Message Board : Target SPR question

Hey guys, I’m needing a bit of a clarification. I have been thinking about how different lines affect your commitment level against different players.

I want to look at the target SPR. For example, say I have KK and raise in EP to 4BB and get semi-tight passive player OTB. The flop comes Q64 with a flush draw. I decide that my most profitable scenario would be me betting 3/4’s-pot, half-pot, 1/4-pot. In terms of finding my target SPR where P is the size of the final preflop pot, that means my target SPR is .75P(3/4’s-pot)+ 1.25P(pot is 2.5P on the turn) + 1.25P(pot is 5P on the river) = 3.25.

Ok, so on that flop my target SPR is 3.25. Now, let’s say that we raise 4BB preflop and get a caller as above with 100BB stacks. That means our SPR is ~12 (96/8). This is too high to commit with top pair, so we aren’t committed at this point. So, we aren’t committed. Let’s say we bet 3/4’s-potand get raised 2/3’s-pot. We figure that his range is AQ/sets and that he will get AI with that entire range(reduce QQ to 30% because it will often raise preflop). That gives us 56.6% equity!

Being committed means that you think it will be profitable of getting it AI. Let’s say we are going to just push here if we are committed and he will call with his whole range (we may maxmize better by raising smaller and pushing the turn, but it should be close enough this way).

So, the pot is 8BB on the pot and we bet 6BB(3/4’s pot). If he raises 2/3’s the pot it will make it 14BB more, so a raise to 20BB. At this point there is 34BB in the pot and we have 86BB behind. Thus…

(120BB)(.566) + (-86BB)(.434) =

67.92BB - 37.32BB = 30.6BB

Given our range against this tight all in range it is profitable to get it all in. So, we are committed. Is this an example of conditional commitment? What I mean is, are we ok getting it in if it is with him raising us on the flop because he has AQ often enough but we aren’t committed to getting ti in through 3 rounds of flop betting because his hand will become progressively stronger?

It seems to me that if we get raised on a flop like this that the only hands that beat us are straights we should be able to commit unless we know for sure that the villain won’t raise top pair or less.

A tight passive player isn’t going to raise you on the flop with AQ, nor is he likely to get all in with it.

I think that a player would have to be pretty aggressive to want to commit there.   But, a player that aggressive would have 3-bet pre-flop quite a bit with AQ.

I think it’s a tall order to construct an argument that gets you all in here on a flop raise that doesn’t contain a bad lag.  But, if he’s a 50/20/9 sort of player, shove ‘em in.  You’re ahead.

…snip…

Still, would you say this is an example of conditional commitment to
where if he raises the flop you know that his range contains hands that
you are way ahead of but if he didn’t raise the flop you expect less
money to go in when you are ahead.

…snip…

I think if he raises his hand is going to be a lot more polarized between bluffs and monsters.  You’re read on the villain would determine whether you are committed or not.  So what our villain will raise with is vital to that calculation.  As you said, against some villains we would happily commit if he raised us here because of the number of bluffs in his range vs the small number of monsters.

When I think of conditionally commited I think of things like "committed unless a bad card comes and he puts in a ton of money".  Here, I think we’re deciding what our commitment point is with different villains.  No?  Now, if we got raised and the flush came in on the turn, we could abandon the hand because we were conditionally committed based on the villain playing both monsters and draws in the same fashion and the biggest draw just came in.  I think this would also be true if he raised the turn instead of the flop.

..snip…

I think of conditional commitment as being both based on the line and based on the board.

…snip… 

That wasn’t really my understanding, though I don’t think I’ve ever had a good understanding of that particular concecpt, so I’ll buy that interpretation.

…snip…

I do agree that if we bet the flop and betthe turn and we’re then
raised it changes villains range and we may not be committed at that
point.  The problem is that at that point we have put a huge amount of
our stack in.  

…snip…

Yeah.   I guess that’s why you have to check some flops and turns with top/over pairs.   It’s also why you should probably find some folds in those situations sometimes.  I confess that I can’t find those folds as often as I should.