With King High Before
 

KQ is the best hand here an overwhelming majority of the time.

If you choose to neglect this, that is fine with me. If you decide not to raise when your opponent has a worse hand and will call, so be it. Continue to look at your cards in a vacuum. It suits me well. Leaving money in the hands of the maniac means more for me.

Given that you do not appear to push your edges consistently, of course you do not understand how foregoing them can create an adverse subconscious condition.

The fact that you chose the words "go on tilt" and "if he draws out of you" portray both of my points.

Re: Never Called Down With King High Before
 

noir,

if you wrote in the king's english instead of translated samurai, it might help get your points across better. I feel I finally understand what you're saying, and I actually agree with some of it now, heh.

Re: Never Called Down With King High Before
 

I think the call-down is okay.
The number of times he shows UI 93o will be very high.

Calling-down is especially strong if you've laid down a few times to his aggression the past few hands...thus he's just trying to 'bluff you out' of every pot....this is how many hyper-aggressive fish think....and, in fact, many actually DO think, just badly.

On some of the AK call-downs I've made on boards like this I've been shown 32o or something similar.
In fact, even calling-down with middle-pair or something in the face of aggression I've been shown MUCH weaker than a busted-draw before. It happens.

If they think they can push you out they'll try it.



There are negatives however:
1. it's not THAT much +EV on this particular hand. There are certainly better spots where you can win more money against this guy.

2. successfully calling him down when he's showing a worse hand can have the dangerous effect of actually SLOWING HIM DOWN and getting him to play more correctly (particularly post-flop). I've seen this happen several times when I've made decent call-downs with 22 and unimproved AK or something.
He will try to bluff at you less often...although you can look at the positive side of this (that he will get out of the way to your aggression when you are only on a draw or something) I typically prefer for loose-ag players to keep on playing as loosely and aggressively as possible.



Overall I think it's a decent call-down...but I'm less and less sure about some of the meta-game ramifications these days.

Re: Never Called Down With King High Before
 

[ QUOTE ]

calligraphy:swordplay::_______:poker

[/ QUOTE ]

"posting on internet message boards"?

Also, I agree with Happydaz that you talk funny.

/mc

Re: Never Called Down With King High Before
 

My writing is a sketch of my mind's mirror of the game. Dig?

It is meant to be instructive for both myself and those that care to digest it.

I happily will elucidate when possible if there is genuine interest.

We're all on a path. I don't know where you are. I don't know where I am. I don't know what you've seen along the way. I don't know what I've missed. I do know that the path isn't a straight line; it appears to loop.

Re: Never Called Down With King High Before
 

[ QUOTE ]
KQ is the best hand here an overwhelming majority of the time.

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't dispute this at all. Being ahead on the flop and being ahead at the showdown are very very different (this is very close to a showdown hand since villain is so loose and aggressive). You also need to consider the consequences of the raise. Is it still the best hand an overwhelming majority of the time when you raise and...

- Villain 3-bets the flop
- Villain calls the flop raise and check-raises the turn
- Villain calls the flop and donks the turn

More importantly, DO YOU WIN MORE MONEY in these cases (especially if villain was on a pure donk bluff and might fold to your raise)?

I don't claim to be the best poster nor the best player on this board. Being a much-less-than-part-time player, I know I have gaping holes in both my knowledge and experience. I've been hanging around this board for about 4 years now and it's starting to seem that there's no end to the escalation of aggression. In some places, it looks good. In other places, I have my doubts.

The Hyper-LAG vs Hyper-LAG game is very elastic (in the economics sense - small chances in the parameters causes large changes in outcome). Let's quantify the situation. Preflop pot: 5 SB.

Calling Down: We'll say hero wins CD% of the time when he Calls Down. Then we have

EV(CD) = 10*(CD%) - 5*(1 - CD%) = 15*(CD%) - 5

Raising the flop: The calculation becomes very complicated, but the idea is simple. Sometimes villain folds to the raise. Sometimes he 3-bets. Sometimes he peels the flop and folds the turn. Sometimes he goes nuts to the end. Rather than set up an equation with six or seven variables, we'll make a simplifying assumption that villain folds somewhere VF percent of the time. How much extra does hero win when villain folds (obviously the worst hand)? I'll say villain invests an average of 3 extra SB when he folds (1 SB when he calls and check-folds; 4 SB when he 3-bets the flop and bet-folds the turn). We can play with this number later. We'll also say that Hero wins RTF% of the time when he Raises The Flop and goes to showdown. We'll say that both hero and villain put in 8 SB postflop (cap flop, call turn, call river).

EV(RTF, VF) = (1 - VF%)*(13*(RTF%) - 8*(1 - RTF%)) + 8*(VF%) = 21*(RTF%) + 16(VF%) - 21(RTF%)*(VF%) - 8

Now all we need to do is compute the EVs for various ranges of percents and see what happens:

CD | EV(CD) = 15*(CD%) - 5
100%| 10
90% | 8.5
80% | 7
70% | 5.5
60% | 4
50% | 2.5
40% | 1
30% | -0.5
20% | -2
10% | -3.5
0% | -5

For the two variable system of raising the flop (RTF vertical, VF horizontal) -- Sorry that it's not perfectly aligned --

--- | 0% | 10% | 20% | 30% | 40% | 50% | 60% | 70% | 80% | 90% | 100%
100%| 13.0 | 12.5 | 12.0 | 11.5 | 11.0 | 10.5 | 10.0 | 9.5 | 9.0 | 8.5 | 8
90% | 10.9 | 10.6 | 10.3 | 10.0 | 9.7 | 9.5 | 9.1 | 8.9 | 8.6 | 8.2 | 8
80% | 8.8 | 8.7 | 8.6 | 8.5 | 8.4 | 8.4 | 8.3 | 8.2 | 8.1 | 8.1 | 8
70% | 6.7 | 6.9 | 7.1 | 7.2 | 7.4 | 7.5 | 7.6 | 7.7 | 7.9 | 8.0 | 8
60% | 4.6 | 5.0 | 5.3 | 5.6 | 6.0 | 6.3 | 6.6 | 7.0 | 7.3 | 7.7 | 8
50% | 2.5 | 3.0 | 3.6 | 4.2 | 4.7 | 5.3 | 5.8 | 6.4 | 6.9 | 7.5 | 8
40% | 0.4 | 1.2 | 1.9 | 2.7 | 3.4 | 4.2 | 5.0 | 5.7 | 6.5 | 7.2 | 8
30% | -1.7 | -0.7 | 0.2 | 1.2 | 2.2 | 3.2 | 4.1 | 5.1 | 6.0 | 7.0 | 8
20% | -3.8 | -2.6 | -1.4 | -0.2 | 0.9 | 2.1 | 3.3 | 4.5 | 5.6 | 6.8 | 8
10% | -5.9 | -4.5 | -3.1 | -1.7 | -0.3 | 1.0 | 2.4 | 3.8 | 5.2 | 6.6 | 8
0% | -8.0 | -6.4 | -4.8 | -3.2 | -1.6 | 0.0 | 1.6 | 3.2 | 4.8 | 6.4 | 8

So what's the point?

Pokerstove says that against random hands, Hero is losing 49-51. We'll call that 50%. Calling down, hero expects to win 2.5 SB.

What happens if you raise? Things get sticky. If villain goes to showodwn, you expect hero to win slightly less often compared to when villain is allowed to try his bet-bet-bet bluff. Let's call it 40%. In order for hero to do better by raising, villain needs to fold his hand about 30% of the time, otherwise hero is doing WORSE by raising. In fact, because hero's hand has so little showdown value, he does BETTER when he's able to push villain off his hand more often. I'm not sure if this happens and only OP knows villain.

[ QUOTE ]
If you choose to neglect this, that is fine with me. If you decide not to raise when your opponent has a worse hand and will call, so be it. Continue to look at your cards in a vacuum. It suits me well. Leaving money in the hands of the maniac means more for me.

Given that you do not appear to push your edges consistently, of course you do not understand how foregoing them can create an adverse subconscious condition.

[/ QUOTE ]

There's a difference between an immediate edge and a playing edge. One of the big mistakes that I see is that players refuse to think ahead to consider the future consequences of their play (especially hands where you're NOT going to fold). Here is a good example of this. Slowing down aggressive villains seems to be generally WRONG.

[ QUOTE ]
The fact that you chose the words "go on tilt" and "if he draws out of you" portray both of my points.

[/ QUOTE ]

What's wrong with using the standard terminology? It's the same thing, regardless of what you call it. I'm not real big on the truth-is-what-you-perceive-it-to-be thing.

Re: Never Called Down With King High Before
 

When I called down I thought I would just let him bet with the worst hand. I didn't want to chase him away by raising or get punished when I'm behind. Whats more is that he's capable of 3-betting with a worse hand when I raise. I also bloat the pot this way which may make me calldown incorrectly. Maybe I called because it was easier to play that way. Don't know if it squeezes every ounce of EV that way though.