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Old 12-26-2005, 12:42 AM
DCJ311 DCJ311 is offline
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Join Date: Dec 2004
Location: Houston, TX
Posts: 54
Default Re: So what the crap do I do now?

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So what the crap do I do now?

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One of the most fundamental errors in pot limit/no limit games is making big 'strength revealing' bets on the flop into multiple players without knowing a lot of information. Invariably, you will pot commit yourself on the flop and throw away a lot of money when you don't have the best of it and rarely get paid when you do.

Common example would be like in 1/2 PL Omaha where you are in the BB with $200 and AA83 rainbow, UTG minimum raises, 3 people call behind and the SB folds, and you call. Flop comes Ah 9s 8s, and you bet the pot, and all 4 players call. Now the pot is about $100 and you have only invested around $20. There are numerous turn cards that can come here that will give someone else a nut hand. In order for you to bet that turn, you'd have to be risking about half your stack. The problem is you won't usually get paid off if the board pairs, but if the scare card hits you're in danger of losing to that made draw or getting bluffed off your obvious set.

To avoid that problem, most PLO players would try to check raise that type of flop, hoping to get in a big check raise and isolate any competitors. If it is checked around, and the scare card hits on the turn, you can feel comfortable folding your set because you haven't invested much.

Generally if you go from making a t75 chip investment to a t1000 investment so quickly in a hand, you generally want to have a much better hand than TT on this type of flop if you are the one doing the betting the whole way. You're either drawing to 2 outs or facing a very big draw most of the time here, and you have only invested a small amount of your stack.

In your situation, I think you have two options given the way the hand was played:

1) Check fold the flop if the betting is scary.

If UTG+1 bets out t250 on the flop, and another player calls him, odds are definitely against you winning this pot, whether or not you have the best hand presently.

The range of hands you figure to be up against if a lot of money goes into the pot on this flop would probably give your hand either a 9-12% (facing 99, 4x, or bigger pair), 50-60% (facing AKd or A3d etc), or 80% (assuming youre up against A9, K9, etc) chance of winning. Normally your hand will be in the 12% range way too often to justify the times where some goon will have A9 or a flush draw, therefore folding is optimal.

2) Check raise allin on the flop based on action.

If UTG+1 checks, MP2 checks, CO bets 250, button calls, then I might be more inclined to all in. You do have SOME fold equity here, and your chances of being up against the A9, flush draw types of hands improve if the action goes like this. Most importantly, the pot is now very big and you have a lot more incentive to take it down with no showdown.

In a multiway pot, often you will gain more information by checking in these spots, and seeing what happens when the action gets back to you.

Based on seeing which players bet and which check, you have a better chance of estimating who has a strong/weak hand and who might be on a draw. You also have the chance of getting someone to bluff at the pot with a hand like 88, etc, thus giving you more incentive to check raise.

By check raising, you put yourself in a position to risk either 0 chips or all of your chips based on the information you receive based on the flop action, which is what you want with a hand that needs protection, but still might be the worst hand. There MUST be a reasonable number of chips in the middle to semibluff at when you do make your check raise, otherwise you should just check fold with a minimal investment. Raising with TT here is obviously way stronger than making this same play with 77 on a 622 flop of similar suits, but it's still very dangerous and you need chips in the pot to justify it.

With that out of the way, I must say that I really hate the bet on the flop. You're arguably pot committed at this point, and you don't gain any 'true' information from the bet. For example, let's say your opponents have these hands:

UTG+1 AKo
MP2 66
MP3 QJd
CO AJo
BTN 33

By betting, the only hand that will give you action here (usually) is QJd. If this player goes allin on the flop or calls and sees a turn, you are going to be in an awkward position of having to make a tough(ish) flop call or turn commitment. Basically you are giving your opponent/s huge implied odds if they feel you will follow through on the turn.

By checking, you may induce the 88 to bet, and the QJd may call, and then you can allin fairly comfortably, giving them decisions to make. The point is, your opponents are generally likely to play their hands straightforwardly on this flop regardless of whether or not you bet. So you may as well give them a chance to put in that first bet and make them face a tough decision.

The fact that your thread is entitled So what the crap do I do now? already shows that you innately believe you played the hand poorly, since you backed yourself into a corner and gained absolutely no information with your flop bet, which is why you were not able to play the hand confidently and felt compelled to ask for advice on 2+2. The way you played the hand makes it tough for even the best players to give you concrete suggestions on what to do. On the turn it's definitely more likely you do not have the best hand, but you invested way too much money to find out that info.

The fact that you had 3 callers is a bit unnerving. I think checking and folding the turn to a lot of action is fine if 2 or more players put money in the pot in front of you.

But keep in mind how sick it is that a total blank comes off on the turn here and the best play probably is to fold. Imagine if that turn were an Ad or something like that; there were plenty of cards that could have come out on the turn that would have devalued your hand significantly, which is why you cannot back yourself into a tough situation on the flop.
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