A note on the idea of WAWB

[Dazarath]

I was reading some posts and I noticed that some posters are incorrectly using the phrase "way ahead, way behind". I just wanted to let people know so we can all be on the same level here. Way ahead, way behind is used to describe a situation where you are either way ahead or way behind of your opponent's hand range. And I would usually say it has to be close to a 50/50 division. That is, out of the possible holdings for your opponent, the ones that are ahead of your hand have you drawing to a very small number of outs (ie. 2 or 3), and the hands that you are ahead of are drawing to a very small number of outs.

Here's some examples. I understand that some of these are extreme cases, but I'm just trying to make a point.

1) You have 77 on a K72 flop against a TAG raiser. This is obviously not a WAWB. You could say, "hey, if I'm behind, I'm drawing to 1 out, and if he's behind, he's drawing to at best 2 outs, sometimes 0". The problem is, that the hands you're ahead of greatly outnumber the hands you're behind to. If you hate money, then you can take the WAWB line, but against a TAG's raising standards, you're almost always ahead and should play it as such.

2) You have AA against a TAG 3-bettor and TAG capper. The flop comes 444. Don't use the logic, "hey, if I'm behind, I'm drawing almost dead, and if I'm ahead, they only have 2 outs. I'll just call the whole way down". No explanation needed here.

3) Here's a closer situation. You have KK vs a complete maniac. Let's say his stats are 50/30/2. The flop comes AA2. There could be an argument made for check/calling, but I think because his hand range is so large, you need to make sure more than 2.5 BBs go in postflop. If he shows you ace-trash-offsuit, oh well.

4) Here's one with the same flop but a different situation. A TAG raises, you 3-bet KK, and he caps. Let's say his capping range is AA-JJ, AK. The flop comes AA2, same as last hand. This time though, you're ahead of QQ-JJ (12 combinations), chopping with KK (1 combination), and behind to AA/AK (9 combinations). Assuming he will continue to bet all of those hands, the WAWB line should be applied here because a raise will only get 3-bet by a hand that has you crushed, but you don't want to fold because you have QQ/JJ crushed.