Unusual AKo hand, 30-60

[andyfox]

"then all of a sudden UTG has a better hand than he did."

I don't think this is so unusual. An ace comes, a guy bets, we figure the ace hit him. But now several other guys, who figure to have aces, call. If it's me, that decreases the possibility that the original bettor had an ace from what I figured were his chances of so having when he bet out. And since it's likely the others have aces, and it's likely he knows this, it's likelier that he can beat an ace.

Not saying it justifies folding, just saying changing the thinking about what the bettor might have in light of the two calls makes sense.

[Josh W]

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"then all of a sudden UTG has a better hand than he did."

I don't think this is so unusual. An ace comes, a guy bets, we figure the ace hit him. But now several other guys, who figure to have aces, call. If it's me, that decreases the possibility that the original bettor had an ace from what I figured were his chances of so having when he bet out. And since it's likely the others have aces, and it's likely he knows this, it's likelier that he can beat an ace.

Not saying it justifies folding, just saying changing the thinking about what the bettor might have in light of the two calls makes sense.

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Andy, I love you. No, not in that way.

See, you don't play online (I don't think). You rely on getting information the old fashioned way...throughout the hand. Too many people on here (and I'm not singling out anybody, least of all Duke), gather all their information before the hand, in the neat little VPIP and PFR numbers. They see those numbers, then act accordingly.

There are no stats that I've seen that take into account post flop play. The information you can gather via postflop play is soooo valuable, and people just aren't used to using that information anymore.

Josh

[andyfox]

"Andy, I love you. No, not in that way."

Damn. Another bad beat.

[Ulysses]

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"then all of a sudden UTG has a better hand than he did."

I don't think this is so unusual. An ace comes, a guy bets, we figure the ace hit him. But now several other guys, who figure to have aces, call. If it's me, that decreases the possibility that the original bettor had an ace from what I figured were his chances of so having when he bet out. And since it's likely the others have aces, and it's likely he knows this, it's likelier that he can beat an ace.

Not saying it justifies folding, just saying changing the thinking about what the bettor might have in light of the two calls makes sense.

[/ QUOTE ]

Andy, I love you. No, not in that way.

See, you don't play online (I don't think). You rely on getting information the old fashioned way...throughout the hand. Too many people on here (and I'm not singling out anybody, least of all Duke), gather all their information before the hand, in the neat little VPIP and PFR numbers. They see those numbers, then act accordingly.

There are no stats that I've seen that take into account post flop play. The information you can gather via postflop play is soooo valuable, and people just aren't used to using that information anymore.

Josh

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Josh, I love Andy too, but his logic doesn't make sense. Read the bolded passage. He says UTG knows that the other two guys likely have Aces. Did they tell UTG they were calling before he bet the river? That statement makes no sense to me. When UTG bets, what would make him think those guys have Aces?

[bpb]

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Not saying it justifies folding, just saying changing the thinking about what the bettor might have in light of the two calls makes sense.

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Excellent point. I don't think I've explicitly thought about this before. Shows how weak my hand reading thought process is.

I've still seen too many LAGs make hopeless river bets after the turn is checked around though, despite the number of people in the pot. But I'm assuming mediocre postflop skills. If UTG is a reasonable postflop player, then a fold is in order.

[Josh W]

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You didn't run out of tens and pairs in a huge pot from guys thinking that seeing a showdown is basically mandatory.

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True, but neither HJ nor button have those (they'd bet the turn), and they aren't calling with no pair on the river. So, that leads me to the same "what does UTG have?" question.


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The problem is that you were going to call UTG, and then 2 guys basically tell you that you have them beat and add money to the pot, and then all of a sudden UTG has a better hand than he did.

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True, when the river came, I would have called utg. But before I had the chance, I had new information presented to me. Namely, the other two both had aces. UTG still thought he could win the hand. UTG could beat an ace. I chose to use this new information, information I didn't have when I planned on calling UTG.

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No, the callers don't need aces when the pot is this big.

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In general, this is absolutely true. In this case, because they obviously don't have a pair on the turn, they DO need an ace to call the river.

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There's nothing to run out of. And I've seen guys bet 6 high into a field of 5 when an ace hit since it -is- a "scare card."

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Like I said, maybe UTG is bluffing here a naked bluff. But I think that it's probably less than 1 outta 20 times. And, I need to be ahead 1 outta 10 times to justify a call. River bets at 30/60 into fields of 4 are stone cold bluffs less than 1 outta 10 times. I don't think ANYBODY here denies that.

Josh

[jogumon]

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True, when the river came, I would have called utg. But before I had the chance, I had new information presented to me. Namely, the other two both had aces.

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Putting the unknown on an A here is a HUGE assumption. You have no idea how loose/dumb he is. After the turn was checked, UTG bet, and he called. For all you know, he has a PP, and thinks he's calling UTG's bluff. Yes, he should think someone after him might have an A. Yes, if he's picking off UTG's bluff with less than an A, he should raise, to get the pair of A's behind him to fold. That's assuming he's a good player. Why are you doing that?

You are making a big laydown, in a really big pot, based on assumptions of how your opponents play. One opponent is a LAG, the other a complete unknown, the other loose passive. Your reading of their hands is based on how YOU (or another good player) would have played the hand. NOT how these players would play.

In the end, you have TPTK in a very large pot, needing to call 1 bet to close the action. The only player who's hand you're afraid of played in a very strange fasion. Checking this turn, with a flush draw out there, with any made hand does not make sense. There is no hand that he has where raising the flop to drive out those behind him, then checking the turn makes sense. Yet you're putting him on a good hand. Just call the one bet. This is NOT the spot for a good laydown.

[Josh W]

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Putting the unknown on an A here is a HUGE assumption. You have no idea how loose/dumb he is. After the turn was checked, UTG bet, and he called. For all you know, he has a PP, and thinks he's calling UTG's bluff. Yes, he should think someone after him might have an A. Yes, if he's picking off UTG's bluff with less than an A, he should raise, to get the pair of A's behind him to fold. That's assuming he's a good player. Why are you doing that?


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I'm just going to address this paragraph here, because I've addressed everything else already.

By "unknown", I assume you are referring to the HJ.

You think he may have a pocket pair. In order for that to be so, he:

1.) Raised preflop. Okay, people raise with any pocket pair, so that doesn't narrow down his hands that much. I lose if he has 22, 66, 99, TT, or AA.

2.) Called two cold on the flop. Okay, so he doesn't have 33, 44, 55, 77, 88. Yes, he MAY have those, but it's getting extremely unlikely.

3.) He checked the turn. He doesn't have AA, KK, QQ, JJ, TT, 99, 66, 22.

4.) He's an unknown. But we want to contend that he's aggressive enough to raise a small pair, but not threebet it on a raggedy flop with a preflop aggressor behind him (i.e. 77 would wanna three bet to get AK out, etc). Okay...fine. Maybe he's completely insane and just calls a bunch of bets and doesn't try to protect his hand, even though he's LAGGY enough to raise it preflop.

5.) He's CHECKING this pair on the turn??? He wants to give ANOTHER free card to AK/AQ on the button?????

6.) He's CALLING the river?

All of that is happening? At once? And he doesnt' have 2s, 6s, 9s, Ts, or A's? Hmmm, I don't buy it.

But let's keep playing this game where we aren't in touch with reality. Now...I have the HJ beat. So what?

And, yeah, I have the button beat (that's dang near a given).

I need all of those 6 things previously mentioned to be true AND beat UTG. He raised the flop, and bet the river when an ace came. He could have A5h, sure. But he could also have A2h, A6, A9, 87, T9, 96, 22, 66, 99, etc.

I say the highjack has an ace over 98% of the time, and that's being conservative. Now, I need to parlay that with the likelihood of me beating UTG. UTG has 5 potential hands that I beat (when he's not bluffing): A3h, A4h, A5h, A7h, A8h (and a lot of those, especially the last two, he probably bets the turn with).

UTG has at least 23 possibilities that I lose to:

3 A2s
3 A6s
3 A9s
3 ATs
3 22s
3 66s
3 99s
4 87s (only counting s00teds)

Hmm, that's 25, not sure how I came up with 23 earlier. Throw in a few T9s.

So there's like an 15% chance that I have UTG beat....couple that with a 2% HJ doesn't have an ace, and we have a whopping 0.3% chance I'm ahead.

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Guys, really. Play some poker. Quit thinking "TPTK Big Pot, I call". Look, you can beat soft games with that way of thinking, but people are whining on here every month about how much tougher the games are getting. You aren't going to be beating tougher games without doing some analysis.

Is this an easy fold? Absolutely not.

Is it a clear fold? No. It's not clear. I think it's a fold, but not a huge error by calling. The fact is, many of you are saying it is black and white. That is the only BIG mistake that can be made here...thinking situations like this are black and white. THAT'S THE ONLY BIG MISTAKE THAT CAN BE MADE.

And almost all of you are making it.

Josh

[Ulysses]

[ QUOTE ]
True, when the river came, I would have called utg. But before I had the chance, I had new information presented to me. Namely, the other two both had aces. UTG still thought he could win the hand. UTG could beat an ace. I chose to use this new information, information I didn't have when I planned on calling UTG.

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I'm still trying to figure this out. Did you have a conversation with UTG after the two guys called and he told you he still thought he would win the hand? Or did those two guys tell UTG before he bet that they were both going to call?

[Josh W]

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True, when the river came, I would have called utg. But before I had the chance, I had new information presented to me. Namely, the other two both had aces. UTG still thought he could win the hand. UTG could beat an ace. I chose to use this new information, information I didn't have when I planned on calling UTG.

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I'm still trying to figure this out. Did you have a conversation with UTG after the two guys called and he told you he still thought he would win the hand? Or did those two guys tell UTG before he bet that they were both going to call?

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I think that, when he bet, he thought he'd win over 90% of the time (with up to 10% bluffing probability).

He (UTG) may or may not have known that three people behind him had big aces. But if he's checking a very non-scary Ten, he's either passive or trapping. If he's passive, he ain't betting into a scary ace. If he's trapping, I should fold.

Josh