New quiz from Ed...

[LotusBoy]

http://www.cgtv.com/games/column/042904/
http://www.cgtv.com/games/column/052604/
http://www.cgtv.com/games/column/063004/
http://www.cgtv.com/games/column/072804/
http://www.cgtv.com/games/column/082504/
http://www.cgtv.com/games/column/092104/
http://www.cgtv.com/games/column/102004/

[jfletcher]

That was a lot of fun. Are there any more of those online tests?

You can only do the same questions in the book so many times. I really enjoyed this.

(I got 5 right, but I count is as 6 because on one of them I picked the right move ("raise") but for the wrong reasons. I said raise to knock out players and he said raise for value.)

[Ed Miller]

While I agree with raising the KJ hand to clean up your overcard outs, I don’t see how raising the flop with the Q8 helps you. In fact I posted on this subject on another board here recently. Maybe someone could check it out and comment on it?

You made a major error. You assumed that the bettor would have top pair 100% of the time. In the Q8 hand, sometimes no one will have top pair. That is enough to make raising correct.

If you (incorrectly) assume that the bettor has a pair of eights beaten 100% of the time, then you will reach the conclusion that you did...

[chaz64]

[ QUOTE ]
While I agree with raising the KJ hand to clean up your overcard outs, I don’t see how raising the flop with the Q8 helps you. In fact I posted on this subject on another board here recently. Maybe someone could check it out and comment on it?

You made a major error. You assumed that the bettor would have top pair 100% of the time. In the Q8 hand, sometimes no one will have top pair. That is enough to make raising correct.

If you (incorrectly) assume that the bettor has a pair of eights beaten 100% of the time, then you will reach the conclusion that you did...

[/ QUOTE ]

Ed, thanks for responding.

I have been trying to understand the concept from TOP of "raising when your hand may be second best." I infer from this that someone very frequently has top pair.

After thinking about this, I'm assuming that you raise with Q8 to drive out aces and kings. But what if you had A8 instead of Q8? Would you still raise here? You don't have to protect yourself against overcards now, and you might actually want to keep some ace hands in that you have reverse dominated, instead of driving them out.

[Ed Miller]

1. The Q8s call is NOT EVEN CLOSE to marginal. If you asked about this situation in the Mid- and High-Stakes forum, every knowledgable poster would say, "Easy call." Some people argue, "I don't play well enough postflop for it to be profitable." That's nonsense... anyone could turn a profit in this situation. To show it's not marginal...

Q8s is a marginal hand in late position in an unraised pot. That is, if a few people limp in, and you have Q8s on the button, the hand is roughly break-even. That means that IT MUST BE SIGNIFICANTLY PROFITABLE in our situation. There is TWICE the money in the pot... that easily outweighs the fact that the raiser is likely to have a better-than-average hand.

(BTW, if you dispute that Q8s is roughly break-even on the button... would you play 98s? T8s? How about Q9s? Hopefully all of those hands look like easy plays to you. Q8s cannot possibly be MUCH worse than those hands...)

2. The loose games chart (6-8 players) was never intended to model any online game. I'll tell you a story about how it came into being. I originally wrote just one chart (the tight chart). Then Clarkmeister read it and said, "Man, you gotta have something in there that tells you you can cold-call with A8s on the button after a raise and four callers. You can't just leave that out of a book on small stakes." I agreed.

You won't find a raise and four cold-callers much online... but you will find it EVERYWHERE if you play live in LA. Believe me, these games definitely exist. Try the $4-$8 at Hawaiian Gardens. Just because they don't exist anywhere on four online sites don't mean that they don't exist. There is a whole world of poker. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[Ed Miller]

I have been trying to understand the concept from TOP of "raising when your hand may be second best." I infer from this that someone very frequently has top pair.

First of all, I'm assuming TOP includes a stud example of this concept. You should understand that stud works in a fundamenatally different way than hold 'em does for this issue... because in stud the hands are independent. If there are three players... A, B, and C... and A has the best hand, B can improve to beat A, but still lose to C because he improves to an even better hand. That doesn't happen nearly as often in hold 'em because the cards C needs are usually mostly different from the ones B needs.

So if there are three players in the pot, A can show everyone a pair of kings, and it can still be right for B to raise him with A55.

Not so in hold 'em. If you have Q8, and the board is J84... if someone SHOWS you J2, you should NOT raise anymore. That's because you need to improve to win, and it's relatively unlikely that your outs (queens and eights) will make someone else a winner who would have folded to your raise.

Having said that, if your pair of eights is the best hand... or if you can get the best hand to fold by raising (perhaps someone behind you has pocket nines, tens, or a jack with a weak kicker... yes, people do fold that sometimes) then raising is HUGELY the best play.

I also don't understand your A8 question. There are five overcards to your eights that can come... 9, T, Q, K, and A. Whether you have a Q or an A kicker, you are still vulnerable to the other four.

If you are thinking, "well, what if I had a pair of aces, wouldn't that change the situation?" then you are completely right.

[Festus22]

6 out of 8. I suck.

Folded Q-8s preflop and took the free card with K-Js.

Looks like it's back to Pacific 0.10/0.20 for me. <sigh>

[Siingo]

6....
Folded Q-8 and did not bet the K-J at the flop since I wanted more callers to give me better value for the stright and backdoor flush. Seems like I was the only one thinking like that. But I missed my overcards in my thinking....

[Malcom Reynolds]

The Q8s limp reminds me of a post Ed made here.

Edit: Yeah I should read the entire thread before posting. Cnfuzzd beat me to it.

[bennyk]

guess i'll have to find my leaks elsewhere

bk