Pre flop play question

[crunchy1]

#1 - All these equity calculations assume that each player is all-in and that there will be not betting post-flop. How does it go? ...somthing like - "PokerStove killed the Poker Star". [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

#2 - Putting Hero up against 5 specific hands seems like a ridiculous use of the equity calculator. There's no way that you can assign 1 specific hand to each player. Each player needs to have a range of hands assigned to him/her to be evaluated against.

[sfer]

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Maybe I have not played at enough tables where, despite being at a reasonably middle limit table online, everyone sucks.

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Then you haven't played mid-limits at Party.

[SeaEagle]

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To me, this whole thread is really misguided.

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First let me say that I don't think there's much difference between a raise and call here. But the logic used to show a raise is bad is misguided.

One of the main reasons for raising in position is to increase your practical equity by taking control of the hand. Using H&C analysis preflop and flop is really dangerous because it doesn't take into effect the rest of the betting rounds. For instance, you show 33 as having 15% equity. Clearly, 33 only has about 10% equity since roughly 100% of the time he doesn't flop a set he's folding, and even if he does flop a set, he's losing part of the time. In many situations where your equity edge is marginal, you must raise in order to add fold equity to your H&C equity and increase your overall chance of winning the hand.

Also, with 6 players in, a 1.5% equity edge is not so small since you collect 1.5% from each player who calls. With this many players, something like a 5% equity edge would be pretty substantial.

Incidentally, the reason I think a call is probably the play of choice is because a raise will make it correct for the rest of the field to continue post-flop on many weak draws and AJo doesn't expect to make more than TP. But this has little to do with H&C analysis. In fact if there were only 3 limpers and AJo's equity were 25%, this would be an easy raise.

[W. Deranged]

I think many of the posts in this thread, particularly all those looking at specific equity against specific hands/ranges, are forgetting that we are actually playing a hand of poker and not just betting for one round, turning all the cards over, and running the flop.

Those equity numbers represent what happens when all five cards are dealt. Many of the hands shown won't see all five cards, and won't have the chance to catch late pairs, sets, or runner-runner draws.

Note that raising pre-flop also helps you to start generating extra equity in the pot. Playing aggressively might get opponents to lay down the best hand and/or profitable drawing/overcards on later streets. Further consider that the advantage of acting last means that our hero is going to be making a "premium on his equity"; namely, he will make a slightly higher profit on the hand than the numbers purely suggest because he will have the ability to make better decisions with more information.

Lastly, we need to be realistic about thinking about ranges. Hero is entering behind LIMPERS; he is not up against 10 10 and KQ and A9s and AQ and so on and so forth. It would be unlikely to get through a minefield of decent hands like those without someone blowing up and raising. The fact that hero is where he is should be a good indication his equity will usually be pretty high. Note that three-betting a raise and/or calling a raise from an earlier player is not being advocated here.

So, anyway, I raise here like almost all the time.

[J. Sawyer]

call.. no value in raise.

[jjacky]

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(we agree they are at least DECENT to be playing 10/20, right?)

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Nope, they need to be proved decent.

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Alright, I need to go to bed, but this should END the conversation. Lets play the hand against 4 awful players.

UTG--ATo--13.4%
UTG+1--76o--18.1%
MP--Q9s--27.1%(!!!--by far the best hand here)
CO--k5o--20.0%
HERO--AJo--21.5%

Against 4 awful hands, we have 1.5% raising equity?! Simply put, AJo is virtually an equally awful hand, and if any of you would like to raise this hand and build a pot for me when I am limping in middle position with the powerhouse hand that is Q9s, be my guest.

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even a slight change in the hands you enter will lead you to VERY different results.

for example, look at the following poekerstove results:

1)
AJo 18.250%
76o 17.993%
Q9s 20.631%
K5o 20.078%
A9o 7.740%
J8s 15.308%

2)
AJo 14.973%
76o 16.461%
Q9s 24.358%
K5o 18.419%
ATo 12.197%
J8s 13.593%

[Clarkmeister]

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even a slight change in the hands you enter will lead you to VERY different results.

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That's why you enter in a RANGE of hands for each player in pokerstove, not single holdings.

[Clarkmeister]

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Maybe I have not played at enough tables where, despite being at a reasonably middle limit table online, everyone sucks.

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Then you haven't played mid-limits at Party.

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I wonder if he's ever played poker at all when he suggests raising is worse than folding.

[Clarkmeister]

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It is so funny that folding is not even considered here. We have a high, uncoordinated holding in a multiway pot. These are not the situations we seek out. We give implied odds to any of the 6 limpers with a reasonable holding, while praying we aren't dominated. We find ourselves "equity" by divining our fellow 10/20 players to be SO bad, that they all hold worse hands than ours.

As I said before (and was quickly rebutted without any actual hand discussion what so ever), calling is probably correct, but you could certainly do worse than fold here--namely raise.

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This is one of the more absurd things I've seen written in a while. Folding here is bad. You fold AQo too? Do you fearfully call with AKo? Because both of those hands are easy raises. AJo may not be an easy raise (I have repeatedly said I believe it is *slightly* better than calling), but it's certainly not a fold.

[BigEndian]

I'm hoping he's a NL player myself. Still goofy to say folding is best in the above scenario in a NL game, but it is "safe".

- Jim