Scissors Paper Stone

Under time pressure this morning, so I'll make this quick:

Ben Grundy posted about a hand at the Vic NL tourney that caught him out:

Middle position raised to 300 when blinds were 50/100. Two limpers and i have QQ in the big blind. I decide to make it 1500 to play. The original raiser passes and he was the only one i was worried about until the button moved all in for 3100. I couldn't pass now with what i had already put in so called. I was still a bit surprised when he turned over KK.

This is the second time that I have read about this play from a player in late (flat-calling a previous smallish raiser, or limper, with a monster, gambling on a raise from an aggressive player in the blinds) in the past couple of weeks (Andy Ward mentioned a case at Luton on his site). And it's rather irritating, as I had been pondering this as a counter-strategy to aggressive players. I had actually tried it in a couple of online tournaments, but no obliging re-raiser had appeared behind me. Now the cat seems to be out of the bag. Ah well, at least it caught out the Kid! Bet it doesn't again though.

I've been thinking about the "sustainability" poker argument, and I've come to the conclusion that the closest business model is that of Fitness First or other "health clubs" (hah! Have you seen the state of their showers?). You get a large number of people joining, who drop out fairly quickly. So you clearly need a continual stream of newcomers. Party Poker has admitted this, saying that, while the average life of a joiner is seven months, this hides a big disparity and unequal bell curve.

But what do gym clubs do to keep going? Well, they get those who have fallen by the wayside to come back. I myself am one of those "returnees". If the poker sites can manage that, then perhaps the sustainability will go on longer than some have imagined.

Some Triple Draw thoughts

An interesting problem cropped up on a blog the other day, relating to Triple-Draw.

A number of assumptions are made here to simplify the mathematics (which remain complicated enough). They do not invalidate the conclusion (such as there is one), although one might argue about specific numbers.

This is the scenario. You pick up KQ732 on the button in a 5/10 game. UTG limps, two folds, you limp. SB folds and BB checks. $17 in pot.

Round 1: UTG draws 2, you draw 2, BB draws three. You pick up K7432. UTG checks. You bet. BB folds, UTG calls. $26 in pot.

Round 2: UTG draws 2, you draw 1. You get J7432. UTG checks, you bet, he calls. $46 in pot.

Round 3: UTG draws 1. What do you do?

( quite a long follow-on )

So, in answer to the question I set myself, I see my total likelihood of standing pat and betting to a check as 28% of scenarios where my opponent dutifully checks, and 14% of all scenarios where I have the J-7-4-3-2

Now I ought to go through all these percentages, work out the EV, and see how it pans out. Then I ought to see how it varies with different percentages of my opponent betting over checking. Alternatively, I could go and play some cards instead.