Heavily Critisised but I think Good Play?

[soah]

In the actual hand, UTG bet $12 on the turn. We'll assume that the third player would not raise the turn if he hadn't paired up... so let's say he just calls. That means Hero is offered 3.5:1 to call the turn. Two of his flush outs pair the board which leaves 7 clean flush outs and 3 clean gutshot outs. So he is 4.2:1 against hitting. So with implied odds this would end up being slightly profitable. But if he hits either of his tainted outs he will most likely end up losing the remainder of his stack. Without actually crunching the numbers, I would imagine that this negates much of his EV.

[NickPoker]

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You'd fold AQ to a 3xBB raise? Only from UTG? What about UTG+1, +2? Villain wasn't making us pay very much to suck him out. I think hero illustrated that the implied odds were there, though maybe that's results-oriented thinking.

I think this is more of an illustration of why not to raise to 3xBB UTG w/ KK.

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Starting at the flop. There are 43 cards left in the deck. Three of them are clean outs for us. We get all of the money in then. One player has a 9/42 chance to pair the board and win. One player has an 8/42 chance to make a winning spade flush. This means we have a 25/42 chance of having our hand hold up.

So the result of calling the flop is that 40/43 times we lose $4, and 3/43 times we get all our money in with a 25/42 chance to gain around $115 and a 17/42 chance to lose about $62. So the EV of calling the flop was:

(-4 x 40/43) + (115 x 3/43 x 25/42) + (-62 x 3/43 x 17/42)
(-3.71) + (4.76) + (-1.71)
= -0.66

These are the most favorable assumptions possible -- it assumes that you will always get both of their stacks in on the turn, and it assumes you will be savvy enough to check/fold if an ace comes on the turn. You are also somewhat fortunate in that the flush draw includes the jack of spades; otherwise there is the 1/43 chance that you will hit your gutshot and be drawing dead to the made flush... can you get away from that?

Yet unless I have miscalculated, you still lose money calling the flop. I do not claim to be perfect at EV calculations so please check my numbers.

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The only problem I have with this is that against random player online 3xBB even UTG does not necessarily mean monster hand. I think your calc is good when you know what the villain had, but against a random hand range, if you are a decent player who does not go broke with TPTK, this is a preflop call. Now if this player has demonstrated himself to be a rock that could change things.

[soah]

I have rarely played a nine-handed game where AQs was favored over the range of hands players were raising UTG with. And not only does it fare poorly hot and cold, but it also plays poorly postflop if you make one pair. You will get action mostly from hands which beat you.

[FreakDaddy]

OOP you need to fold this, with position you can argue for a call. You're going to lose money making these calls over time, especially as you move up in limits.

[bobbyi]

Obviously, but you are being results oriented. Just because "in the actual hand" UTG bet $12 on the turn doesn't mean that you can assume that we know that that is what is going to happen at the time we are making our flop decision and calculating its EV. Reread my post. My point was that the turn often checks around or someone makes a stupid bet like $2. In these baby stakes NL games, this happens all the time and it means that our bd flush has value. Saying that this isn't true because on this particular occassion UTG happened to have top set and thus bet a lot on the turn is completely results oriented.

[soah]

I still believe its value is negligible. You are relying on three things to happen: You must catch a club on the turn. Your opponents must not bet much on the turn. You must catch a club on the river. These three things will not happen often.

Furthermore, if you want to draw at a three-outer out of position on the flop, you need to be damn sure you will get paid off big when you hit. If there is a significant chance of the turn getting checked through, then you will not be able to triple up on the hand (although this of course would also mean you get two chances to hit your draw instead of just one, so perhaps my arguments are starting to run in circles).

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Please explain the "why not to raise 3xBB with KK".

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He got 3 callers. You don't wanna be 4-way with KK/AA.

I didn't mean not raise. [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img] I meant RAISE for reals.

[NickPoker]

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OOP you need to fold this, with position you can argue for a call. You're going to lose money making these calls over time, especially as you move up in limits.

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I will have to respectfully disagree. I believe if you are folding AQ suited for 2.5 BB you are playing too weak tight. Unless you are a person who can't get away from TPTK, but then you have much bigger problems. There are times that warrant folding the hand, but in general I think it is a call. (I am talking preflop). I would fold to a bigger raise or reraise, or against a rock, or a very good player. If everyone is folding AQs to a UTG raise, that would be an argument against open limping hardly anything UTG.

[soah]

What "everyone" does is irrelevent to whether what "everyone" is doing is correct.

You shouldn't be calling raises out of position with hopes of "getting away" from the hand which you are most likely to flop. Playing a hand to try to make a pair in NL holdem is a huge leak. Building draws out of position is (usually) a leak. You don't flop two pair, straights, and flushes often enough to show a profit here.