Facing a Raise with Middle Pair in the Orange Zone

[zeitgeist]

$10 + $1 on bugsysclub.com. No reads on Villain. Top 20 are paid (but my goal is top 3).

100 Ante, 300/600 Blinds
Average Stack: 20,877.19 (10,000 starting chips)
Remaining Players: 57 (119 started)

Seat 1 : Hero (BB) starts with 16,700
Seat 2 : UTG starts with 28,800
Seat 3 : UTG+1 starts with 18,300
Seat 4 : Villain starts with 10,400
Seat 5 : MP1 starts with 7,100
Seat 6 : MP2 starts with 27,500
Seat 7 : MP3 starts with 12,100
Seat 8 : CO starts with 13,000
Seat 9 : Button starts with 7,000
Seat 10 : SB starts with 62,200

Preflop: Hero is Big Blind with 9 [img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] T [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img].
2 folds, Villain calls, 1 fold, MP2 calls, 3 folds, SB completes, Hero checks.

Flop: (3400) 2 [img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] A [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] 9 [img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img] <font color="blue">(4 players) </font>
SB checks, <font color="red">Hero bets 1700,</font> <font color="red"> Villain raises 6,800 to 8,500,</font> 2 folds, <font color="green">Hero does what exactly? </font>

[Bigdaddydvo]

No draws on the board. Villian clearly likes his hand. I think it's a clear fold.

[CardSharpCook]

2:1 on your money, 5 outs (maybe). yeah, you can fold this.

[CardSharpCook]

Orange Zone?

[billyjex]

[ QUOTE ]
Orange Zone?

[/ QUOTE ]

HOH v2, inflection points, he gives a rating of "zones" you are in relative to your M.. and your m is another HOH 2 concept.. read the book!

[ThrillFactor]

[ QUOTE ]
Hero does what exactly?

[/ QUOTE ]


Hero nearly slices off the dealer's hand as he fires his cards into the muck.

[WillMagic]

Hero disposes of his cards like they were radioactive.

How can you even think there is another option here?

Will

[nath]

I don't think I would even bet into the field with the ace on board. Low-stakes limpers LOVE aces.

[zeitgeist]

One of the most helpful lines in the HOH books is something like, when you're facing a big bet, resist the impulse to either fold or call quickly, and instead try to evaluate your chances against a probable range of hands and compare them with the pot odds.

Villain's raise leaves him with 1200. If I call, it's safe to assume that his chips are going in the pot on the turn and the pot odds then will make a call by me trivial. So I should consider Villain to essentially be putting 8000 into a 6800 pot, giving me pot odds of 1.85 to 1. At the same time, I will get to see both the turn and river cards for free/cheap.

Does Villain have two pair or a set? I think that's unlikely. His raise screams, "get out of the pot now". On a virtually drawless board, a call or a smaller raise would make more sense. Obviously not everyone would do this, so I estimate the chances of such a hand as 10%. If he has it, I'm drawing dead or close to it, so my chances of winning are 0%.

Obviously Ace-something is the most likely hand (or, perhaps, a very strangely played TT-KK). He's at least 70% likely to have this. If so, with 2 cards to come, I'm just under 20% to win.

Then we come to Harrington's Law of Bluffing: When an opponent makes a big bet, the chance he is bluffing is at least 10%. Maybe it's more than this, but say it's 10% for now, in which case I'm close to a 100% favourite to win.

The other 10%? Maybe betting 88 or 77 or something. In this case I'm a 90% favourite to win.

So if I add these up:

10% times 0% = 0%
70% times 20% = 14%
10% times 100% = 10%
10% times 90% = 9%

These add up to 33%, making me a 2:1 underdog. The pot is only offering 1.85:1, so I think it's a fold. But it's not what I'd call a "Ack! Get these cards out of my hand!" fold.

And if Villain is, say, 20% likely to be bluffing and only 60% likely to hold an Ace, my chances go up to 41%, making me less than a 1.5:1 underdog and making a call profitable.

Does my reasoning make sense? Am I being too optimistic or too pessimistic? Further thoughts/flames appreciated.

[SoREckless]

Yeah, what he said.

Fold.