Mason\'s Bunching Part II
 

Mason gives an example where there is an EP raise and 3 cold calls to you. You have 33.

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Mason -
<font color="white">.
</font> Of course a trey could be out there in the discarded hands, but in this situation there are fewer of them than normal. So it seems to me that it is a little more likely to flop your set here than it would typically be. My educated guess is that instead of being 7½- to-1 to catch that third trey, a better estimate is more like 5-to-1.

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Assuming all 4 players do not have a 3 I calculate 1 chance in about 7.2 or about 6.2-1 against flopping a set of 3's or better, not 5-1. Why guess?

Since there actually is some small chance one of the players has a 3 the odds are really slightly higher - but probably not much. With pot odds of about 5-1 the improvement from 7.5-1 to about 6.2-1 still makes Mason's point relevant, just not quite as much so.

PairTheBoard

Re: Mason\'s Bunching Part II
 

Hi pair:

I didn't mention this in the article but you should probably consider the quality of folded hands. For instance, with an earlier position raiser, there are players who would fold a hand like queen-ten suited or unsuited but who would automatically play this in an unraised pot. That makes the odds of flopping a set of treys a little better than your calculation shows, so in my opinion 5-to-1 is a reasonable guess.

best wishes,
Mason

Re: Mason\'s Bunching Part II
 

I must not be understanding you correctly, Mason. Perhaps, you can clarify.

But as I see it, you have got an EP raiser and three guys coldcalling leading you to believe that none of them have a trey. That's the premise of your article. So, you are now looking for a third trey (to appear on the flop) from a 42 card deck instead of a 50 card deck. The OP has calculated this to be 6.2: 1. I'll take his word for it. I don't get why what you say should bring it down further to 5:1.

Re: Mason\'s Bunching Part II
 

BTW, I am also having trouble accepting your hypothesis that the odds of flopping a set are at about 10:1 when you have 33 in the bb and there is a button open raise.

The folds tell us that these guys didn't like their hands but I find it hard to believe that the chances of the folded hands having one of the remaining treys is so high as to make flopping a set 10:1. As you point out in part 1 of your bunching series, guys fold KJ off in EP.

Even if it were 10:1, I am still not convinced that folding the 33 to teh button raise is the proper play. After the flop, you should still be ahead a majority of the time. Granted, you may fold on the flop or on the turn even though you have the best hand because of position etc. but there are ways to counteract that...folding preflop seems to be an extreme measure.

Hell, I routinely coldcall two bets from the bb with any pocket pair i.e. button openraises, sb 3 bets, I call with 33. Maybe I take it too far the other way.

Re: Mason\'s Bunching Part II
 

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Hi pair:

I didn't mention this in the article but you should probably consider the quality of folded hands. For instance, with an earlier position raiser, there are players who would fold a hand like queen-ten suited or unsuited but who would automatically play this in an unraised pot. That makes the odds of flopping a set of treys a little better than your calculation shows, so in my opinion 5-to-1 is a reasonable guess.

best wishes,
Mason

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If you conclude the remaining 3 nonblind players don't have a 3 because they Fold to the EP raise the odds drop to 5.2-1. Now you're concluding players can't have a 3 if they Call the EP raise And they can't have a 3 if they Fold to the EP raise. I think that's pressing it. And it still doesn't quite get the odds down to 5-1. I doubt the effect you suggest for the Folders is anywhere near that strong.

PairTheBoard

Re: Mason\'s Bunching Part II
 

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The folds tell us that these guys didn't like their hands but I find it hard to believe that the chances of the folded hands having one of the remaining treys is so high as to make flopping a set 10:1. As you point out in part 1 of your bunching series, guys fold KJ off in EP.

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I don't think that it's as high as 10:1 but if you eliminate the range of raising and limping hands, it will no doubt increase the chances that a trey is already out.

But this concept argues against Mason's original article, no? If you eliminate the range of raising and limping hands from the folded hands, and this increases the chance of small cards being folded, then it has to increase the chances that high cards are out.

In most situations it wouldn't matter. But in a bottom range of hands that you would raise with in a short-handed game, you should probably not do so in a full game where many players have folded. What these hands are I don't know. But I think that can actually be figured out for a given type of opponent(s). For example there are 1326 possible hand combinations that can be dealt to each player. And the later in the action the more hands a player will raise with. SO you may be 100% sure that no one has AA, but only 80% sure that no one had KTo, and only 40% sure no one had 54s and so on. You can probably eliminate 30% or so of the hands and come up with a likelyhood of the blinds holding hands that can stand a raise.

I wonder if someone has the initiative to do this, perhaps using the S&amp;M hand rankings as a guide for each position. I don't. [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

Re: Mason\'s Bunching Part II
 

Hi SKP:

7.5-to-1 is 11.76 percent. 10-to-1 is 9.09 percent. I suspect this difference is smaller than you might realize.

Best wishes,
Mason

Re: Mason\'s Bunching Part II
 

Hi Pair:

I have no qualms with your analysis.

Best wishes,
Mason

Re: Mason\'s Bunching Part II
 

Well, it depends on what you mean by a "small" difference.

It seems to me that you are saying that the difference is "big" enough such that a person considering the bunching effect would correctly fold his 33 while a person oblivious to the bunching effect would incorrectly call. So, your conclusion is that the difference is substantial when deciding what to do in the bb's shoes. I guess I am merely questioning that conclusion.

Regardless of whether you are right or not (and obviously, your opinion merits a heckuva lot more weight than mine), the article does give us something to think about.

Re: Mason\'s Bunching Part II
 

Hi SKP:

The difference can be small. But it can also still be large enough to swing a call to a fold or vice versa.

Best wishes,
Mason