I'm confused - capping to save bets?

[spamuell]

I was thinking about SpicyF's theory of checkraising the river to save bets while I was reading HUSH and I confused myself about whether it applies to the turn as well. Take the following example:

You're heads-up, out of position on the turn against an aggressive player who openraised in MP and is slightly tricky and who knows that you are also aggressive and sometimes tricky. Say, you have T9 and the board on the turn is KT8T, you check-called the flop and checkraised the turn (which isn't necessarily the best way to play this hand, but it should probably be played like this sometimes) and he 3-bet your checkraise. Four bets is a cap.

You're considering whether you should cap or call and lead the river to combat his possible free showdown 3-bet, and you assume that because he knows you can be tricky and it's HU, any hand which he considers strong enough to 3-bet the turn with, he's not going to fold. Furthermore, you're certainly not folding trips against him.

From the point where there turn has been 3-bet, we have the following situation:

If you cap, you know:

1. When behind, you lose 4 bets, 2 more on the turn and 2 on the river.
2. When ahead, you win 3 bets.

If you call and lead the river:

1. When behind, you lose 3 bets.
2. When ahead, you win 2 bets.

This example might not be the best because it's probably a clear cap, but anyway it's the principle I'm trying to get at.


When we cap, even though we're not sure we're ahead, we only need to be ahead 57% of the time. (4 times out of 7, expressed as a percentage.)

When we call and lead, to break even we need to be ahead 60% of the time. (3 times out of 5, as a percentage.)



So we can be less sure we're ahead if we're going to cap the turn. Is my math wrong, or is it that I'm saying something really obvious in a convoluted way (basically that we should make use of the fact that we can't get 5-bet)?

[TStoneMBD]

in either scenario you lose -1BB when behind due to your position disadvantage. how many bets are invested in the pot are irrelevant. if your pot equity on the turn is 51% or more than capping is correct.

[spamuell]

Yeah you're right, I get it now, you're just putting in an extra bet so the ratio of bets lost is smaller, it's a silly way of looking at it, thanks for the convo on irc about it.