Quiz from Phil Gordon's website

[Niediam]

I would have bet the flop but that wasn't an option. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] Anyhow, I don't fold here... am I wrong?


Limit Poker, Blinds $5/10
You are dealt 8c6c in the big blind. Two middle position players call the bet, everyone else folds to you. You decide to call. The flop comes Kh9h7d. You check, your first opponent bets $10, the second opponent raises to $20. There is $65 in the pot. What do you do?

(a) raise
(b) call
(c) fold

Answer: (c) fold. There are plenty of hands that your opponents might be betting bet with here, and pretty much all of them have you beat. Your only real hope is straight draw. Assuming your eight straight outs are good, the "rule of four" tells you you’ve got about a 32% chance of making your hand by the river, about one chance in three, or 2-to-1 odds against. The pot is offering you $85/$20, or a little better than 4-to-1 on your call.

So why not call? Two reasons:

(1) Not all of your outs may be good. The 10h and 5h might make a flush for an opponent. With only six "clean" outs, the rule of four gives you only a 24% chance, or 3-to-1 against. Still decent odds, except that….
(2) Your opponents probably aren’t done betting yet. What if the opening bettor comes back with a re-raise? What if there are a bet and a raise on the turn? Can you call? Suddenly, your odds don’t look so good.

Chasing speculative hands, especially when you’re out of position, is a good way to diminish your bankroll.

[Percussion]

how do you bet 10$ on the flop if it is 5$ 10$ limit holdem?

No wonder Phil Gordon is so good, he can bet as much as he wants in limit!

[ QUOTE ]
how do you bet 10$ on the flop if it is 5$ 10$ limit holdem?

No wonder Phil Gordon is so good, he can bet as much as he wants in limit!

[/ QUOTE ]

It says Blinds are $5/$10

[Niediam]

its $10/$20... the quiz said the BLINDS were 5/10

[TheHip41]

[ QUOTE ]
how do you bet 10$ on the flop if it is 5$ 10$ limit holdem?

No wonder Phil Gordon is so good, he can bet as much as he wants in limit!

[/ QUOTE ]


blinds are 5-10, i.e. playing 10-20

And seriously, who doesn't bet this flop from the blind with an up and down straight draw?

[W. Deranged]

This is wrong in my opinion.

Even if you just have 6 outs, 85-20 is actually plenty good to call with 6 outs considering all those outs are very clean and you have good implied odds.

In a three-handed pot with this many outs, even if you get reraised and have to pay more on the flop, your odds are generally good enough that putting in 3 bets or even 4 against two opponents is a fine proposition.

And, finally, usually we DO have 8 outs. In a three way field, the vast majority of the time a flush draw is NOT out. With 8 outs we are actually about dead even hot-and-cold against 2 opponents.


Folding here would be a substantial mistake in my opinion.


And, yes, I tend to think betting this flop is the correct play. Often that will allow us to take the pot down unimproved on the flop or turn.

[UCLAseetoK]

[ QUOTE ]
This is wrong in my opinion.

Even if you just have 6 outs, 85-20 is actually plenty good to call with 6 outs considering all those outs are very clean and you have good implied odds.

In a three-handed pot with this many outs, even if you get reraised and have to pay more on the flop, your odds are generally good enough that putting in 3 bets or even 4 against two opponents is a fine proposition.

And, finally, usually we DO have 8 outs. In a three way field, the vast majority of the time a flush draw is NOT out. With 8 outs we are actually about dead even hot-and-cold against 2 opponents.


Folding here would be a substantial mistake in my opinion.


And, yes, I tend to think betting this flop is the correct play. Often that will allow us to take the pot down unimproved on the flop or turn.

[/ QUOTE ]

What he said, for the win!

[Jake (The Snake)]

[ QUOTE ]

Folding here would be a substantial mistake in my opinion.

[/ QUOTE ]

Maybe a mistake, but I don't think it's substantial.

I just made like the longest post ever and it got deleted. WTF. I'll try to do it again but simplify what I was going to say.

Firstly, the pot is giving us 7.5:2 if the first bettor calls, not 8.5:1, I don't know where Gordon is getting that from.

I'd estimate we have 7 outs, I typed like 3 paragraphs why, but that's what I got.

So, now we have to figure out what odds we are getting. Simply leaving the odds at 7.5:2 is wrong. If we weigh 3-betting at 20% and capping at 5%, our true odds become about 8.1:2.3 or 3.5:1.

So with 7 outs, we need 5.6:1 before implied odds, and are 2.1 SB short. We have to then multiply by 2.3 to find how many SB we need to make up and get 4.83 SB.

So the question becomes, can we make up 4.83 SB on average? We have to remember also to take reverse implied odds into the equation here. I think we can do it, but it will be close. Our position on the raiser makes it difficult for us to get multiple bets out of both opponents. On the other hand, the board texture makes it more likely our opponents will at least want to see the river.

If anybody can't follow the math, let me know and I will explain better.

Some will saying doing this math at the table is impossible, but I think you should always be able to get ballpark estimates on true odds and true outs.

For another example of this kind of math, I recommend checking out this post on GoT's blog.

[Harv72b]

Gordon is including the $20 we would be putting into the $65 pot, and ignoring the additional $10 that will almost certainly be put in by the initial flop bettor.

[Jake (The Snake)]

Something that I had written in my long post which I forgot to add is that we will sometimes have odds to call again on the turn. It gets pretty complicated then but since we've been taking safe estimations the whole way I think we should defenetely be calling.