Back to the basics. Folding overpairs in the face of minor heat.

[Nigel]

Ok, this might be a little too vague for some people's taste but I don't feel like posting specific hands so hopefully I can just capture the essence of the problem.

Let's say you have a mid/high pair 99/TT/JJ something of that nature, and a multiway hand (with at least one other pre-flop raiser in it) has gone down (pre-flop and flop) in such a way that you are fairly certain you are behind to a bigger pair. Now, for one reason or another you've missed your set on the turn but have been dragged along because maybe you pick up a straight draw or a flush draw or maybe you want to see how the turn action goes down and decide what to do on the river. On the river, you've miss all 'outs', but you are either still overcarded, or there is no Q, K, A on the board. The guy representing the big hand bets and everyone now folds leaving just you, closing the action, facing a large pot, lets say 14+BB's, but you just "know" you are beat as you have enough of a read to think he probably is sane enough to not fire A hi into 3-4 opponents on the river.

Do these just need to be auto-calls and that's the way life goes in limit, or at "expert" level do these need to start becoming laydowns? Lawrence's post on folding KK comes to mind, although that's a little extreme, but the same idea.

Anyway, I usually am good at knowing when I'm beat in these situations and getting away from these hands early, but when I don't get a good excuse to get out early and end up on the river heads up for that last bet, I hate to let it go.

This kind of situation has come up too often in the past day or two and it's nagging me. Maybe these are so marginal that it doesn't affect things too much one way or the other. I'd just like to hear others thoughts on it.

Big leak, small leak, or no leak?

Nigel

[17percent]

looks like you only have to win once out of 13 tries for +ev... (in this situation) this has everthing to do with feel.. something that cant be tought on a message board

[etizzle]

well certainly it can't be a big leak.

Probably a small leak but withouit being able to look at the guy I'm rarely going to fold an overpair closing the action in a big pot HU.

[Nigel]

Well, that's a quick way to kill any discussion on the matter. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

I think the whole thing here is when the math and metagame considerations should override instincts, intuition and feel.

I know this is somthing that can't be taught, but it can be discussed. Maybe I should just post a goofy laydown and change my name to Tommy Angelo.

Cheers,

Nigel

[17percent]

wasnt trying to kill your post or be rude at all.. just hard to answer such a vague question i guess.. pretty much a different situation every hand.. sorry buddy

[Dazarath]

Assuming the guy is a TAG and plays pretty straightforward, this is an easy fold (IMO). In smaller stakes, the idea of "never fold on the river for a single bet" is ok, but I think once you get to higher stakes, it will be a big leak. If you call with any piece of the board everytime you're getting 10+:1, you'll find that you're calling a lot. In some situations, 10:1 is just not good enough.

Of course, the answer is that it's player/situation dependent. If the guy's a maniac, easy call. Also, if the board is something like 532 with 2 to a suit, the guy could have AKs and his betting would be +EV. On the other hand, if the board on the river is T8732 with a rainblow flop, you have 99, and some guy who capped preflop is still betting into a field of 3 people, I don't think he has AK even 1 in 15 times.

This is all how I see it personally, though. I'd like to hear others' input on the subject.

[piggity]

[ QUOTE ]
closing the action, facing a large pot, lets say 14+BB's, but you just "know" you are beat

[/ QUOTE ]

Assuming this single action won't affect your metagame too much, this is a straightforward math problem, because you are deciding on the last bet of the hand: If you are x% sure that you are beat, where x = 1 - (BB / (BB+PotSize)), then fold. Otherwise, call. Only you can decide how sure you are.