[DavidC]

PF: I like the limp preflop, as long as there's commonly 5 people to the flop for one bet.

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F: In order to find out how often someone will have the queen you need to use a poisson distribution. Though I'm not sure how to do that.

This hand is showing me how little I know about poker math, in terms of evaluating the semi-bluff too. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

Um, if you were to be semibluffing a gutshot here, or some other hand where you could fold to a raise, then you want ot look at a few possibilities:

A) chance you get them to fold
B) chance they call with a hand that will fold you on the next street
C) chance that you will improve on the next street

You want to bet if: A+BC > bet/pot, I think.

In the circumstance that we find ourselves in, though, we will be calling a raise. Therefore:

a) chance you will get them to fold
b) chance they will call and be able to fold you on the next street
c) chance that you improve on next street
d) chance that you are raised
e) cost of them raising (in this case: 0.66 bets is the absolute "antivalue" that you achieve in EV when you're raised, but I'm not sure if I should use this number or if I should use, instead, the difference between check-calling and bet-calling as the value for this number... probably the latter)

I think that we want to bet here if: A+BC-DE > bet/pot.

The "A" value in these formulas depends heavily on the value in the poisson distribution (how often they'll have a Q or I guess even how often they'll have a 4).

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T: This is cool. This is so incredibly cool that I'll reply to this post twice.

Anyways: There's some chance that MP has a 4, but it's more likely that he has either a pocket pair or a Q. 99 is less likely for him to hold than any other pair because of the 9 hitting the turn. Also, it's possible that anyone has 44, but not likely because of course there's only 2 left. BB has a huge range of hands A4-42 that include a 4 in them, but he could also have q4,94, or 99, that you would be drawing dead against. MP2 is unlikely to three-bet here without a real crushing hand, and he probably doesn't have it, since the BB is showing such strength already.

Therefore you're getting 4:1 on with a flush draw that has probably 8 outs, but maybe 7, as well as a straight draw that has between 3 outs and 6 outs (because we have no way of knowing what kicker BB has with his 4, and we can bail if the 9 pairs up and gives us our flush). This leaves us with 15 outs gross, less whatever our chances are of drawing dead, as well as less whatever our chances are of hitting a tainted out. I'd say you have a lot of room left to call.

Please note that while I said that you should bet if x>y, your bankroll as well as personal risk tolerance will tell you how close you want to get to x=y.

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R: I'm replying to this message twice. Seeing the action has spoiled my objectivity, but I'd still like to talk about it.