SSHE Book Club Discussion - Part Three: Postflop Concepts (1st Half)

[MEbenhoe]

Alright we're finally into Postflop Concepts, the part that really makes this book as valuable as it is. The sections from the first half that we'll be discussing in this one are:

Counting Outs
Finding Hidden Outs
Evaluating the Flop: Made Hands
Evaluating the Flop: Drawing Hands

The counting outs section is very valuable. In loose low limit games it can especially hurt you if you don't know how to count your outs properly. Being able to identify partial outs, backdoor draws, redraws, and hidden outs is a big part of being a complete poker player. Also, I think the section on outs shows how valuable of a skill hand-reading is. For many of these concepts you need to be able to put your opponent(s) on a potential range of hands, so that you are able to properly determine where you are in the hand and what type of outs you have.

So we're on way time to kick up your thoughts, questions, whatever you've got to say.

[cwsiggy]

How much does everyone discount their flush outs if it's two to a flush on the flop and there are 4-5 people seeing it? 6-7 outs instead of 9?? more if there is paint on the board??? The reason I ask is I assume there are others looking for their flush draws. I do realize that when calculating the math, if you can't see the cards, then you assume 9 left but still......

[Luv2DriveTT]

You do not have to discount your flush outs in this scenario. You still have 9 unseen cards that will help your hand out of 47 unseen cards, there is not enough information to assume that any of these cards are being held by another low limit player. They could be going after a different draw altogether, or perhaps already have a high pair and they wish to play it safely (which SSHE teaches us is a big mistake that many low limit players make), or perhaps they are already holding two cards of the same suit, its impossible to know.

BUT I have been pondering a similar yet more advanced situation recently. The following comes from a hand posted by Shadow29 in the microlimits forum. I was hoping for a greater responce, but alas it never got one.

Preflop: Hero is MP3 with K[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img], K[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img].
<font color="666666">1 fold</font>, UTG+1 calls, <font color="666666">2 folds</font>, <font color="CC3333">Hero raises</font>, CO calls, Button calls, SB calls, BB calls, UTG+1 calls.

Flop: (12 SB) 9[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img], 3[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img], 7[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img] <font color="blue">(6 players)</font>
SB checks, BB checks, UTG+1 folds, <font color="CC3333">Hero bets</font>, CO calls, Button folds, SB calls, BB calls.

Turn: (8 BB) A[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] <font color="blue">(4 players)</font>
<font color="CC3333">SB bets</font>, <font color="CC3333">BB raises</font>, Hero ??

[/ QUOTE ]

How many outs do you think Hero has in this situation? Should this be a scenario where it is wise to discount flush card outs? Does Hero have the odds to call? I think Hero does not, what do you think? Ed???? Are you listening???

TT [img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img]

[AKQJ10]

[ QUOTE ]
You do not have to discount your flush outs in [the multiway pot] scenario.

[/ QUOTE ]

I disagree, to an extent. One very clear teaching of the book is that you discount outs when you're not sure the hand they'll make you will win the pot. If you're drawing to any flush there's a chance you may make the flush and not win the pot. Your flush card may pair the board, or if your draw is not to the nuts then someone else may be drawing to a higher flush. Neither of these considerations warrants a huge discount in hold 'em.* In the first case, sets are fairly rare, as are successful 4-out draws with two pair, so your flush retains a lot of value. In the second case, you already hold two flush cards so if three come out on the board, that leaves only 8 to be distributed among opponents' hands or left in the stub. While it obviously happens that two players draw at the same flush, it's not terribly frequent.

I'll defer to more experienced players for a better number, but in say a 4- or 5-way pot I'd probably count 8.5 outs to the flush if your draw is to the nuts (presumably two river cards would both pair the board and make your flush, so call them 0.75 outs each) and 8 for a non-nut flush.

But the original question was whether to count these differently with more opponents in the pot. I think it's obvious why more players in the pot means less chance your flush holds up, and hence fewer effective outs.

But i'm eager to hear other opinions.

---
*In Omaha, each of these considerations would dramatically discount the value of your "tainted outs". Flushes rarely win on a paired board in low-limit multiway pots. If you're drawing to a non-nut flush, it's quite likely that the nut flush is out there. But we're not discussing an Omaha book so i mention this only by way of contrast.

[Luv2DriveTT]

[/ QUOTE ]I'll defer to more experienced players for a better number, but in say a 4- or 5-way pot I'd probably count 8.5 outs to the flush if your draw is to the nuts

[/ QUOTE ]

The point of counting outs in this example is to IMPROVE your hand, not to improve to the nut hand (although thats what we all hope for of course!). With 4 cards of the same suit showing there are 9 cards unaccounted for. Essentially your reccomendation is to remove 1/2 card? I'm sorry, but I don't agree with your rational, and there is no relevent example that I recall of discounting flush draws in SSHE that helps your argument.

Any others care to comment? This thread is a bit bare considering the number of people who have purchased SSHE.

TT [img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img]

[AKQJ10]

Suffice it to say, you and i took much different interpretations of how SSH treats counting outs.

My understanding is that in all cases, you want to count "equivalent outs", that is, the number of cards that will improve your hand weighted by the probability that your accordingly improved hand will win the pot. That's not the way all or even most authors treat out-counting, but if i understood SSH that's how Miller, Sklansky, and Malmuth treat it.

If you hold

[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img]K [img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img]Q

on a board of

[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img]A [img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img]4 [img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img]7 [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]9

then you're drawing at a nut flush. The [img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img]2, 3, 5, 6, 8, ten, and J will make you the nut flush and win the pot. That's 7.0 effective outs.

The [img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img]7 and [img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img]9 will make your flush and pair the board. The number of effective outs associated with these two cards is entirely dependent on how likely you judge it that a full house is out against you. My estimate of 0.75 outs each may be low, but they're not worth the full 1.0, at least not if i'm remotely understanding the material in the book on counting outs.

In fairness the authors acknowledge that you can't calculate a full weighted average each time at the table. This example is very straightforward; you know you have 9 cards that improve you and a remote chance of a full house, hence just less than 9 effective outs. In most pots that's plenty of information because you're usually getting better than 8.5/46 to stay in.

I guess time will tell whether i'm the only one who inferred this material on counting outs, and therefore whether i'm adding something to SSH that isn't there. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[Luv2DriveTT]

I'd like to add that the only reason to discount in the scenario I posted above is because you may be drawing dead. You cannot remove cards from the deck, but you can discount your outs to account for possibility that improving your hand may still be drawing dead.

TT [img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img]

[johnnybeef]

this is an obvious fold situation. you are likely dominated in this pot considering that the only redraws you have would be a king or a spade. drawing to trips with a flush and an overcard on the board is a losing play, enough said on that subject. the other card that you can catch to improve your hand is a spade. given a bet and a raise, there is a better than average chance that the ace of spades is out ther. furthermore, if the ace of spades does hit giving you the nut flush, there is a good chance that someone raised with two pair on the turn, giving them a boat on the river. there are just far too many hands that can beat yours and the pot just isn't big enough in this situation to forgoe all of those possibilities.

johnny

[Cerril]

For the most part you don't have to discount your outs unless you can actively put them in other peoples hands, or if you think that your flush might not be best.

Past a certain point you've got a guaranteed call anyway, so there isn't much need to worry about whether you've got 9 outs or 12. When you should worry is when the flop is something like 4s8sJh and you're holding 2s3s and it's raised and reraised behind you with additional callers. In situations where you're vulnerable to redraws or drawing to a second best hand (you suspect you're up against 2pair, a set, or a better flush draw) - depending on the likelihood you can probably devalue your flush draw by half or more, depending on the action, number of callers, and tendencies. Once your flush draw gives you the odds of a gutshot or worse and it's up to you to call two more bets with a possible cap, you may not have odds to continue.

A better example though is the situation where you have something like the T of the suit with a three flush flopping eight high. You have to discount flush outs because there's a very real chance you're behind even if you make your hand, moreso than needing to be up against another two card flush. In those cases I'll tend to discount my flush outs by half, more if there was a lot of betting preflop and a lot of betting on the flop.

[darvon]

Let me first state that I think SSH is a great book and I am very pleased at my purchase. Let me also state where I am in my poker development. I hadn’t really played any poker before seeing the WSOP on ESPN last fall. I new the general concepts and had played some type of poker maybe a half dozen times in my life. Almost a complete Newbie. ESPN hooked me and I started down the path in Jan 2004. I am a light/hobby player, playing about 5-10 hours in the winter weeks and hardly at all in the summer, as I live in Michigan and we make use of summer when we have it.

I have about 7500 hands in PT. I read WLLH then ITH then skimmed a few parts of a few others, then SSH. I have a reasonable math background.

As best as I can tell, I am probably in the low part of the spectrum on experience and expertise as far as the target market for SSH. My learning, like most, goes in layers. I am in the black in my BB/hr, but that’s mostly from fixing my pre-flop mistakes. Most times I know what to do pre-flop, but can be uncertain at times in post-flop. I have been at this level for long enough that I am ready to put in the study to upgrade my post-flop play.

I am not competent enough at this time to have an intelligent comment on the accuracy of the advice given in the book. To me, it feels like Ed is right on the button for optimal play at my levels, Party .5/1, which are loose passive. However, I am having continual problems assimilating the info. Perhaps it is because I am actually not sufficiently advanced to use this book. I need some guidance.


Ed talks about ways to analyze a hand/situation in order to make betting decisions. He first starts with Pot Odds and Counting Outs. These are simple and like good first level tools have made several simplifying assumptions.

Pot Odds/Counting Outs assume:

1) My out card will give me a win 100% of the time.
2) The amount I will win with this decision is the current amount of the pot.
3) The amount of my bet that I am deciding on is simply one bet if I call now (or 2 if I raise or cold call).


Ed shows how to calculate Pot Odds and outs. The math is simple and straightforward.

He then, like all good disciplines, upgrades our technique by removing some of the simplifying assumptions and using more sophisticated analysis techniques.

Implied Odds, Reverse Implied Odds, Partial Outs, Backdoor Outs, Hidden Outs. These are all sophistications of the basic Pot Odds/Count Outs technique for making FOLD/CALL/RAISE/BET decisions.

Ed gives some description of these, but does not go into how to calculate Implied or Reverse Implied Odds. He gives some examples of Partial Outs and Backdoor outs. These may span the useful situations, but I am unsure.

These are either methods trying to figure out what is the probability of winning the hand, given the information currently available, or methods to make a decision given that probability.

However, I don’t know how to do this and other than Pot Odds, Ed doesn’t give me the methodology to do it. He defines the terms, and gives examples, but not methods. Is it because SSH-users are assumed to know those methods? I simply don’t know. I DO know that I don’t know how to calculate my winning probability and SSH assumes I do, sort of.

If SSH assumes I know how to calc (or estimate – I am not a stickler, close is good enough for me) the probabilities of winning, why does it seem to go thru partial explanations of such things as Partial Outs? A backdoor flush is about 1.5 outs. OK. Let me make a chart. Outs that make sets or trips count 1. What’s the out to top pair worth? 1/3? 1/2? Unsure. I understand that one may simple be satisfied with some estimates, indeed I would be. But knowing only an estimate is different than being totally unsure.

Again, if I am already supposed to know this from other sources, that’s OK. I can buy an additional book. But SSH needs to make it clear to me and other readers if SSH is trying to teach me to count outs or simply alluding to the technique.

I find these issues throughout the book. On pg 186 you have Ah Ac with a flop of 9c 7c 3s. Ed talks about what he recommends to do in this situation. He states he would expect to win about 50% of the time. Where did this number come from? Counting Outs would give me the 2 A outs and 1.5 for the backdoor flush. That’s about 14%. How I am supposed to know its 50%? He shows in a footnote that this number is reasonable by example opponent hands. I am sure it is reasonable, actually I am sure it is correct, but how am I supposed to calculate/estimate it? His whole approach for this example is grounded in Pot Equity, but to calc/est Pot Equity I have to know the probability of winning. I am totally lost.

There are other areas. In multiple areas Ed breaks down the scenario into MONSTER, VERY STRONG, STRONG, MARGINAL, POOR. This leads me to assume that we will learn to categorize scenarios and then execute the techniques recommended for each type of hand. In Post-Flop:Made Hands, as in many sections, Ed has copy dealing with a dozen-ish examples. This can be used to give a methodology by simply having a dozen examples. If this is what is intended then a chart would be much easier to teach from and more than a dozen examples would make things much easier. But again, am I missing something? Does SSH expect me to know how to break hands up into 5ish categories and SSH is just putting their labels on the 5 groups for easy discussion? Again, I don’t know if SSH is trying to teach me or just alluding to something I should already know.

Another example where SSH alludes to something that I don’t know how to do is in the Post Flop: Made Hands section.

With MONSTER hands the chart on pg 114 recommends to build the pot. VERY STRONG says to protect. STRONG says rarely fold and protect. MARGINAL says either bet/raise or fold, depending. POOR says generally fold.

OK. I understand generally fold. I even understand bet/raise or fold, depending. But whats the difference between “rarely fold and protect” and just “protect”. Actually Ed does me a great service by having a chapter on protecting, because I was very vague on what to do when protecting. And what is the difference in a loose passive game between “build the pot” and “protect” I truly don’t know.

Again, this feels like SSH is expecting me to already know this, except for the PROTECT section. I could really use some examples of the diff between BUILD and PROTECT in loose passive.

All in all, the strategies in SSH are intriguing to me. They will significantly change my style and seem optimal to me. In that regard, I seem to be the type of player that SSH is directed towards. But I am confused throughout the book as to whether SSH is trying to teach me methods or just allude to methods that I should already know. If they are trying to teach me, some sections work great, some could use some enhancement for readers like me and some don’t even seem to make the attempt, which leads to my confusion.