NL suckouts galore

[Gata Kamsky]

Played 1-2 NL today and lost about $1200. Got sucked out by 6 outers and 3 outers all night in nearly every damn all in. How rare is this? Losing 7 allins when your at least a 75% each time and sometimes a 85% favorite.

[Lawrence Ng]

Omg, this post is an easy mark for sarcasm...must..resist..

Gata, why don't you post your hands instead? That way, we can all run it through and see what happened, how it was played, and then we can comment from there.

Other than that I would just probably say you have an insufficient sample size and you need to learn to handle the harsh harsh variances of NL poker especially during a brutal run.

Anyways, I will leave the sarcastic remarks to my fellow carpal tunnels...

[kelvin474]

Probability forum?

.8 chance of winning, whats the chance of losing 7 in a row?

.2^7 or 128 x 10^-7 .0000128

Are you the guy who played Karpov in 1996?

[LokiV]

My pocket aces lost to pocket Jacks! Then I shot myself in the face, but I'm too much of a loser to even die from that.

Have you tried shooting yourself yet? You might have more luck than I did, unless you're a loser too that is.

[CrisBrown]

Hi Gata,

First, you're probably not counting the hands were you weren't drawn out on, and that significantly skews your sample. Second, it sounds like you were pushing in early in hands, probably pre-flop or on the flop at the latest, and if you're doing that consistently, in deep money NL play, at a table where there is very little steal equity, you can expect a HUGE variance in your results.

Cris

[Al Schoonmaker]

Cris,
Your point is extremely important. We all remember the times that someone sucks out, but forget:
1. The times that WE suck out.
2. The times our hands hold up.
To keep from becoming sorry for myself, I constantly remind myself of my lucky suckouts. For example, twice I misread a situation so badly that I capped on the turn with one out and caught it. Three times in one night I beat the same player with runner-runner full houses to beat a flopped straight, set, or flush.
Lou Krieger wrote an excellent article some time ago. It was titled "An unremarkable hand" or something like that. He said he raised with the best hand, bet the flop, turn, and river, and won. That's what usually happens. We remember the unlucky hands to reinforce our inflated impression of how well we play. "I'm a good player, but sooooo unlucky."
Regards,
Al

[CrisBrown]

Hi Al,

I agree. And at NL, a lot of the variance of outdraws can be minimized in the way you play your hand. Too many NL players ascribe to the "all you can do is get your money in with the best of it" philosophy, without understanding what that means. Getting your money in with the best of it is not simply about making a positive equity (+EV) decision. It's about making the decision that has the greatest equity.

A common example is an overpair vs. a naked draw on the flop. (By "naked draw," I mean a four-flush or open-end straight draw, with no pair and no overcards.) Assume you are certain that the player with the draw will call if you push at the flop, and you have roughly equal stacks. Is pushing in the best play?

Well, it's +EV. You're ahead in the hand right now, and you'll get his entire stack about six times in ten. The other four times, he'll make his draw, trips, or two pair, and you'll lose your entire stack. The better play is to bet smaller at the flop -- but enough that he's not getting proper odds to call for one card only -- then make your strong move if the turn blanks. The turn will blank about 80% of the time. When it does, you can often take the pot there with a strong move, because now he has only one card with which to hit his draw. If he does call at the turn, you're getting much better equity on that call than if you had pushed and been called at the flop. If the turn makes his draw, you can get off from your hand with minimal loss.

How do the EVs for these decisions compare?

Let's say there's $25 in the pot pre-flop, and both you and your opponent have $100 behind. You have AA, and he's on a four-flush with no pair or overcards. He has 9 flush outs, plus the equivalent of another out for his backdoor two-pair or trips draws. If you push and he calls, out of 100 hands, you'll win $125 about 60 times, and lose 100 about 40 times, for a net gain of $3500 over 100 hands, or about $35/hand.

Now assume you bet the pot at the flop, and he calls, putting $75 in the pot at the turn. You plan to push if the turn blanks, and fold if the flush hits.

If he folds every time he blanks at the turn, then 78 times you win $50. About 1.5 times you win $125, when he's hit a pair at the flop, calls, and misses at the river. About 0.5 times you lose 100, when he's hit a pair at the flop, calls, and makes his draw at the river. 20 times you lose $25, when he makes his flush at the turn and you fold. Your net gain is $3537.50 over 100 hands, or $35.375 per hand.

Now assume he's loose enough that he'll call 50% of the time at the turn. Out of 100 such hands, the turn will miss the flush about 80 times. Two of those 80 times, he'll hit a pair. You'll push all 80 times and he'll call 40 times, two of which are times when he has hit a pair at the flop. You lose $25 (your flop bet) 20 times, when his flush hits at the turn. You win $50 40 times, when you push at the blank turn, and he folds. You win $125 31 times, when he calls your push at the turn and misses his draws at the river. And you lose $100 9 times, when he calls your push at the turn and outdraws you at the river. That's a net gain of $4475 over 100 hands, or $44.75 per hand.

Against a player who's going to call with a flush draw every time if you bet the flop, no matter how much you bet, the EV of pushing at the flop is $35, and you lose your stack about 40% of the time. The EV of waiting for the turn is $35.375 if he'll fold every time he misses the turn(and you lose your stack 0.5% of the time), and $54.75 if he'll call half the time when he misses the turn (and you lose your stack 9% of the time).

In this situation, "getting your money in with the best of it" means waiting to push until you see the turn card.

Cris

[CrisBrown]

Hi All,

In my reply, I had written:

[ QUOTE ]
Against a player who's going to call with a flush draw every time if you bet the flop, no matter how much you bet, the EV of pushing at the flop is $35, and you lose your stack about 40% of the time. The EV of waiting for the turn is $35.375 if he'll fold every time he misses the turn(and you lose your stack 0.5% of the time), and $54.75 if he'll call half the time when he misses the turn (and you lose your stack 9% of the time).

[/ QUOTE ]

The $54.75 figure is a typo. The correct figure is $44.75. My apologies for any confusion.

Cris

[paland]

[ QUOTE ]
I agree. And at NL, a lot of the variance of outdraws can be minimized in the way you play your hand. Too many NL players ascribe to the "all you can do is get your money in with the best of it" philosophy, without understanding what that means. Getting your money in with the best of it is not simply about making a positive equity (+EV) decision. It's about making the decision that has the greatest equity.

Cris

[/ QUOTE ]
Thanks Cris for bringing this up. I've been thinking about this lately and it's nice to hear it from a pro. I've found that by not "getting your money in with the best of it", when I have monster hands, I've actually staved off elimination in tournaments when the other player hits that runner-runner. This idea has consumed me in the last few days and I have only recently started to change my strategy. It's actually a big change for me as I am usually super aggressive in a tournament. I'm in a transistion phase right now and experimenting. I came in second in a tourney today (242 entrants) so I like what I'm seeing so far.

[CrisBrown]

Hi paland,

[ QUOTE ]
found that by not "getting your money in with the best of it", when I have monster hands, I've actually staved off elimination in tournaments when the other player hits that runner-runner.

[/ QUOTE ]

Be careful about this, too, however. Note that the correct play in my example was to make a pot-sized bet at the flop, to deny the opponent correct odds to call for one card, and then make the stronger move if the turn blanks, when you'll have a greater advantage and more leverage. To me, that's still an "aggressive" approach to the hand. It's just not an "I'm ahead so all-in" hyper-aggressive approach.

Remember that when you're ahead in a hand, you're "drawing to blanks." While a blank doesn't improve your hand in an absolute sense, it does improve your hand relative to your opponent's hand, because it improves your chance of winning the pot. So in many instances, it pays to take that card for as small a bet as will deny your opponent proper drawing odds.

Cris