Big Pots

[AngryCola]

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One other comment... calling the 2 bets back to you on the flop you also needed to consider the chances of the original re-raiser capping it.

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Great point.

[uuDevil]

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...is your set going to be good if you even hit it?

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Against 2 opponents holding TT-AA, it will be good ~70% of the time. But the action described (which is a little hard to follow) could result from a wider range of hands than this, so the actual percentage will be higher. I don't see any reason to significantly discount these outs.

[AngryCola]

I do, but we will simply have to agree to disagree. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

I don't see how you can eliminate hands like 66 and 44 from this hand. Again, if I had more positional information, it would be easier to determine this sort of thing. No matter how you slice it, this is a close hand to call, IMHO.

[k_squared]

my point is really that it the decision is only 'close' because of a of a mistake that was made which then provided a situation in which it became a 'close' call. Betting the flop is the key mistake as far as I see it in so far as it kind of commits him to a pot he should want to get away from (i.e. makes it numerically reasonable to call). And in the end the mistake was a result of misunderstanding how the pot-odds relate to decision making. If I have 55 preflop I want to get in for 1 bet, I don't want to be raised and I certainly don't want to be faced with a cap. That all points to the potential for lots of pocket pairs or strong drawing hands, and as a whole my hand has shrunk up considerably... EVEN when you hit the set unless the board is perfect... i.e. no A,K,Q,J, no 2 flushed board, no 2 straightened board you could be in trouble. At the very least because you are playing in a hand that was capped pre-flop it is more likely that you are behind. Then compounding the situation, the pot is more than large enough to justify many drawing hands (including inside ones) calling down at least the turn and probably the river. And if the pot-odds justify these calls that means your hand is vulnerable to draws which will beat your 'made' hand a significant percentage of the time. Not to mention that if someone has a bigger set you are going to lose big! If faced with this situation (having made the initial bet) I would play the hand, but cautiosly, and with the knowledge that I am probably trying to minimize the long term loss that will result from playing in this situation. Which isn't to say you fold, but just to say you play (and potentially play strongly) to win when you are ahead, but with the knowledge that you got caught having to play a hand that is probably not +EV.

Another fact to consider which makes this a folding situation is that of position. He is out of position which means he will have a harder time making up the disparity between the actual pot-odds and the implied pot-odds... it is harder to maximize your hands value when you have to act first. Do you bet and not get in a check-raise? or do you check and hope someone bets? Another reason to make a borderline hand one that should be folded.

In fact, I might not have played this hand at all because of the position depending on my sense of the game. And most importantly the rasier. Calling raises should be done carefully even with a lot of people in the pot because it is MORE likely that some of them have quality hands with which they are calling/making raises.

-K_squared

[napawino]

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Will someone please explain to me, as I asked earlier, why you take the odds for a flush draw or straight draw to the river on the flop, but not this? I am assuming that you guys look for 2-1 to call a flush draw right? That gives you 33% and it will hit roughly 35% of the time. However, if you take it only to the turn I think it hits, sorry from memory, about 19% of the time meaning that you should have roughly 4-1 odds to call the flop. This seems wrong to me. Help?

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This is a common misunderstanding. You should be using the odds at THIS decision point, not including all the future decision points – unless there will be no more decisions.

So… If you were to go all-in for your last $10 on the flop call, you’re going to see the river anyway, so you should consider the odds to the river. (~11-1 for the set in this case, ~2-1 for a flush, ~2.5-1 for an open-ender, etc.)

But… Since you’re going to have to pay more to see the river if you miss on the turn, you have two choices:
1) Count only the odds for the turn. 15-1 pot odds; 22-1 odds of hitting or
2) Count all the future bets in your odds & use the “odds to the river”. You might estimate a cap on the flop, two bets on the turn ($25), so your odds will be something like: $25 (eventually) into a pot of $240 by the end of the turn, or a little less than 10-1. Of course this involves a lot of assumptions and introduces the possibility that everyone will fold but one on the turn – killing your odds. It also ignores the fact that you may be drawing nearly dead on the flop & that your 5 may give someone a better hand or redraws. (Probably not likely here.)

This same analysis would hold for all draws.

Although it would be a whole other discussion, you have to also consider implied odds – the odds considering the money not yet in the pot that someone will pay you when you do hit and they don’t fold. That is very read-dependent, but 55 should be fairly disguised on this board if you do hit it.

In general you can add something for every “calling station will pay me till the bitter end” player to account for implied odds, but I’m sure others will have different opinions about exactly how to count this. The No-Limit Forum will have much more detailed discussions on implied odds relating to the stack sizes of your opponents & the relative disguise of your hand if you hit. Look there if you’re interested in a more advanced, detailed discussion.

Napawino

[uuDevil]

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I don't see how you can eliminate hands like 66 and 44 from this hand.

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These seemed like relatively unlikely holdings for the pf raisers. If these hands are possible, so are many others. And if that's the case, then a set of 5's will be good even more often. But if you restrict them to pocket pairs, your set is still good ~67% of the time (against just these two opponents).

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...but we will simply have to agree to disagree.

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This hardly ever happens. [img]/images/graemlins/smirk.gif[/img]

[AngryCola]

He has three opponents on the flop, after the other 2 fold.

6 players see flop - 2 fold - the hero = 3 remaining opponents... no?

This is one of the reasons I wish I had a little bit better information about this hand. I also think one of the other posters made a good point about being out of position here, and how it could be capped behind him, thus titlting his odds down even more.

Look, you guys can make this call if you want and MAYBE pick up some razor thin profits, but I just don't see why it's worth it. ::shrug:: For all the reasons discussed in this thread, it is very marginal.

Discretion is the better part of valor. (good poker advice for marginal situations)

[AngryCola]

**NOTE** I see what you were saying about the "two players". Sorry, I was being dense. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[illguitar]

k squared...Thank you so much! I really understood that. That was a major help. I would have thought that I knew this stuff better if you would have asked me, but I guess I needed some help on this. I appreciate your thorough help and analysis of my play. One last question to bother you with...how should I compute my odds of a backdoor flush or straight draw? If I have 2 outs from and underpair and a backdoor flush or straight draw...how many outs do you call that? Is it still 2? That's how I have been doing it and just using those as sort of a bonus. Mostly this is just to help me learn as in most cases I won't make exact calculations at the table, but by practice these types of things become inherent. Much appreciated. Thanks.

Daver

[Rook80]

The odds of getting the 5 if you are going to see both the turn and river are 15 to 1. But you cost to the river doubles so you need to figure that into the implied odds. You should be getting about 16.5 to 1 if you were planning to see to this to the river. If you were going to fold if you didn't hit the turn then you need 22 to 1 odds.