Hand recap

[peterbirks]

I'll post the denouement to this later, but here's an actual hand history recap of yesterday's poser. Note that villain 2 and I are actually MP2 and MP3, rather than in the later positions that I said earlier. Also, Villain 1 and Villain 2 have slightly more money than I recalled.

So far the votes are 'probably call, but might fold on a cowardly day' and 'on balance, reraise all-in'.


$100 USD NL Texas Hold'em - Wednesday, November 21
Table Table 130254 (Real Money)
Seat 9 is the button
Total number of players : 10
Seat 1: Villain1 ( $34.18 USD ) (187 hands, 5%/4%)
Seat 2: pynota ( $28.33 USD )
Seat 3: LudoA ( $20 USD )
Seat 4: Dorian711 ( $56.19 USD )
Seat 5: Villain2 ( $100 USD ) (150 hands: 18%/8%, Total Aggression factor 0.78)
Seat 6: Hero ( $102.09 USD )
Seat 7: Geitenn ( $230.41 USD )
Seat 8: demourg ( $54.74 USD )
Seat 9: luxuswasser ( $99.50 USD )
Seat 10: rothkolio ( $167.93 USD )

rothkolio posts small blind [$0.50 USD].
Villain1 posts big blind [$1 USD].

** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to Hero [ A♡ K♡ ]
pynota folds.
LudoA folds.
Dorian711 folds.
Villain2 raises [$4 USD]
Hero raises [$11 USD]
Geitenn folds.
demourg folds.
luxuswasser folds.
rothkolio folds.
Villain1 is all-in ($34.18)
Villain2 calls [$30.18 USD]

Hero?

Comments

[jellymillion.livejournal.com]

The thing that I keep coming back to is the call with $60-odd behind and you still to act with about the same starting stack. If he has half a clue then he has AA, because he's happy for you to come along. If he doesn't have that much clue, then he's clueless, but 18%/8% suggests he mostly waits for good cards. I'm going to give him credit for loosening up appropriately with position.

5%/4% is Rocky the rock-like rock, isn't it? AA, KK and AK ought to about cover it. Although he may just be in a run of cold-cardedness stats like that say he's (a) possessed of a lot of self-discipline, (b) multi-tabling like a bastard so who cares if he's getting nothing on one measly table or (c) both. So quite likely you're not exactly favourite against him.

I think the likelihood is that you're dominated or coin-flipping and you're not committed. Fold with curiosity.

[(Anonymous)]

it's all a bit different now; 10s AK are a touch too involved here. He doesn't really want to committ 30% on seeing the flop, or waiting to see if you push. He might, players can play this way - though it is a small sample on which you are making your judgement. It doesn't seem likely you are getting a fold from a push so I might steer away from it. I dont think you know enough to pass; but you are going to learn a bit by pushing.

totti

Good stuff

[peterbirks.livejournal.com]

I think this is an interesting situation because it brings so much of what makes No Limit interesting into play (and not much of the stuff that makes No Limit as boring as hell). What is also interesting (and as Totti observed) is how subtle changes that might mean nothing to the inexperienced player can make a deal of difference.

Just by making the raiser and reraiser seats 5 & 6 rather than CO and Button, and just by increasing the stacks a bit, the whole balance of the hand is subtly altered.


This is an afternoon game and I think my default view on the Big Blind is that he is a short-stacked multi-tabler not paying much attention to other players' styles. I'm sure that some of these guys play from a crib sheet.


I think Lurker made the good point that I have bno fold equity against Villain 2 (while Villain 1 is already all in).

One thing which no-one has mentioned is that, if I call, I close the action and, when the flop comes down, Villain 2 is betting into a dry side pot.


The second point is that, if I am up against QQ and JJ, it doesnn't matter if I make JJ fold, because I want him to be in.


If I had had AKo I would have folded here I think, following the general tournament line that I was probably tieing against one of my opponents.

What led me to decide to call here was that I had position on the only remaining guy with money, and any bet he makes on the flop cannot get rid of the guy who is all-in.

If the distribution here is AK AK AK then I have an edge on the AKo hands and, in addition, he would have to be a very good player to shove on a flop of Qxx or Jxx or xxx.

So, if the flop comes xxx, and he shoves, I pass. If it comes xxx and he checks (or mini-bets), then I shove. if it comes Kxx then I'm obviously all-in.

(A bit rushed that, my pasta water just overflow3ed! Apologies for logical flaws).

PJ

Re: Good stuff

[peterbirks.livejournal.com]

Here's how it panned out:

Hero Calls.


** Dealing Flop ** [ 8♣, 9♡, T♣ ]

Villain2 goes all-In.
Hero folds.

** Dealing Turn ** [ 5♡ ]
** Dealing River ** [ 2♣ ]

Villain2 shows [ K♠, K♣ ]a pair of Kings.
Villain1 shows [ A♠, A◊ ]a pair of Aces.
Villain2 wins $65.82 USD from side pot #1 with a pair of Kings.
Villain1 wins $100.04 USD from the main pot with a pair of Aces.

I don't think that the actual result matters that much. As Totti said, with AKs, I just didn't know enough to fold...

PJ

[(Anonymous)]

Pretty standard fold if the other two players are reasonable. AK in a 3-way isnt too good. Shoving allin not too bad. Calling is terrible. It costs far too much to see a flop and QQ is betting you off AK on low flops and failing to pay you off on A/K ones.

matt

[(Anonymous)]

"a standard fold" is complete nonsense esp at this level; you'd have to make confident reads on villains to make this a fold - thus making it anything but standard. You don't have to raise the stack sizes of active villain/hero by much or decrease the all-in and cold call by deal to put a lot of hands in the villains ideal c'calling range and the all-inners ideal moving-in range. As such there is plenty of reasonable doubt to keep the hand very much alive. Far from comfortable given the stack sizes; far from standard.

PB there is value in moving the JJs off even if all-in holds QQ since you will see all 5-cards rather then get moved off the flop

totti

[(Anonymous)]

There's "value" in moving JJ off even if the other guy has QQ???

AhKh v QcQs - the AK has 46% EV
AhKh v QcQs v JdJh - the AK has 39.2% EV

So which would you rather have, 46% x 2 or 39.2% x 3?

The point is that to beat QQ your AK is going to have to improve anyway and the cases when it does it will usually beat JJ as well. Everything else you said is wrong too.

matt

[(Anonymous)]

I'd forgotten about this: are you being deliberately dense?

1/ Just cause you say all else is wrong don't make it so - clarify.

2/ The one point you make to criticise you get wrong - so I'll spell it out. There is value in pushing off JJ - if you don't re-raise and flat-call instead, what's going to happen when the flop comes low? A gentle check down to the river? Are you nuts? No he's going to push the flop and you get to fold missing potential turn and river outs and in addition if you hit the flop you get paid less often.

It is not a choice of which do i prefer? all-in with AK against JJ with QQ; or all-in against QQ, as you simplification infers? The claim from Mr Birks is that there was no value in pushing off (by re-raising) JJ given the all-inner has QQ. There is plenty of value in doing just that for the reasons stated above. That should be clear enough.

totti

[peterbirks.livejournal.com]

I just typed a long post here and then lost it by a misclick! Stupid LJ.

Its summary was that I think this whole thing might be solvable and that it also encapsulates the two philosophies of "you get to see 60% of the communal for one not-too-expensive bet(i.e., you should call)" and its rival "you don't want to be pushed off when you might get the cards you want on the turn or river, (therefore, get your money in)".

Part of this is represented in totti's point (2), where the language seems reasonable enough, but there's no proof relating to the numbers. Yes, he's going to push an all-low flop with JJ and you are going to fold, whereas he won't pay you off on a flop of Axx, Kxx or Qxx, but is the AK a net loser out of all this? After all, if he folds the flop, his decision is mathematically correct. Let's look at the overall numbers.

I reckon that there are 28 hand distributions here between your two opponents(with one of the distributions being "other" and the other five being AA, KK, QQ, JJ and AK) each of which having a varying probability and against each of which a call and a shove have varying EVs (the fold option has the same EV of minus $11 every time, of course). Since opponents' post-flop decisions are either known (in the case of the all-in player) or fairly easy to predict (in the case of the player with money behind), the whole thing should be solvable.

If I have time, I might work it out. However, as I posted today, I'm not sure that it matters that much in the grand metagame scheme of things. It's just an interesting reflection of the "see five cards/ see the flop cheap" short-ball/long-ball dichotomy. I wouldn't like to come down firmly on one side or the other until I went diligently through the numbers. I leave the proselytizing to others .... :-)

PJ

[peterbirks.livejournal.com]

Good god, I didn't lose the previous post after all - I just created a new window by a mistype, and the new window ignores the post to date. Still stupid LJ, though. Although the above repeats much of it, here's what I wrote originally...

Although this is a bit of an angels on the head of a pin matter (hence I don't really care about it empirically that much one way or the other), it's still interesting and, I suspect, solvable. Initially I came round to the "shove is best" line (I'm sorry, I still can't lay down AKs here, even though I can lay down AKo).

However, then I thought about it some more and concluded that there was a philosophical difference at the heart of it. This philosophical difference (which can be calculated mathematically, unusually) relates to being "pushed off" your AK by QQ if three low cards flop. Some might argue that by calling for much less than half their chips and seeing 60% of the cards, they were making the right decision to call against QQ pre-flop (because they were less than 50% and were getting the odds for their money to 'hit' an A or K in three cards, even if opponent doesn't pay you off) and right to fold to the bet on the flop. Far from being "pushed off", the AK is the worst hand and is right to fold.

Now, this isn't necessarily my line at the moment, but I can understand it. This really is a matter of EV calculations. One player might say that the EV is best getting all the money in so that you get to see all five cards, whereas the other might say that you are right to take the hand abit at a time. Sometimes you might get pushed off on the flop of three low cards, and it turns out you would win by the end, but your mathematical decisions were right in each case (you were getting odds to call pre-flop, but were less than 50%, therefore a reraise is wrong, but you aren't getting odds post-flop, therefore you are right to fold).

Now, I can see all the counter-arguments to this -- the main one being that the game is not played double-dummy. But, unusually, there is a solution to hand.

Unfortunately, it's time-consuming. I reckon there are 28 separate hand distributions here (with one hand distribution for each opponent's hand being 'other' and the named distributions consisting of AA, AK, QQ, JJ), which we can translate into estimated likelihoods.

[(Anonymous)]

Hi,

The point I was trying to make was that not getting him to fold doesn't dominate getting him to fold with JJ given QQ is already in.
The quick mindset is (flukes aside) 'if i beat QQ then I beat JJ - so what's the point in losing JJ?' But of course the x3 money is the same whether calling or pushing - QQ has no more; our decision is based on how likely a x2 pot is against JJ- not whether you want x2 (v QQ) or x3 (v QQ &JJ) (hence a 'wtf' response in my last post). If I knew the guy folds JJ to my push, I do it absolutely - with obvious benefits. Though it isn't that likely here, but doesn't require a great deal of changes to the dynamics to make the call then fold of JJ alive, with a given image.

Anyway, merely a piece of the jigsaw. You can lose AKo here, but like you I'd not want to lose AKs.


totti