2/4 Insanity!!

[Megenoita]

I think it's a fold PF mathematically, but have not gotten too in depth into finding out if I'm right, and would like to hear if people think it's a standard call. My opinion FWIW is that you like to call these plays with speculative hands like pairs, suited connectors, or Axs--ones with litte RIO and huge IO. AQo is a top pair hand that is very susceptible to RIO in a multiway pot. So I think you should fold to the first PF bet. I thought it was standard to fold to that first raise even given the odds you were getting, but maybe I'm wrong.

The second PF bet, when you have to call 2 cold, I think since the pot is going to be absolutely huge, you now need to call to see the flop. I don't know about this, either, but I think I'd push for a call.

On the flop, IMO you have to stay in. I like raising and I think it's fundamentally what SSHE would teach--when you're in a huge pot, and you're going to stay, do your best to improve your chances of winning even if you're definitely not ahead now.

On the turn, I would call and not raise but maybe that's weak. The flop cap scares me...I'm probably weak. I would just call down. If you raise, are you folding to a turn 3-bet? Probably not, right?

One you decided to stay to see the flop, barring the worst flop of all time, you have to stay in. And you probably have to stay in after the turn, too, if you have any hope of outs on the river.

Just my thoughts...I would love to hear more discussion on this.

M

[einbert]

I would have just called the flop. The rest looks good.

[Chris Dow]

Preflop folding out of the sb when it's only been raised? I'm not gonna do that. I understand RIO but I think thats a stretch.

So I think I have to get to the flop in this hand. Do you mind people coming along behind you einbert on the flop? I was of the opinion I'd prefer anyone to fold who would fold. Do you think that if I make it I'm gonna make it so I don't really need to raise flop? Anyway, this entire hand was fueled by logic along the lines of "wow this pot is big" so I'm in the same camp as M and would like to hear more.

[einbert]

I'll have to think about it some more, but even when you raise people are getting more than 10-1. I don't really see you folding out anyone who's going to call two bets, and I want to see the turn as cheaply as possible and hopefully keep the pot small enough that I can afford to fold the turn UI. (EDIT: Yeah perhaps that is unrealistic, we'll have to see the river here for 2 BB or less I guess(?)).

I completely agree with your PF play.

[sweetjazz]

I don't know quite what you mean by cleaning up overcards here.

Do you expect AK to fold on the flop facing three cold?
Or do you want AT to fold, so that if you catch an A on the turn, he won't have a chance to catch a T on the river to steal the pot from you?
Or do you want a gutshot straight draw to fold, so that if you hit your ace, he doesn't have a four out redraw to beat you?

Keep in mind that it's not terribly likely that one of these hands is out which is willing to call two but not three. And even if such a hand is out, you still the cards to hit in exactly the combination described above in order for it to save the pot for you.

So even though saving one big pot is worth a lot, I'm not sure it's worth putting an extra SB in here. (Of course, the raise isn't costing you a full SB, since you have some pot equity, but it's clearly losing you some fraction of a SB.) A lot of things have to happen in order to drag you a pot that you would have lost without the raise.

Anyway, my larger point is that "cleaning up outs" is a complex concept, and it's not clear what the right times are to apply it.

[Chris Dow]

Right so my counterpoint to this post, without trying to oversimplify, is simply that the pot is so large that if one small bet will make any of those hands fold (which it might) and if that, hrmmm almost ever, saves the pot for me it seems worthwhile. You are exactly correct I was wanting to get rid of any ace and any queen so that I wouldn't get runner 2 paired on, any backdoor flush or backdoor gutshot anything (any straight draw that would fold). I don't want PP's to peel. I also thought that since the action was bet, raise that there would be a huge difference in the amount of overcalling behind me between the two actions of reraise (making the flop an intimidating betting sequence of bet raise reraise) rather than just calling (which pretty much to me looks like you're saying ok boys let's let the overcalling begin). Keep in mind that I think 2/4 people can in general be much less aware about pot odds and would drop a lot of semi-weak draws and certainly many pp's when facing 3 cold. I guess the final point is, it looks like anyone who should call 2 should probably also call 3, but sometimes they might make the mistake of folding, and if that ever happens I'd want it to happen here.

[sweetjazz]

I think I agree with your preference for calling the flop. (Though I could be persuaded by a careful analysis of "outs cleaning" that suggests otherwise.)

But I disagree with your philosophical approach of "I want to keep this pot small enough so I can fold UI on the turn." When a bot becomes as big as this one, I am concentrating on increasing my winning chances anyway I can. I want to see a river card badly. However, sometimes the call option is best. And sometimes I might have to fold the turn UI. But I don't *want* to do this, nor is this the primary goal in the hand.

Maybe it's just nitpicking. But I just want to make sure that people don't read your post and get into the frame of mind of looking for reasons to fold.

[Chris Dow]

Yeah, this nitpicking isn't nitpicking at all, it's an important point. I think einbert might mean something more along the lines of I can fold the hand ui if it's around 2-3 cold to me and the card that came off was particularly bad (like a low non diamond I think).

[Megenoita]

I think that you make good points, and I thought of them as well, but in a monster pot like this, if you are staying in, and if 3-betting the flop would have even the slightest chance of inducing a correct OR incorrect fold, it is worth it IMO.

If you can fold an A-rag, AQ shared, a pp, a 6, or induce a weak-tight person who thinks they have outs to now think they are drawing dead b/c of the 3-bet, it must be worth it.

For instance, folding an Ace and a 6 means that the 1.5% you hit your runner-runner A-5 straight, you gain 3/4ths of a SB there alone. If you consider folding an ace on the flop when you hit your ace on the turn, he would take the pot from you about 6.5% of the time, so you save 3.25 SBs (estimating 50 SB pot times .065). I'm just estimating and maybe I'm missing something, but I just think that virtually any chance at all that you can fold someone correctly or incorrectly to improve your equity even 2-3% makes it worth it to 3-bet.

[einbert]

What I'm saying is that if the pot gets huge enough, we are going to have to see the river even paying 3-4BB when we are sometimes drawing dead. I want to be able to fold if it's 2BB cold to me on the turn, and by pumping up the pot on the flop (and I believe that's the primary result of our flop 3-bet), we bind ourselves to this pot to the point that we almost have to see the river no matter what.

For example, there are 3 players in the pot. One has TPTK, one has a flush draw, and one has two blank cards. For simplicity's sake, let's assume TPTK has 2/3 equity in the pot and the flush draw has 1/3 equity in the pot. TPTK bets, drawing dead calls, and the action is on flush draw. From an equity standpoint, calling and raising are exactly the same (assume drawing dead never folds no matter what, and TPTK never gives free cards). But by raising now we make our turn call more +EV the times we don't make our flush on the turn and we bind TPTK to the larger pot so that he might call additional big bets on the turn when drawing dead and/or on the river with the worst hand. What I'm saying is that in a vacuum, increasing the pot size benefits strong draws and is a detriment to weak draws and made hands with no redraws. We have a very weak draw here, so managing the pot size is one aspect of this hand we might want to consider.

I don't think my reasoning is fundamentally unsound, I was getting at a concept that I think is really important in marginal spots like this one.