[elindauer]

Wow. Can it ever be right to fold both an overpair AND an OESD on the flop? HUGE laydown.

Let's think about some math. Sometimes you are up against AK and drawing to a few outs for 1/2 the pot. Almost dead. For the sake of argument, let's assume that you are actually totally dead.

In this case, calling the flop costs you 1.5 BB.

Other times, you are up against queens and jacks and are folding a TEN out draw. Oops. How much does a fold cost you? Well, you're going to get there about 1/3 of the time by the river, 1/3 of 12.5 BB is over 4 BB, but you have to pay 1 BB for it, and you lose to a redraw 20% of the time or so... in this case, folding is, say, a 2 BB mistake.

The turn is going to look similar, so if you can call on the flop, you'll probably be corrct to call the turn bet as well by the same logic. (Note that I am ignoring your suggestion that the players are going to go to war on the turn. I find this unlikely unless they both hold AK)

If it's say, aces and a set, it's a little more complicated with the various draws and redraws. Let's ignore this for now because I don't think it's going to matter.


Incorrect fold is twice as painful as an incorrect call. Do you think someone holding AK is twice as likely as the possibility of two lower sets? There are only 8 combinations of AK with your 2 kings removed, but 18 combinations of pairs that have made a set on this board...

edit: just realized there are only 9 combos of set pairs. That actually makes it pretty close, maybe slightly leaning toward a fold. If you like, read the rest of my original post...

... and another 6 (aces) that might play like this while we have a pretty live draw in a big pot. We need 2 players to have pairs and not AK, but even then, I don't think it's that close. It's probably about even money that folding is right, but an incorrect fold is more more costly than an incorrect call. Make the call and profit 1 SB.

Good luck.
Eric