Stellar,

You're a great poster, and I hope you don't mind if I pick you apart a little [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

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I know a play that's better than folding.

Calling.

1. It's cheaper than raising. We're probably not getting great odds on the fourth bet.

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This is true. The 4th bet doesn't look that promising as we're almost never holding the current best hand.

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2. It misrepresents our hand. TAGs never call with Big Slick. They will look at our stats and put us on roughly JJ instead. This will be very painful for them when we hit top pair or Broadway.

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Misreprenting AK isn't that big of a deal against their ranges, especially OOP. The way we'll make the most money is flopping an ace when the two of them have Ax and a PP. Keep in mind that hitting an ace is a 2 outer (like a set) and won't happen that often if one of them has an ace. Any other hands will pay us the same 1 bet on every street if an ace flops. If we hit a king, same deal....the guy with the ace high won't be paying much and the guy with the pair will give us the same 1 bet every street that we'll be paying when we miss. We might be able to make 1 extra bet when we c/r (because we're OOP), but I assure you that it won't be that painful for them if we hit.

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3. We learn about UTG's hand when he caps or calls.

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Learning about UTG's hand doesn't help that much. If an A or K flops, would you fold because he capped? If the flop misses, is calling one bet to hit the turn wrong if he capped? If he doesn't cap, we still need to hit, no? The only thing his cap tells us is that we have to proceed more cautiously whether we hit or miss.

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4. We have good implied odds. If we flop an ace we will become a huge favorite and get paid. A king is also very good. Most of the time when we lose we will lose cheaply. Remember that the nightmare hands AA/KK are at half probability because we are holding one of each. They go down even further if we flop a pair.

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Like I stated above, flopping a pair will only get us paid well if it's an ace and one of the players has an ace, but that probability also goes down when an ace hits. The player holding a PP also has implied odds on us because we have to continue when we miss. Folding a missed flop or even turn for one bet in pot this size would be bad. Those peels have to be taken into consideration at the time of our preflop decision because we know they're a possibility when we play the hand.

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5. That BB might call 2 BB cold doesn't concern me very much. It's more of a problem for the guy with 99. If I make a good hand I doubt BB will be happy with his investments.

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True. If the BB calls, it's a good thing.


According to stove, we're a slight dog against their ranges. This assumes, of course, that we make it to the river. In order to do that, we have to factor in the calls we make on future streets for the times that we miss the flop or turn.

I don't see us getting paid by much more when we hit vs. what we will be paying when we miss postflop. Occasionally, we'll hit an ace when one of them has an ace, making more than just 1 bet per street, but that gets offset, because occasionally we'll also lose when JJ hits a set or when someone has AA and we hit an ace/king or when someone holds KK and we hit a king.