Something that I've always wondered about...

[J.A.Sucker]

OK, here's a post that I hope gets some good discussion going. It's basically a summation of thoughts that I've had about the topic of those "pain in the ass" guys who are on your left.

Here's the scenario. You raise in MP or so. This raise can either be first in, or more importantly, as a semi-isolation. Let's also assume that you aren't raising light, though. You may be reraising a loosish raiser in front of you, too. In fact, this makes the situation even more interesting and clear-cut, so one can go with this scenario if you want. Remember, you aren't raising light, but you don't have AA or KK, either. Let's say you have something like JJ, AQs, or AK - something like that.

Now, this pain in the ass guy on your left is the type to cold call a lot and who plays very well after the flop. He is surely a fly in the ointment.

The question is this:

When this guy calls, I really don't like it. When guys start doing this, it limits your profitable opportunities for isolation, because you really can't go as light, since they will be in there a lot. Also, it sqeezes you in between to aggressive players after the flop in a large pot with a hand that likely has to hit to win. Not great.

However, we also know that doing this calling is a money loser, especially calling the three bets. My question is where is my perception wrong? If you have a bad player in front of you worth isolating, he's losing cash in the hand. Likewise, you have this guy behind you playing hands he shouldn't, so he's losing money, too. However, it feels like you don't make as much money in these situations as you should. Where's the money going? Are we still getting it and are blinded by the greatly increased variance of the moment? I'm honestly not sure.

[bicyclekick]

You are getting less because you're just getting their pre-flop money and they aren't (at least the player behind you) giving up much if any postflop. The player behind you describe seems like the typical 30/60 player at canterbury if you ask me. You're still making a pretty nice sum pre-flop, but it's not being compounded by post-flop mistakes that worse players make.

[Justin A]

[ QUOTE ]
You are getting less because you're just getting their pre-flop money and they aren't (at least the player behind you) giving up much if any postflop. The player behind you describe seems like the typical 30/60 player at canterbury if you ask me. You're still making a pretty nice sum pre-flop, but it's not being compounded by post-flop mistakes that worse players make.

[/ QUOTE ]

I was going to make a reply, but this pretty much nailed it.

[J.A.Sucker]

So you are saying that this third guy is taking money from you? This would imply that he's making it from you and the other guy. This isn't correct, I don't think, because otherwise, you should start playing lots of hands here, and I'm not ready to start doing that.

[Justin A]

[ QUOTE ]
So you are saying that this third guy is taking money from you? This would imply that he's making it from you and the other guy. This isn't correct, I don't think, because otherwise, you should start playing lots of hands here, and I'm not ready to start doing that.

[/ QUOTE ]

I think the implication is that he's losing money to you preflop, but if he's playing well postflop then he's costing you some postflop profit. I don't know if this is enough to cost you money overall. Also as David Steele said, when you have a hand like AQ the cold caller may not be making a big mistake, but he is making a big mistake against your entire range of hands there which includes the big pairs.

[fnord_too]

[ QUOTE ]
So you are saying that this third guy is taking money from you? This would imply that he's making it from you and the other guy. This isn't correct, I don't think, because otherwise, you should start playing lots of hands here, and I'm not ready to start doing that.

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't think this is what BK was saying. What I think he is saying is that when the floater comes in, it is easier for the weak player to your right to fold post flop since now there are two opponents and it's not HU. Also, do to the nature of the game, if the floater plays well post flop, he is only giving up a small amount of his call in the long run. The isolation target is giving up more (since he is presumably weaker, and also OOP against you). Since the floater is going to do things like raise to knock him out with marginal hands, not to mention slow you down since there is now a good post flop player on your left, you are going to wring less out of the guy on your right.

In short, it's not that money is going to the floater, it's just not going in, (so I guess that means it's going to the isolation target by means of him folding more and you betting less).

[Thomsen]

he might not take them directly from you, but he is taking some of the money that the guy to your left was supposed to lose to you. The money he loses by cold calling is not big enough to outweigh this so result is a smaller win for you alltogether.

[ResidentParanoid]

I may be oversimplifying but: If there is a pain to your left that makes it 3 handed, you will have a lower overall win % but will make more per hand in the long run. Most of this comes from the pain's preflop mistake. The lower win % and higer EV per hand increases your variance and makes you uncomfortable.

[andyfox]

I think this nails it. We think we don't like it because we know it lowers the % of hands we're going to win.

[rigoletto]

A simpler version of Bikes answer: It's just harder to extract bets postflop from a decent player when out of position, and it's similarly harder to get away cheap. This doesn't mean that the situation is not profitable. It's just not as profitable as having a complete fish on your left.