no limit hand

[Victor]

no limit 50$ party hand

I have about 4 times as many chips as anyone

I get A [img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img]K [img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] in mid position. one limper then a raise to 3$ I reraise to 5$. 2 call behind me, limper and raiser call. 4 see the flop of a 20$ pot.

flop is 5, 9 [img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img], 10 [img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img]

preflop raiser bets 20$, i call and one guy behind me calls

turn is Q

PFR bets 50 leaving himself with about 35 chips. I call, other guy folds.

turn is a beatiful J giving me the straight. he bets allin and i take his money.

Comments on all streets but I think I was an idiot for callin the turn.

[Jon Matthews]

I think you needed 3:1 or so to call the turn for the gutshot and flush with one card to come, you got 2.6:1 (call 50 to win 130) so you weren't too far off, certainly not an idiot, especially since you were going to get his last 35 if you made your hand in almost every situation.


Jon

[Victor]

my opponent had QQ

[ArtVandelay]

I'd like to comment on the hand, but that's impossible unless you give me more information. For example, what are the blinds? How much does everyone have? Do 4 people or 5 people take the flop (you say 4, but you also say you get 2 callers behind, the limper, the original raiser, and yourself)?

Whether the turn call is right is mostly a math question, but it depends in large part on the player behind you, particularly how much money he has left. Assuming there is no player behind you though, calling the turn is probably fine, except that there are 8 really unpleasant cards that can fall. If you make a pair or if you flush but the board pairs you could be in a tough spot on the river, not necessarily because your decision is hard but because sometimes you'll make it wrong (you'll never be wrong when you have the nuts or when you miss... unless your opponent also has nothing and he bluffs you out on the river). So for example... if you were going to put in the rest of your money when you made just a pair then you probably would have been better off folding given that your opponent had QQ. Anyway give me the remaining details and I'll be able to give better advice.

[Victor]

thanks for the advice. i just started playing nolimit so my description is a little off.

yes...actually 5 took the flop. The caller behind me had about 50 chips at the start. The raiser had about 100 at the start of the hand. I knew that the caller was super loose. He seemed to call and chase a lot. But he never stuck around on the river with nothing.

[RollaJ]

Flop is an easy call, and a poor bet by the bettor. Turn is probably right to fold, considering the odds and the fact that you dont close the action (ie. it may be raised behind you).
BTW I dont like the turn bet either by the bettor, he should have pushed it all in and taken what at that point was a fairly large poy of $85 (but thats a different story [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img])

[nicky g]

I don't see the point of your min raise preflop - either just call, or pot it at least.

On the flop there is $20 in the pot. The raiser bets $20 making it $40, and you plan on calling, making it $60. As far as I can tell the raiser has $85 left - why not just push in here? You have a monster draw: you're slight favourite against jacks and queens, and only a small dog to KK and 2-1 dog to AA (both of which are unlikely given that you hold one of each), he may well fold, and if he calls you have equity from the money already in the pot. Even when you are stangled by AA or a set, which won't be very often, you are more or less breaking even on the hand by pushing in, and in every other case you're making a tidy profit whatever they choose to do.

Just calling has merits in that it lets in players behind you giving you better odds, but then again they may fold all fold, and when they just call you have a tough decision on the turn when you miss your outs. I think pushing in here is the play.

[Victor]

I didnt really consider pushing allin on the flop like you said. However, and I should have put this in the initial post, the player behind me was VERY loose and I figured he would call which he did. I think this makes calling correct in this situation. With more solid players you are probably right to go allin.

I am new to nolimit so your insight is very helpful.

[ArtVandelay]

Preflop I really dislike your raise. As hard as AK is to play in limit, it's even worse in big bet, especially for new players. The problem is that raising small here opens you up to a reraise from the first raiser while gaining you little in return. Should the original raiser have AA he will almost certainly put in a big raise when it gets back to him, and if he puts in a big raise anyway with QQ, AKo, or something else then you'll probably have to fold a hand you would have liked to seen a flop with. If you're going to raise at all with AKs, I recommend a much bigger raise putting real pressure on the original raiser, because you're basically happy to win the pot right there. However on net I think a call is best, because you do want more players with a hand like AKs, and because the raiser has 100 left you will have to give up if he comes over the top no matter how much you raised (unless you foolishly pushed all-in yourself).

So presumably now there's 25 in the pot for 5 way action on the flop. On the flop I think your call is the right play. Some people would suggest pushing all-in, but given that the pre-flop raiser has 100 left you'd basically be getting 6:5 odds when he calls. This is the right price if he holds KK, QQ, JJ, AT, or KT, and you lose a little when he holds AA. If he has a set it's bad though. The real thing is, I think you make more by calling. He will only have one pot-bet left for the turn, and if he is like a typical low limit big bet player I imagine he'll commit the rest of his money on a small club. So why push now when instead, by calling and waiting for the turn as you did, you can get all the money in when you're virtually a lock and get away from the hand if you miss. The one disadvantage is that you will lose those times you would have flushed on the river, but from an E.V. point of view I suspect calling is slightly the better play. The key is that you think you'll get callers behind, which you love, who probably would fold for a push. This additional consideration I believe makes the decision a clear call.

On the turn the pot is 85, the raiser has 85 in his stack, and the player behind you has about 25 left (according to your other post). To simplify we'll pretend the guy behind you always folds, which probably makes a call less attractive because any hand you make will almsot certainly beat him. Raising all-in is actually a possibility here, because (assuming you'll always be called) you're getting 2-1 odds one conceivably 18 outs. However, that's a best case scenario, and I suspect in general you are drawing to about 12 outs, which makes a push wrong. The E.V. of folding is 0, which will be our baseline, so let's analyze calling.

We'll assume that on the river he always bets all-in. This is probably fine because if he checks it will usually be because a scare card hit, which makes your hand, and then you'll push all-in and he'll almost certainly call with the odds he'll be getting. Anyway, the question is which river cards do you call and which do you fold. Clearly if the flush or a jack hits you call, and if any non-flush card below a king hits you'll fold. The question is do you call when a king hits and do you call when an ace hits (they're different because the king makes a 4-card straight, for example). To do a full analysis I'd have to know what sort of hands are consistant with your opponents play, but again to simplify we'll assume he plays AA, KK, QQ, JJ, TT, 99, and AQ this way and nothing else (this seems sort of reasonable). When an ace comes you are beating KK and JJ only, and the number of combinations of hands are 1, 3, 3, 6, 3, 3, and 6 respectively, meaning you are 9/25 to be ahead, so you should call when the ace hits getting 215:35 odds. When a king hits you are beating AQ only, and now the number of combinations of hands are 3, 1, 3, 6, 3, 3, and 9, meaining you are winning 9/28 and again have a call. So... we'll assume that when you call you plan to call any club, ace, king, or jack and fold otherwise. Now for each hand your opponent could have let's see what your E.V. of calling is. For each hand we'll count how often you hit and win, how often you hit and lose, how often you fold in that order, the number of combinations of each hand, and finally your total E.V.:

AA: 12, 4, 28, 3, +6.8
KK: 15, 1, 28, 3, +24.2
QcQx: 10, 7, 27, 2, -5.6
QxQx, TT, 99: 10, 8, 26, 7, -6.4
JJ: 13, 3, 28, 6, +12.6
AxQc: 14, 2, 28, 3, +18.4
AxQx: 15, 2, 27, 6, +23.4

So, finally, your total E.V. on the hand is simply your E.V. against each individual hand weighted by the number of combinations of that hand, i.e.:

(3(6.8) + 3(24.2) + 2(-5.6) + 7(-6.4) + 6(12.6) + 3(18.4) + 6(23.4))/(3+3+2+7+6+3+6) = $10.3.

So you made about 10 bucks with that call. However, note that a lot of the E.V. came from AQ, so if your opponent would not raise pre-flop or would check the flop with AQ then things look worse, but really between aces and kings you're probably making enough to compensate for the times he has a set. The one thing I would like to say though, is that his 50 bet on the turn is mighty suspicious. He has only the pot left in his stack anyway, so why not just push all-in? To me the underbet smells like a big hands going for action, like a set or maybe KJ. If I'm right and he would push with AA, KK, or AQ then you actually should have folded, and you lost about 5 to 6 dollars with your call.

I realize this was a rather tedious analysis, but in theory this is the thing you should be doing every time you make a decision... determine the E.V. of your proposed line of play against each possible holding your opponent could have, then take this average E.V. weighted by the number of combinations of each possible hand. Hope this was at least somewhat helpful.

[nicky g]

I miscalculated how much his opponent had left (thought he only had $80, when as you say he had $100), which make pushing in a more marginal play. However, worth pointing out that your analysis of him pushing in doesn't take into account the possibility of the opponent folding (which is pretty unlikely if he has an overpair in a low limit game, but possible, and he may also be betting an unimproved big ace). I'm also not as confident as you are that a club won't kill his action on the turn.