Message Board : did I over-resist the raise reflex?

jamleeco,

My impulse is that you probably smooth-called for pot control just fine in that hand and got unlucky that your opponent spiked his five-outer.    But like most poker decisions, it's more valuable to think about the factors that you need to consider than to try to deduce the “correct” decision here.

You hated that your opponent caught two pair, but would you feel better about your play if he'd had K9?   What if he'd had 33, 77, or K7s?   (And if by some chance you say that he wouldn't play a set like this — maybe he'd always check-call the flop — then that's key information about your opponent!)   Calling the turn may be valid.

But here's the key: Supposing you'd shoved the turn, would your opponent call with KT, KJ, and KQ, or with any flush draw, not to mention AK ?    If he would call a shove with lots of these weaker hands, then perhaps you're applying Ed's lesson in the wrong place.   (I play a lot of $1-3, and I'd say it's a mixed bag.   Your push is a slight overbet, 150 BBL into about a 140 BBL pot, and even most $1-3 donks won't call this without at least AK.)

If your opponent won't make wrong calls with hands that you beat, then the only reason to shove is to charge more to a strong draw, which in this case is a flush draw.   But flush draws are only part of your opponent's range, and you need to balance this desire to protect your hand against the desire not to pay off better hands.   You probably won't get enough value as “protection” to make up for the sets and two pair that stack you.    So against typical opponents who won't get the chips in with worse hands, you're probably right to call for pot control here.

In general you need to think about reads in terms of ranges instead of specific hands.    Was 77 in the range you considered?   If not, why not?  What about K7s or 5c 4c?

Finally, a thought about buy-in size and tough decisions.   It's not clear whether you bought in for the max or just happened to double up until you had $600.   If the former, and if you're somewhat uncomfortable with these decisions you could consider buying in for less.   My opinion is that it's well worthwhile learning to play deep-stacked (which I'm still learning), but IMO the best time to learn is after building up a bigger stack, so that your mistakes are subsidized by your short-stack wins.

HTH.

AKQJT, thanks for the response.

I did mention 77 ( set ) and the  K7s or comparable as more likely.

 However, I did feel I was a favorite against this players range, and with such a read ( right or wrong) should I go ahead and get it in or call thinking  a favorite to win the pot and possibly a river bluff or blocking bet or a value bet if he checks.

 But as mentioned, I also considered what if I am behind, then of course better to call. But I thought of that in a tip the balance type of way.

I am still learning deeper stack play myself. I don't cash out or rathole when i get deep stacked, sometimes up to 300 bb's. However, I am still buying in short for 50 bb's when I first sit down. Sometimes I bump it up if game is good and I'm comfortable after first round ( chips in my pocket ). On this particular night I was up to that from 50 bb's.

I actually run some nice bluffs around that size or a tad larger if win a pot or two, because live players don't think you make a big bet or raise that's not your whole stack unless you did actually just hit the flush or trip up with second pair. Also make some nice semi's pre-flop with 66 and such ( three-betting) because the players that know some math will think with my small stack they are not getting the odds to play for a set or play a medium ace, etc.

If you think you are ahead of villain's range here, a turn re-raise seems by far the best play. Personally, I favour winning a good-sized pot with a 1-pair hand on the turn and avoiding a showdown here, so on a K738 board with two clubs, I am usually sticking it all-in here. If you think about this, you will realize that it (this will seem counterintuitive at first!) is the low-variance play to jam.

If your opponent will call off with a lot of worse hands (top pair, flush draws, etc.) this becomes an even better +EV play as you are charging him the maximum outdraw you and obviously you are getting your money in as a big favourite.

Todd said:

They're 200BB deep.  Your equity when called here is awful.  He's never calling off 200BB with a bad K unless he is just awful and that doesn't seem to be the posters read.  The villain still has 150BB behind.  He's mostly not going to call it all off with a flush draw either.  There are so many hands the villain can call you with in the BB that have you crushed.  77, 88, 78, K7s or K8s.

I would flat the turn, particularly since the poster has him read for a pair he wants to get to showdown.  If the straight or flush comes in on the river and he bets the pot, I'd let it go.  As played, I call the river and don't feel too bad about it.

This conclusion is patently misguided. Go back and read the analysis of poster's read on the opponent one more time. He correctly surmised he was ahead and not likely to be facing a set or two pair. Why again is flat-calling the turn a good play?

Thanks for all your responses guys. It's not a complicated hand but I had a lot of concepts tug-of-warring in my head. Magnified by the fact that I'm deepstacked at the time.

When I made the play I felt good because I thought I had been observing, reading hands, and playing well in general. My two main factors in calling were not bloating the pot up and being pot-committed with just an overpair. And secondly to be more cautious with an overpair being deepstacked. Keep pot medium.

Ok, when he bet out on the turn, I will admit it, I was  “gobsmacked” as Tommy says. I didn't expect it and hadn't thought ahead. I was busy thinking what turn cards I would bet with, how much, and what turn-cards I might check with. So now I'm thinking what I said above, Kx most likely, K7s -KTo in there, possilbly a set but would he smooth call the flop with a flush draw and one player who checked still behind him? He had not been playing his draws this way, he had been checking or making “smaller ” blocking bets. But if he had a flush draw I would definitly have to pot commit if I was going to raise enough to charge him.

Ok, then confusing part. Since he bet the same amount (approx) I would have bet, do I figure he is charging himself if drawing, and if he has the hand I put him most-likely on, give him a chance to lose more money? Ed says ” small pots for small hands, medium….. etc.

But also poker is situational and sometimes a normally medium hand can be trash or a strong hand, depending. So I know this player is loose, but I also know he's not an idiot. Those hands I mentioned earlier he went sd with were against short stacks and bad players. I know he won't play against me the same as them.

I also know reads aren't 100% so I do factor in other possibilbilities. I didn't even meniton if I should have raised less than all in trying to get him to committ with a weak hand by building up the pot more ( like Ed says, the pot is never big enough) so later in the evening I wasn't feeling bad. Felt my call  was ok, but should I have raised a smaller amount ? Or should I just have shoved ?  I thought shoving was not good after I had thought about it a bit. Theory stuff, have them make mistakes. But was calling my best way to do that in this situation? Was this a time I should have eschewed the pot control philosophy?

Well, shoving is the only thing that would have changed the results, and I'm fine with not shoving. Todd has already stated most articulately the problem with shoving there, given my read.  The smaller raise would have lost me more money and not changed the results.

I want to know what the most +ev play is in this situation. And if that can't be exactly reached, what factors I should be weighing the most. I am not playing in tough games but I am trying to become a better player, reading and studying along with playing regular.

I know underlying theory doesn't change, and if you play “correctly” you will win. But, as Dan goes on to say in section about weaker games, most of the material is how to survive in a tough enviroment and protect yourself while causing damage. But in weaker games you don't have to be so cautious.

I do know that I wanted to keep him in the pot. If I had the same situation again, I would be trying to keep him in the pot, which means in that particular hand I would have definitely lost if I succeeded. I don't have any problem with that.

What I'm trying to achieve is to figure out if I played the hand the best way possilbe. In this situation and a decent read, should I have been more aggressive. Did I allow all of those tug-of-warrers to make me too cautious? Or did I go weak-tight because of the big stack or was I exercising prudence and the more-caution needed with big stacks?  And was that caution misguided because of the type of game I”m in? Is it erroneous thinking to let him take the lead because he already bet what I was going to try and get him to put in the pot anyway and position allows me to just call and see what happens next? Or am I missing value here by backing off?

MadDogMike said:

With an SPR around 8 and an overpair against a loose player, why wouldn't we be committed on the flop?

With 100BB stacks, I think a target SPR of 8 is reasonable.  With 200BB stacks, I'm not as sure.

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With 100BB stacks, I think a target SPR of 8 is reasonable.  With 200BB stacks, I'm not as sure.

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Why does the stack size matter to SPR?

From the villians viewpoint, he's probably thinking, rightly, that he's in a Way Ahead/ Way Behind situation. Hero might play QQ or JJ the same way with the cont' bet. Villian throws out the blocking bet to see where he's at with the intention of not putting any more in the pot unimproved. I think a small raise on the Turn gives villian something to think about, and the chance to make a mistake, or more likely, wins the pot right there.

SPR is a dynamic thing.  Against different villains, different target SPRs apply.  With 100BB stacks, you can make some general assumptions about good target SPRs and they apply to a wide variety of villains.

As the money gets deeper, target SPRs really do need to be much more tailored to individual villains and probably brought in somewhat for most villains.  Sure Sammy Farha and Patrik Antonius can get 500BB in incredibly light.  Most people just aren't that way.

Here are two example hands.  First hand.  I'm on the button with 50BB effective stacks.  I raise 3BB, get called by the BB with KJs.  Pot is 6.5BB, SPR is ~6.  Flop comes KXXr.  My money is going in pretty much no matter what.  I'm not making any sort of big fold here to anything but the tightest of BBs.

Second hand.  I'm on the button with 190BB and KJs.  I raise 4BB, the BB 3-bets to 14BB and I call.  Pot is 29BB, SPR is ~6.  Flop comes KXXr.  Whether or not I called pre-flop would depend a lot on what I thought of the villain, how lightly he would 3-bet and could I attack him in position.  But, deep, in position, I will make that call a fair bit under the right circumstances.  What I won't do is put all my money in with top pair for most villains.  Only the loosest, most aggresive villains would see me put all my money in on that flop. (I would note that my pre-flop raise size probably made this hand a bit harder to play.  A 2.5 or 3x pre-flop raise would have been a lot better).

Same SPR.  Entirely different situation.

Looking at this hand, the pot isn't re-raised, but it is multi-way.  So, on average we need a stronger hand to get all the money in because there are more cards out against us.

…snip…

or more likely, wins the pot right there.

…snip…

I think it's worth emphaiszing again that if our read is correct, it isn't in our interest to win the pot right there.  We are likely able to get another street of value out of this villain.  We want him in the pot drawing to his 5 outs.  We want to be able to put in 1/2 or a little less than 1/2 pot on the river where he is going to feel priced in to calling us with a bad K.  We have way too much showdown value to blow him off a weak hand now.

MadDogMike said:

Todd,

 What if we take this same AA hand except cut the stacks in half and cut Hero’s PFR in half giving us the same the SPR as before, only the starting stacks are now 100BB. Does this change whether or not you are committed on the flop? We’ve got an SPR of around 8 with an overpair, a couple loose opponents, 2 tone flop with unlikely gutshot S8 draws available. To me whether or not I’m committed doesn’t take into account whether I started with 50, 100 or 200 BBs. Maybe I missed something in PNLH.

It changes my target SPR for general opponents, yes.  Most people make different decisions with 200BB than with 100BB and I change my targets because of that.  Just like I'll change my targets for especially loose or tight opponents.

There are specific cases where I retain high targets for special sorts of calling stations pretty much regardless of stack size.  We'll call those guys “boat payments” and “vacations”.  But for general, decent players I adjust my targets as stacks get deep.

With 100BB stacks, I'm potting the flop and turn to get all in.

In our hand here, ask yourself if you were the villain if you would call off $400 of your $600 stack on the with something that didn't beat 1 pair if we put him all in?  Or, if he check/raise shoved the turn and you were looking at a $400 call, how often do you think you'd be good?  Probably not often enough to call.  I don't think I would want to call there getting 2-1 with just an overpair.  So, I don't know that 8 is the right target unless you have a good read on the villain. 

People can be all kinds of crazy loose for small bets in live games.  Considerably fewer are crazy loose for big bets.