[Buzz]

M.B.E. -
1st betting round - Fine.

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Should I have capped here?

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You could cap. Call is O.K. too.

2nd betting round - Fine.

The flop is paired but you have no part of the pair. Does one of your opponent who saw the flop with you have an eight? Hard to say. If they were playing random cards, they have 12 cards between them. You can see your own hand and the three cards on the flop. You don't know the location of a total of 45 cards, including 43 non-eights.

The probability one of your three opponents has an eight is
1-C(43,12)/C(45,12) = 1-0.53 = 0.47.

There is also a slight chance an opponent has a pair of sixes. That's roughly
3*3*43*42*6/2*45*44*43*42 = 0.013 or 0.014. Something like that.

0.47+0.013 = about 0.48.
A probability of about 0.48 means it's a coin flip as to whether an opponent has an eight (or a full house) or not.

Meanwhile, you have nothing much going for high - mostly only the back-door nut spade flush draw which is worth about one out. To play on for high, you'd want the flop to have one (or preferably more than one) of the following:
• a pair of aces, jacks, tens, or deuces,
• two spades and no pair (other than one noted above),
• KQX without two or three cards in the same suit (unless spades) where X is any rank (but not another king or queen), or
• AJX, ATX, or JTX (top two pairs).

Maybe I left out something, but the basic idea when you don't have a pair in your own hand is that in order to play for high you want to see at least two cards on the flop you can use to make a straight, a flush, a full house or better. That's oversimplistic, but pretty close.

Your starting hand had a decent shot at scooping, but the flop didn't cooperate and now your chances of winning high are remote, which means you're (realistically) only playing for the low half of the pot.

There's no cause for concern. Your object before the flop should always be to scoop. But playing for only half the pot after the flop is pretty normal. Oh, there's an off chance of backing into high, and sometimes when you end up with a hand that will probably only win for low if everybody sees the showdown, by betting aggressively you can induce better high hands than yours to fold (so that you end up scooping after all).

A word of caution: Some individuals play too aggressively in an attempt to induce better high hands to fold. You need to use discretion.

But at any rate, immediately after this 6-8-8 flop, you have a only very, poor chance to end up with the winner for high if all three of your opponents stick around to see the showdown - so we say that you are only playing for the low half of the pot.

However, you do have a fine draw for the nut low. There are 16 cards that would make the nut low for you (treys, fours, fives, sevens), 6 disaster cards (aces and deuces that counterfeit your low), and 23 blanks (the rest of the deck). And there are two cards yet to come.

The probability you will end up with the nut low on the river is
(16*15/2+16*23)/990 = 488/990 = 0.49. In other words, you should expect to end up with the nut low on the river about half the time and you should expect to miss about half the time.

3rd betting round - Rats! Disaster has befallen you! Fold! You had a nice draw for low but have been counterfeited! If that isn't bad enough, now somebody else probably has made a low, so that even if you somehow manage to win high it will only be for half the pot.

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BB bets, the other two both call. Should I fold here?

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Yes! Absolutely! Fold!

Maybe you're thinking you now have two pair (aces and eights) which might win for high. But your jack kicker is not very good. Still... your aces and eights might win for high. I just don't think it's very likely.

4th betting round - Gee. Now I don't know what to tell you. When you should fold, but instead continue, it's hare to know what to do. You have two pair, which might be a winner. I don't think it will, but maybe I'm wrong. Your opponents are all betting and hanging in there, but maybe they all have lows. Maybe somebody with the nut low but a worse high than you is trying to bump you out.

It doesn't make any sense to call a bet on the third betting round and then fold on the fourth betting round when the river probably didn't promote to a winner any opponent's hand that couldn't already have beaten you for high.

In other words, this particular river probably doesn't change any opponent's hand from a loser for high to a winner for high. If somebody didn't have you beaten for high after the turn, they probably don't have you beaten for high after this particular river card.

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BB bets, next player raises to $60, next player calls $38 all-in. Now what?

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If you fold the winner, you're a chump. If you call with a loser, you're a chump. That's what.

Next time avoid this dilemma by folding to a 3rd round bet when you're counterfeited on the turn.

Buzz