the power of 72o, a thought experiement (part 2)

[davet]

Last week I made a post with the same header. Since I don't know how to link, I will give you the jist of it.

You are sitting in the BB with 72o and every one calls. You know that they will not play uless they are holding two faces or aces. What do you do? I said I would raise in this situation because I believe that my equity is over 10%, someone poker stoved this situation and came up with 15%.

Flop comes down: 346, giving me a straight draw.

Big woop. I sat down and did the math on this and found out that if one of the opponents bets, another raises, and yet another re- raises, I would still be right to call.

And here is why: the value of 46 cards / 4 outs is applicable if I do not know the value of the opponent's hands. But I do know, from my table's extreme tendencies, what 16 cards they hold, thus I would have 30 cards un- accounted for. Now 30/4 = 7.5 - 1 = ~6.5:1 break- even odds.

In the above example, there are 18 SB in the pot, when one person bets (19 SB) and is raised (21 SB) and is re- raised (24 SB) I am still calling profitably since I am getting 8-1 odds. Even if this pot is capped, I am still calling profitably.

From the above I can make two conclusions

#1- In a multiway pot vs several tight opponents, the calling station may actually getting the best of it.

#2 needs 3 factors to conclude
1- On average, we are much further ahead than we think we are 1/3 of the time.
2- On average, we are exactly where we think we are 1/3 of the time.
3- On average, we are much furhter behind than we think we are 1/3 of the time.

The conclusion: factor #1 and #3 are -EV.

When we use pot odds, we are making a profit one- third of the time.

Illustration of factor #1

I am sitting in MP2 with Q [img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img]9 [img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img]

I limp, the big blind raises and four players call as well as the SB.

10 sb

Flop comes down K98.

Now I know 2 things. I know that the PF raiser would never raise with anything but KK, AA, or AK. I also know that all the other callers would not have the discipline to fold a face- card PF.

So I have a belly- buster against what I think is trip K's. The BB bets and I call, two of the limpers fold.

6.5 BB

turn is a 3

The BB bets, one fold to me. Now pot odds indicate that I should fold. But really I should go ahead and call, because I know that my opposition would never fold a belly- buster, So I know that out of the 29 cards left, there are four jacks.

Factor #3

Same action except no- one folds and we are sitting on the turn facing a bet and every one calling.

11.5 BB

Getting ~11.5:1 it appers to be an easy call. But in reality is is an unprofitable. It is too likely I am facing a jack or another queen causing a split pot. It is even possible to be facing two jacks, giving me a 46-1 longshot that I thought was an easy call.

Anyway, this is the small of it, I could probably put a lot more work into this, but I don't know what good it will really do.

I wanted to read other people's thoughts on this.