Pocket Aces and a beginner

[moose47]

I am definitely more concerned about CO than the maniac. That said, CO's hand range preflop is probably QQ+, AK. He is reasonably tight as he hasnt played a hand in two orbits, unless he has been absolutely card dead. We can safely remove AK based on the turn raise. I think his most likely holding is QQ and he decided to wait until the turn to go nuts. I just think there exists a chance that he has KK or AA and decided for whatever reason to wait until the turn. It certainly isnt a very good chance but it doesn't have to be.

[Yerma]

You made a big mistake on the flop. You can't protect your hand, and you're not getting good value with your raise either since anyone with a reasonable draw is not that much of a dog to you. You're supposed to call, let the BB bet again (or sometimes bet and sometimes c/r if the BB just checks) and raise him on the turn if the card that fell is good for you. If something like a Jh falls on the turn, you can just call the turn and minimize your exposure to this hand rather than raise to knock players out.

Some people might say that you fail to gain information by not raising the flop. I'd rather try to knock players out on the turn, occasionally stealing the pot away from someone who would have gotten lucky, rather than try to save a few bets in a big pot because you got some information.

[shant]

He has a capper and a maniac behind him. What drawing hand do you put the guy who capped on? AK is seeing the river here. The maniac is seeing a river. I don't see this as a waiting to protect your hand situation. This is a raise and hope lots of money goes in situation.

[Shillx]

Yeah calling on the flop really doesn't make much sense here, even with a maniac behind us. While a turn raise might knock out AK, it only nets us like 2.2 SB (assuming our hand is always good). Some times we will be way behind, so you would have to adjust it somewhat.

We probably have 45% equity on this flop and have a chance to get 16 SB into the middle. That is worth 3.2 SB right there. If we just call, sometimes it will be called though and then we get to raise the turn. Oftentimes it will get raised by the maniac and we will put a reraise in coming back. So even when we just call, we will usually be 3-betting or capping it anyway. Calling and then calling a raise is just way to risky because the only way to face the CO with 2 cold is to donk into the maniac. Even then, he might not fold that said AK. Might as well just goto war straight away and take the value.

The CO's line is worrisome, but is also quite fishy. His play sucks with a weak hand because nothing better is ever going to fold, and his play sucks with a strong hand since it will start slowing hands like AA down. Bad players do this [censored] all the time though, so I would not be suprised to see the joint here. He could have won a lot more by playing it straight up.

Brad

[Yerma]

[ QUOTE ]
Yeah calling on the flop really doesn't make much sense here, even with a maniac behind us. While a turn raise might knock out AK, it only nets us like 2.2 SB (assuming our hand is always good). Some times we will be way behind, so you would have to adjust it somewhat.


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I don't understand the "nets us like 2.2 SB (assuming our hand is always good)" part. Why 2.2 SB?

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We probably have 45% equity on this flop and have a chance to get 16 SB into the middle. That is worth 3.2 SB right there. If we just call, sometimes it will be called though and then we get to raise the turn. Oftentimes it will get raised by the maniac and we will put a reraise in coming back. So even when we just call, we will usually be 3-betting or capping it anyway.


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Yes, I agree. If the maniac raises, we can 3-bet for value now. My problem with this argument is that you think we are knocking out the CO on the flop if he faces 2 cold w/AK. Unless you know him to be weak-tight, I don't think he is folding for 2 cold there! If you're trying to knock out AK, it's only going to happen on the turn. Any other hand CO might have had that only hit the flop sideways? You're still only knocking that out on the turn. That's my real problem with your argument. Those 16 SB you are trying to get into the middle are all in big danger when the river falls. You may end up gaining 3.2 SB and losing the pot. This is probably going to end up being a 20BB pot. If you let a gutshot or a one pair hand get a shot at seeing the river, you're dumping about 10% of what's going to end up being a 20BB pot. If you're up against both of those draws and could have knocked them *both* out (which would have been a coup) but took the value on the flop instead, that is horrible.

[ QUOTE ]

...

The CO's line is worrisome, but is also quite fishy. His play sucks with a weak hand because nothing better is ever going to fold, and his play sucks with a strong hand since it will start slowing hands like AA down. Bad players do this [censored] all the time though, so I would not be suprised to see the joint here. He could have won a lot more by playing it straight up.


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And if he has a weak hand, you're still probably better knocking him out on the turn or forcing him to make a big, bad call. And if he has (or turns) a strong hand, the turn card may come bad and slow you down all by itself, and you'll be happy you didn't raise the flop.

[shant]

He's not saying you will knock AK out on the flop. You're really worrying too much about one opponent's hand and protecting against that and forgetting about the maniac and the other player.

Also, you didn't address your plan for when the maniac raises if you just call the flop. Are you 3-betting then? How are you waiting to protect at that point? What if the CO raises you on the flop?

[Shillx]

When we raise the turn, the pot will be about 30 SB if you assume that the manaic calls and the CO folds. If getting that AK to fold nets us 7% more equity, then the raise buys us 30*.07 = 2.1 SB of the pot. Of course he also loses on every bet that goes in, so by coldcalling he is losing ~2.7 SB on that street should he have 8% equity. So he would be making a bigger mistake by coldcalling then folding (though it might not benefit us).

Let's say that you are playing a hand where you have 40% equity, Player A has 30% equity and Player B has 30% equity. If you bet, Player B will always fold and the pot is right now 9 BB (before you either check or bet 1 BB). Is he making a good fold? Are you making a good bet?

We all know that he is making a bad fold, but you may or may not be making a good bet. If you have 70% equity and player A has 30% after he folds, then the bet was good. If you still have 40% and player A has 60%, then the bet sucks. Just because the dude with AK has 8% equity doesn't mean that it all goes to our aces when he folds. So it is tough to evaluate the EV of knocking him out of this pot. Him coldcalling could very well benefit us more (and the math on it is very close). Assume we have 50% equity if he coldcalls.

Pot Equity from a cold call = 34 sb*.5 - 4 = 13 sb
EV fold = 30 sb*.57 - 17 sb = + 0.1 sb

So in that case, it really doesn't matter if he calls or folds. I'll make more comments about your post in bit, but there a lot of points in your reply that need to be addressed.

Edited

[Shillx]

And if he has a weak hand, you're still probably better knocking him out on the turn or forcing him to make a big, bad call. And if he has (or turns) a strong hand, the turn card may come bad and slow you down all by itself, and you'll be happy you didn't raise the flop.

This is fatal thinking in a hand like this. This isn't like having

5 [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] 4 [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] on a J [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] 8 [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] 2 [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] flop.

-or-

6 [img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img] 3 [img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img] on a K [img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] 6 [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] 3 [img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] flop.

We know what the bad cards are in the above hands. We have no idea what the bad cards are in the AA hand (though we have an idea of what is good). Assume a king comes off on 4th street. Is that good or bad? Stove says it is bad, but not terrible. How about a queen? Stove is indifferent to that card eventhough it looks pretty scary. A nine is about the same as a queen according to PokerStove. The 2 [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] puts us in the same place as the 9 [img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img].

There are going to be a decent # of cards that we don't want to see (any K/J/9 or 8 [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]) and still more below average cards ([img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]/Q/9/8). The problem is that we can't seperate the bad cards from the scary ones. It is much better to wait when you have a idea of what really kills your equity. In this hand we know that our equity is huge on the flop, and that we are almost always boss. Worrying that we might be behind is terrible reason to not step on the gas pedal. Good for him if he flopped three queens this time. The vast majority of the time he will have a hand that is ready to payoff all bets.

Dont fold the river. What do you think beats you??? Maybe a straight but the pot is big.