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

[DCWildcat]

We do have some implied odds for hitting an A (very good chance we're up against AQ/AJ), but they aren't fantastic. We chop with AK here a ton, and while we won't be up against AA/KK that often when we flop an A or K, we'll pay it off a lot when it does happen.

Neither of those factors outweighs what we'll make vs. AQ/AJ though, since we're much more likely to be against these hands than AA/KK/AK. However, it's enough to show that our implied odds, while good, aren't that good.

Equity disadvantage + being OOP gives a strong case for folding. If we're going to continue with the hand, I like calling for the reasons outlined by SW, especially disguising our hands. By calling, I think our implied odds go up tremendously when we flop an A or K. Villains with these stats will notice and respect a cold-capper that comes out firing with an A or K on the board. They won't respect us to the same extent if we just call.

I say calling > capping, but I'm not smart enough to know if folding or calling is better.

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Tom sed: I like a call. Your getting 3:1 to call assumming the raiser calls and the BB folds. If the BB comes along, your getting almost 4:1.
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Fun hand. Tom, what are you doing if the raiser elects to cap? Do you call another bet?

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Hi Mike,
If I knew it was going to get capped I wouldn't make the first call, because getting capped often means we're against AA or KK and we could be screwed if we get the flop we were hoping for. However, I'd call the last small bet because now we're getting 12:1 and 16:1 if the BB came along (he's not going to fold for one more either.) The capper could also have QQ, sometimes will have some suited connecter and occassionaly will just cap because he's gone goofy. I'd just play it more conservatively if we connect and would be wary if anyone, but especially the capper, was playing an A or K on the board strongly.

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I did consider the QQ. He may feel like he needs to get his bets in against potentially AK while he's still ahead. IIRC, an A or K flops against his QQ 43% of the time.

Now as far as knowing you would fold if you knew it was going to be capped, i think that's where my decision was decided. Several people on here seems to absolutely hate folding Ak here. Looking at their stats, and analyzing just the open raise and reraise, i believe that not considering folding here is akin to overvaluing AKo OOP.

I am definitely not an expert on minimizing losses, but it's not like this is unfair to you that you got AKo and you're behind. Sometimes you are BEATEN. IMO, the best way to deal with that is to muck the hand.

I appreciate your follow up Tom, and had i been trapped in the hand i would have easily called the capping bet as well, but i'd be living with the fact that i just trapped myself in a hand i'm likely dominated in.

[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.

[Kimpan]

I always cap AK no matter what.. maybe a leak.. if so, it must be a really small one..

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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.

[oxymoron]

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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.

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It assumes that you are going to showdown everytime. So you can comfortably call down your 55 vs 87s and know that you are (55%/45% HU) getting 10% on your money. And if you can fold during those times that you are positive that you are behind than now you are increasing your return.

Right?

[kidcolin]

Well, yeah.. that makes sense, but I was talking more from 87s position. i.e., say there's no blinds, it's heads up, and 55 "opens" for 1 bet. 87s can't simply say "I'm calling this bet cuz it's 50/50" if he has to fold ~60% of the flops to a bet because he totally missed and now he's a bigger dog and doesn't have correct odds. However, if it's just preflop and then it's an all in situation, then sure, it doesn't matter if it's going 1 bet or 10 jillion.

SW explained nicely the overcards vs. pairs battle.

[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.