I Know 2+2 Wants To Kill Me For This......

[StellarWind]

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Misreprenting AK isn't that big of a deal against their ranges, especially OOP.

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Learning about UTG's hand doesn't help that much.

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I don't want to overstate things like this, but these advantages add up and allow you to gain/save an extra bet now and then. They are worth remembering when you have a close decision between calling and raising.

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The player holding a PP also has implied odds on us because we have to continue when we miss. Folding a missed flop or even turn for one bet in pot this size would be bad. Those peels have to be taken into consideration at the time of our preflop decision because we know they're a possibility when we play the hand.

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This is incorrect. Consider the following examples. In each case the preflop pot is 10 SB and we face QQ and AJ:

Flop 1: A53

Both players will call bets here and the AJ is apt to become somewhat aggressive. All the money our opponents put in this pot is bad money because they don't have adequate odds. This is a very profitable example of our implied odds at work.

Flop 2: T85

We will probably call this flop if we can do so for one bet. That is not an example of implied odds for the QQ because we have adequate pot odds. He would be better off if we folded immediately and gave him the pot. Since winning the current pot is better for him than having us call the flop bet, it is clear that he has negative implied odds on this particular flop.

The preceding paragraph assumes for simplicity that the AJ will abandon his hand when he sees this flop. Obviously he might continue and that would be great for both QQ and ourselves, but it doesn't change my basic point that QQ is not making money off of AK's flop call.

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Those peels have to be taken into consideration at the time of our preflop decision because we know they're a possibility when we play the hand

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Not in a negative way because these peels are profitable or we shouldn't be making them. BTW this is an example of how seeing if UTG caps preflop is helpful. We don't want to be making marginal peels while likely dominated or duplicated.

Preflop EV analysis should go something like this:

1. We may hit an A or a K and have a really valuable hand.

2. Certain unusual flops like QJT or a 3-suited flush draw also have a lot of value.

3. Gutshot plus overcards has a little value.

4. Overcard flops are nearly worthless and often we won't see the turn. But once in a while we get a free card or marginally profitable peel opportunity.

In theory we could estimate all of these EVs, add them up, and compare them to our preflop investment. But the main thing you need to know about cases 3 and 4 is they are slightly positive and make almost no difference to your preflop decision. There is no such thing as a negative EV flop because folding the flop is always a zero EV option at your disposal. You would only call a flop if you could do better than that.

The preflop idea behind calling is to make a lot of money in cases 1 and 2 and otherwise write our preflop investment off. That it may actually be possible to make a small profit off of some bad flops by calling is something I'll worry about when it comes up.

[Lmn55d]

Good post. One question:

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but it doesn't change my basic point that QQ is not making money off of AK's flop call.

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I understand that QQ would rather AK fold then call. But isn't QQ still making money off of AK's flop call? Isn't this why he should bet instead of check? My understanding was that AK was losing money on this particular street even though his call is +EV. It is +EV because of the pot size but QQ is who is making the money on the flop. Is my thinking misguided?

[StellarWind]

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Good post. One question:

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but it doesn't change my basic point that QQ is not making money off of AK's flop call.

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I understand that QQ would rather AK fold then call. But isn't QQ still making money off of AK's flop call? Isn't this why he should bet instead of check? My understanding was that AK was losing money on this particular street even though his call is +EV. It is +EV because of the pot size but QQ is who is making the money on the flop. Is my thinking misguided?

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You are not misguided. As so often happens this is a matter of perspective.

We are currently at preflop considering the pot equity and implied equity available to QQ versus our AK. He has roughly a 2/3 chance of flopping the best hand. So in a sense 2/3 of the current pot belongs to him and 1/3 belongs to us. That is his pot equity. Implied equity reflect the fact that the flop doesn't end the hand. Whoever gets the worse flop can pay to draw cards. When I say that AK has favorable implied odds I mean that on average these extra bets and cards favor us. We can make +EV peels and whittle away at his 2/3 pot equity when we are behind. When we are ahead he can only lose more money by paying to draw to two outs.

Furthermore there is also the possibility of making Sklansky mistakes postflop. QQ will usually make the terrible mistake of paying for a showdown on an Axx/Kxx flop. The mistakes made by AK on an xxx flop are generally much less serious because we have outs and a better idea that our hand is no good. The difference between Sklansky-correct play postflop and the way it will actually be played is another source of implied odds for AK.

Once we are at the flop our perspective switches. Betting an xxx flop with QQ and being called by AK is more profitable than the only alternative of giving a freecard. But QQ is still losing money compared to the impossible alternative of ending play and scooping up the pot. QQ has the best hand, but his EV is less than the amount of money currently in the pot.

PS: You may have noticed that in my posts in this thread I have discussed the value of possible flops and how the hand might continue. I have not mentioned the roughly 57% hot-and-cold probability of QQ finishing with the best 7-card hand versus AKo. This is because that is not how the game is played and it doesn't matter. The reality is that AK has a worse than 43% chance versus QQ because it folds more hands that it could have won. But it also has favorable implied odds for the converse reason: QQ invests more money in hands that it eventually loses. This is characteristic of battles between pocket pairs and overcards.

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The preflop idea behind calling is to make a lot of money in cases 1 and 2 and otherwise write our preflop investment off. That it may actually be possible to make a small profit off of some bad flops by calling is something I'll worry about when it comes up.

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Stellar,

This is actually what I'm having trouble understanding. I know that when we put money in a pot early in a -EV situation in order to have correct odds later it's called "bloating". When we put money in early in a +EV situation it's just +EV (so that's a good thing [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] ) What is it called when we put money in at EV neutral? Don't those anticipated 'correct odds' calls turn the neutral into a negative? I was always under the impression that they do.

According to stove, we're just about EV neutral preflop against their ranges and having $2 invested. We're also OOP and need to make it to the river. Fit or fold isn't correct here because we will often have good enough odds to continue past the flop and sometimes the turn, but they are only correct at the time presented (flop or turn bet). That has to be included in the preflop calculations in order to determine our SD equity, no? What am I missing?


I saw a thread about this around 3 months ago. The example gave two EV neutral hands preflop and excluded blinds (like 55 vs 87s or something like that). Theoretically, there's no difference whether they go 1 bet or 100000 bets preflop because it's EV neutral. However, at 1 bet, 87s doesn't have correct odds to call to the river when it misses postflop, but at 100000 bets it does. The postflop calls had to be considered in the preflop action in order to complete the equation correctly. When calling 3 bets with AKo, we're putting ourselves in that same type of situation where we'll be obligated to call those later bets (at correct odds) a certain %age of the time.

[kidcolin]

I think this is fuzzy logic. Your comparing preflop EV in an all in situation vs 3-more streets of betting and strategy. You only calculate the EV of the situation at hand, which Stellar did a find job with.

i.e., 55 vs. 87s (50/50 for simplicity's sake), it doesn't matter if it goes 1 bet or 10K bets preflop if and only if betting stops after that round and they see all 5 cards. If you know there is going to be multiple betting rounds, then you can't just blankly say "I'm 50 50 to win this hand." You have to consider how the hand might play out and what factors are involved in computing your preflop EV and whether your investment will show a return.

[StellarWind]

The (expected) value of a hand is the amount of money you will make off the hand averaged over all possible outcomes. This is how much money you should receive if someone walks up and offers to buy your hand at some point during the play.

A very important property of hand value is that it can never be negative. You always have the option of folding and folding has value zero.

The expected value of a preflop call is the average value of the hand after all possible flops. This will include great flops that have a lot of value and terrible flops that have almost no value. There is no such thing as a flop that has negative value. Actually flops cannot have zero value either because it's possible that no one will ever bet and you will eventually win at showdown without risking any money. But many flops are bad enough that they can be considered zero for practical preflop purposes.

A preflop call is +EV if the expected value of the call is greater than the cost of calling. I've neglected the possibility of further preflop raises, possible overcalls and overfolds behind you, and also the possibility that raising yourself might be an even better play, but if you understand the concepts you should be able to adjust for these issues.

Now it may happen (e.g. AK vs QQ analysis) that there are many bad flops where checkfolding has zero EV but chasing is better because it has a miniscule EV of say +0.05 BB. That means chasing is correct. It also means that you will frequently lose a lot of money on the hand and your variance will increase. But from a preflop perspective it's still one possible flop that might be +0.05 BB or just plain zero. The effect on your preflop EV is utterly insignificant.

This whole idea you read of bad preflop actions sucking in money through the whole hand is just a myth perpetrated by the mathematically ignorant. No one is forcing you to make negative EV plays postflop.

Hmmm, that was harsh. A more understanding statement would be that it reflects the reality that for inexperienced or weak players certain hands do have a trapping effect. These players make serious mistakes chasing unplayable flops and lose money postflop. What the authors really mean is that a beginner should fold marginal hands that are profitable for good players because they will be unprofitable for the beginner.

So actually a flop could have negative EV in the sense that although folding is the correct play, Hero is not good enough to make that play. But I would never compute the EV of a preflop play based on the assumption that a particular flop had negative EV, because if I thought that then I would realize that I should fold that flop and my EV would stop being negative.

[Wynton]

I don't fold, and probably cap more than call.

UTG could be raising with huge range of hands, notwithstanding those numbers. And CO could easily be 3-betting with a middle pair. My numbers aren't that far removed from CO and I would certainly have no problem 3-betting with TT.

Really, the only question for me is whether to cap or to call, and that answer depends mostly on how these guys play post-flop. And I mean in a way that I don't think I could figure out from the numbers alone.

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Really, the only question for me is whether to cap or to call, and that answer depends mostly on how these guys play post-flop. And I mean in a way that I don't think I could figure out from the numbers alone.

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If they're "bad" postflop, they'll only be a little bad. They're favorites to have big hands based on their preflop stats, and big hands are pretty tough to misplay.

One thing that's for certain:

They are TAGs. If you miss, you'll be charged to hit and if you hit, they won't go 12 bets with the losing hand.

[Wynton]

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They are TAGs. If you miss, you'll be charged to hit and if you hit, they won't go 12 bets with the losing hand.

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You are not compelled to play past the flop - or at least not past the turn - if you miss entirely and in the middle of a betting war. And if you hit, then I think it was worth seeing the flop even if both opponents fold right there, which is unlikely to happen anyway.

[Stefan_K]

I cap, but have read some good arguments for calling but folding is redicilius.