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[Tommy Angelo]

"But very few players can say in very few situations that they are 96% sure of anything in poker."

Put me in the group that is never 96% sure of anything at a poker table. The whole idea that I (or anyone) might actually know when they are feeling 96% suredness compared to say 93% suredness is absurd to me.

The situation is, the opponent bet on the river and we are last to act. If we fold, he wins. If we call and he has the best hand, he wins. If we call and we have the best hand, we win. There's no bluffing. There's no good hands and bad hands. There is this situation and nothing else. Over and over.

The way I see it, in this situation, there are two ways to look at the correctness of a call on the river. One way is to calculate your own suredness of who you think has the best hand, in the absurd and impossible 96/93 fashion, and then compare that to the pot size, and arithmetize.

The other way is to look at both hands after the fact and see who had the best hand. If the best hand folded, then he made a mistake. If he didn't, then he didn't. For example. If you bet with queen-high, and I fold with king-high, or if you bet with a flush and I fold a full house, it doesn't matter what our hands were, and it doesn't matter if the pot is 2BB or 20BB. The mistake has nothing to do with pot size, or the cards, or the reads. The mistake is in folding the best hand. The non-mistake is in not folding the best hand. There is nothing else.

Tommy

[Roy Hobbs]

This is an important point that I think most people don't think about when making a "big" laydown. The only way that this laydown is likely to cause opponents to actively try to get you to fold big hands is if you turn over your hand or otherwise make it clear that you are folding a big pair. Because, in their mind, you couldn't possibly be folding pocket aces, could you? If you make bullet folds, it more often than not just looks like you are folding a missed draw.

A more observant opponent may deduce that you are folding a stronger hand than you let on based on the action on prior streets. But few players put this much thought into it -- they are keyed into what you look like when you fold -- do you grumble, look at your cards, show your hand to the guy next to you, complain about your premium hands getting cracked over and over again, or do you quickly and silently slide your hand to the muck?

Thanks for the reminder, Tommy.

RH

[andyfox]

I don't agree, Tommy. Let's say you're up against player A. He never bluffs. If he bets the river, he has your aces up beat. Always. Or at least he thinks he does. He bets and you fold. But it turns out his new bifocals failed him and he thought he had pocket deuces, but they were pocket 7s and you had him beat. Did you make a mistake in folding? Or did you do the correct thing knowing he wouldn't bet unless you were beat?

Now take player B (please). He's unreadable. But you know him as a player who will bluff approximately 50% of the time in this spot. Now you fold when he bets and it turns out he had quads. By your lights, you made the correct decision because he had you beat. But by my lights you made a mistake because you folded for one bet in a ninety-seven bet pot with a fifty percent chance of winning. The mistake has everything to do with pot size, the cards, and the reads.

You might as well say you made a mistake playing the pocket aces to begin with since the mistake was in playing a hand that ended up being second best.

Regards,
Andy

[limitholdemshark]

u played ur hand like a pro.we both nu a set had been flopped by someone most likly the sb.but untill the river u had 12 outs(someone has the king of clubs)the wheel (someone has an ace to chop w u)
keep up the good poker

good luck

the shark

[tpir90036]

[ QUOTE ]
There is nothing else.

[/ QUOTE ]
If you want to turn the river into Zero or One then you can certainly look at it like this. However, a one bet "mistake" where the payoff is 10,000 bets is not as big of a deal as a one bet "mistake" with a payoff of one bet since we can not assign an exact percentage to our suredness. You said so yourself.

It felt like a good fold... so you made it. You can never be XX% sure of anything but you were certainly way closer to 100% beaten than 0. Clearly you know and understand all of this so I am not sure why you are being so cavalier in rounding the shades of grey to black just because some players aren't petrified of paying off on the river.

[SA125]

Tommy, I agree with you about trying to be so specific with the math and not relying enough on your instincts.

I disagree with you saying a mistake in a 2BB pot is the same as a mistake in a 20BB pot. I find it hard to believe that you can believe that. Big, big difference.

Steve A.

[elindauer]

First of all, let me say that I believe somebody can have a read on someone else that makes a ridiculous fold like this correct. However, if you have this read, you have it. If you don't, you don't. Either way, I can't have an intelligent conversation about it. Maybe you're right, maybe you're wrong, good luck, next hand.

So, I'm going to respond to the question of whether the action should lead us to believe that we are beaten here often enough to fold, and there is only one possible conclussion: This is a bad fold.

The reason is that the SB may well hold AK with the Kc, or the other two aces. Let's review. He called a cap cold from the small blind. Many players would never call this with pocket deuces, so we must significantly discount the odds of him having a set. For similar reasons, we should discount substantially the odds of him having flopped a flush.

Now, he checks and calls four cold on the flop. What kind of hand is this? Is this consistent with our read? Well, any ace now holds a gutshot draw. AK with a club would hold a gutshot, good overcards, and the 2nd nut flush draw. I seriously doubt someone holding this hand would fold it. Of course, aces and kings etc are also possible. Basically, this action doesn't change our read at all. There is no need to start fearing a set.

Now the turn is a king and the SB bet, 3-bets. Has our hand range changed? Not really. Ak, aces and kings might all play just like this. Since we're beating everything but kings and have a big draw against that, we should be 3-betting the turn, not calling.

On the river, we face one bet. He may have kings and we lose. He may surprise us with a flopped set and we lose. But if he has aces we chop and AK we win. There is PLENTY of doubt. Way way way too much doubt to fold. There is no way without an amazing player read to fold this hand correctly. And if that is what this post is about, why are we discussing it at all?


Good luck.
Eric

[elindauer]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I read this post because based on the title I was pretty sure that it had the best chance of any Tommy post ever to not include him folding.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yep, some day Tommy will call and Mason will lose the hand. Wouldn't that be a post.

b

[/ QUOTE ]

lol. I'd expect Tommy to check and call with quads to take down Mason's aces full. There will be surely be four to a straight flush on the board so the turn will probably go check check.

[elindauer]

What does this mean? And more to the point, how would you use this to help make your decision? You say, it's either a mistake, or it's not... ok, so, should I call, or not?

The point of the 96% argument is exactly that it's very difficult to know with this kind of certaintly that you are behind. You look at the pot, make a quick calculation of how sure you have to be, and then make an educated guess of whether or not you are that sure. When it's 75%, you can fold. When it's 96%, you usually can't.

I don't understand why so many people seem to be on the bash-the-mathematics train these days. You use math to give you a framework for making decisions, then you use your poker skills to make the final decision. To suggest that you can't know to within +-1% how sure you are, so let's just throw the whole thing out the window and go with our gut is stupid.

I know I can't convince you Tommy. I respond for the following reasons.

1) I can't resist arguing with somebody I'm confident is wrong. This might be a character flaw.
2) It helps clarify my thoughts to write them out.


Good luck.
Eric