30-60 Turn Decision

[Lmn55d]

Someone said that theres no difference whether or not a pot is small or big if you're making a close decision. Isn't this completely wrong? Say you figure you have 10 outs 10% of the time, but you actually should have used a figure of 15%. You are entitled to a certain portion of the pot here, and that 5% difference is gonna be a lot more BB in a huge pot like this. The number of BB to be put in on the turn and river might not change in a small vs. large pot, but the expected payoff does. I am completely wrong here?

[Nightwish]

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Someone said that theres no difference whether or not a pot is small or big if you're making a close decision. Isn't this completely wrong? Say you figure you have 10 outs 10% of the time, but you actually should have used a figure of 15%. You are entitled to a certain portion of the pot here, and that 5% difference is gonna be a lot more BB in a huge pot like this. The number of BB to be put in on the turn and river might not change in a small vs. large pot, but the expected payoff does. I am completely wrong here?

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Give me a definition of what you mean by "close decision" and I'll answer your question.

[Nightwish]

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If the math is that close, doesn't the emotion count for something? Would you rather play the rest of the session knowing that you put in two extra bets with a set, or gave up 21 BB by folding a winning set on the turn? This tilts the odds in favor of calling.

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Are you telling me you're worried about going on tilt?

[Lmn55d]

my question is a theoretical question, it shouldn't matter how close the decision is...the fact that if you make the wrong decision it will be a bigger mistake in a bigger pot. This is why you must be very sure you're beat to fold the river in a big pot. If the pot is small and its the same exact situation I dont think it can possibly be as big of a mistake.

[sweetzer]

Yes, I am succeptible to tilt, and to understand ones own level of tilt greatly helps understand the game, and how to play others. There are many levels of tilt. Math is great, I can make a spreadsheet tapdance, but poker is still a people game and I am a person.

[Nightwish]

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my question is a theoretical question, it shouldn't matter how close the decision is...the fact that if you make the wrong decision it will be a bigger mistake in a bigger pot. This is why you must be very sure you're beat to fold the river in a big pot. If the pot is small and its the same exact situation I dont think it can possibly be as big of a mistake.

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Calling vs folding on the river is a totally different matter. There, you're not looking at outs but at the probability that your hand is best, i.e. you're trying to figure out the probabiilty that your opponent would bet into you with a worse hand.

Prior to the river, what you're looking at is something else. You're looking at the probability that your hand will be best by the river. You multiply that by the number of bets you will win and subtract the number of bets you will lose multiplied by the probability you will lose. That's EV. It tells you how many bets you will lose or win on average if you keep on replaying this situation over and over again.

This is why I asked you what you meant by "close". If you mean close in terms of EV (meaning EV is about 0), then it doesn't matter what you do. The pot size does matter, but the EV calculation already takes it into account. So if the EV is about zero, what that means is that even with this huge pot size, calling vs folding will cost you about the same number of bets on average (and that number is zero).

[Nightwish]

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"it's a small error"

you dont think i get that? i disagreed with some of your ideas of what mp has.

you are overthinking this. fine let's say you are even EV here. fine. then when you toss your hand and it's good you lose a 20+ bb pot. when you play on and it's bad the most you lose is say 3 bbs. okay fine let's presume it's even EV, it's better to just take that small shot at the 20 bb pot with neutral EV. this is not the place to save bets. very big pots are not the place to save bets.


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Mike, the idea that very big pots are not the place to save bets is only a rule of thumb. The reason we say this is that because if the pot is very big, then it's OK to call even if your probability of winning it is very small. However, what does "very big" and "very small" mean? EV is a mathematical concept, and "very big" and "very small" need to be quantified. Quantifying the size of the pot is trivial -- you just look at it. Quantifying your probability of winning it is tougher -- you have to estimate how many outs you have. You multiply it all out and what you're left with is EV.

The EV that you get has already taken the size of the pot into account. It's not just a raw probability of winning the pot, it's been weighted by the size of the pot.

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now let's say you calculate it at neutral EV between folding and calling but youre off by a little bit because you dont know sb or mp as well as you think you do. so you miscalculate and it's +EV (but not greatly by any stretch) to play on with the hand. ok so now you are making a small mistake in a very big pot.


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Yup, so that small mistake is worth only a few bucks. Look at the calculation I did in a previous post. The EV is in units of big bets, and whether you're a little ahead or a little behind, the result is that you'll (on average) either win or lose a small fraction of a big bet.

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very big pots are rare. pick your close battles well in this game. this is a place to call. the reasons are beyond math, there is EV in winning that big pot feeling good about going home, taking a shot at a bigger game next time, buying your girlfriend something nice and getting laid. +EV extends to all of that stuff big time. winning big pots is more +EV than math alone may tell you.

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OK, I'm not going to argue metaphysics with you. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[Nightwish]

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"OK, now we're getting into the heart of the argument."

no the heart of the argument is what i said in another post above called "recalculating your EV".

"Frankly, I think the probability that MP has QdJs is about zero,"

so do i. i mistyped and meant to say QdJd. he can have other hands.

i wouldnt sit there and count the pot in this hand so im not going to sit here and give you some number of "outs". i have done that before and i know the routine and i like ed's books idea of estimating outs w/ half outs and stuff. i love it when im in a situation where it's heads up and i know exactly where my opponent is at and i dont have to stress at all i just let simple math take over and sit back and smile. i really love it, it's +EV in and of itself because it gives me an ego boost, makes me think im clever.

what i would do during this hand is i would say wow this sucks but this pot is huge, im going to call and expect to lose. but that's because this is not a 100% sort of scenario and that's almost how certain you have to be in putting these TWO players on hands that both having you sucking wind. i dont know any two players well enough to know im drawing to one out here the vast majority of the time. not even close.

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Oh, I agree with you that what I would do in a real-time situation and what I'm doing here are two very different things. I make plenty of mistakes in a live game, and I'm guessing so do most of us. This is why we post hands here and ask others to analyze them. The beauty of analyzing hands off-line is that you can do a much more thorough analysis when you have the luxury of time as opposed to when you don't. This is what I attempted to do above.

[mike l.]

"OK, I'm not going to argue metaphysics with you."

it's not worth arguing. but dont discount it. big pot good.

[mike l.]

"Oh, I agree with you that what I would do in a real-time situation and what I'm doing here are two very different things. I make plenty of mistakes in a live game, and I'm guessing so do most of us. This is why we post hands here and ask others to analyze them. The beauty of analyzing hands off-line is that you can do a much more thorough analysis when you have the luxury of time as opposed to when you don't. This is what I attempted to do above."

yes and you did great. i think you were off on the hand reading a little, but that isnt what matters. what matters, what ive been trying to say is this:

"what I would do in a real-time situation and what I'm doing here are two very different things."

im saying take that and work with it, change it. try and wire yourself to use what sweetzer so eloquently said below and meld that with your good math and now we're really examining the EV of the situation.

i never ever argued with the numbers. i can see that the pot size and the probably outs make this one close. fortunately (and i couldve said unfortunately, but im trying to be cheery here) there's way more going on then that. i didnt even get into things like what does it look like when hero puts all that action in on the flop and then folds when things get heated on the turn. there's EV in that too. who knows, maybe im overthinking things, but you get the point by now i think. good discussion.