Poker Question Answer
Make sure you read yesterdays post before reading more...
Ok. The hand described was a real hand that did happen to me about a week ago. I am going to analyze the hand quite indepth but in reality most of this analysis did not happen during the hand. Sometimes you just have to trust your own experience and judgement and of course your instincts on decisions such as this. The fact is that after I made my decision I was not sure if it was the correct decision so decided to analyze it and see if I could come up with a firm answer.
2nd UTG raiser, who raises 6* the BB with 8 people left to act behind him will generally have one of the following hands :- AA, KK, QQ, JJ or AK. I will cover other possibilites later in the analysis.
Now, the betting pattern that was initiated by the original raiser is consistent as far as the above hands are concerned with the following combos of hands only :-
1 combo of KK - K
K
.
3 combos of AA - AA
, AA
, AA.
6 combos of AK - AK, AK, AK, AK, AK, AK.
We are losing versus all of these combos.
and...
3 combos of JJ - JJ, JJ, JJ.
We are winning versus these combos. (Note only 3 combos of JJ because only when he has the JH does it logically fit in to the above criteria, any other JJ combo would just be counted as a bluff)
So that is 10 losing combos vs 3 winning combos which is just above 3-1 (3.33-1).
The original raiser bet $380 into $380 which gives us exactly 2-1 on the call which is about 1.33 short of a break even call or :-
10 times I lose $380 = -$3800
3 times I win $760 = +$2280
Loss = -$1520
Avg Loss per hand = $1520/13 = -$117 loss per hand every time I make this call.
Ok, so we agree a fold is certainly in order if we limit him to the above precise scenario. Unfortunately we can't do this because we have absolutely no information on him so there has to be a chance however slim that he has other possible holdings and we certainly have to factor them in somehow. This is where it gets tricky.
Other possible combos :-
3 combos of AJ - AJ, AJ, AJ. (Very inconsistent with betting but small possibility)
2 combos of KJ - KJ, KJ. (Highly unlikely possibility)
2 combos of KQ - KQ, KQ. (A more likely possibility from the flop and beyond but loses credibility based on pre flop action)
1 combo of JT - JT. (Very unlikely pre flop action)
So here is a further 5 combos we can beat and 3 further ones we lose to. This would take us to 13-8(1.62-1) which would technically turn this into a call. However, you cannot just weight these combos in the same way as the ones we talked about earlier as they are far more unlikely. At an estimate I would say these possibilities would take us down by only a tiny bit, maybe to 2.5-1 which would still keep it as a fold.
The final thing we have to take into account is the possibility that he is just bluffing and doing a crazy bet on the end. This is of course impossible to quantify but I think it might just be enough to take us down from 2.5-1 to around 2-1 or maybe slightly below which would give us a break even call or slightly profitable call on the river.
Some things to consider though :-
1. He raised 6*BB (Increases the odds that he has AA, KK, QQ, JJ and AK)
2. He raised 2nd UTG (As above)
3. He did a full pot sized bet on the river (This is slightly inconsistent with only the J as surely he can see it is unlikely he will get called by worse. You would more commonly see a half pot bet or smaller on the river if he held only the J.)
4. There is still another player to act behind me if I call. A small percentage of the time he will be slow playing one of the above monsters and raise me.
Based on the the final 4 points I think a call on the end turns into a slightly unprofitable call. If any of the final 4 had been different, 4*BB or middle position raise or a half pot bet on end or no opponent behind me then it would probably swing back towards a call.
So I think we have answered the question and got about as close to an accurate answer as possible.
Correct Answer = Fold or Call (I think fold in the precise scenario laid out above is the correct play with calling being nearly as correct, when I say they are close we are talking 51% to 49% or closer, it really doesn't matter much.)
Wrong Answer = Raise (Anyone who suggested raise is clearly wrong - sorry!)
You are now probably wondering what exactly happened when I played it =)
Here we go, I folded on the river, the other guy also folded. The initial raiser then flashed JJ assuming he had the best hand =). And no this doesn't prove a call is clearly the right decision =)
I'm glad after playing over a million of hands of poker where I have seen the above situations thousands of times that my gut instinct leads me in the right direction. I knew at the time that it was a very close decision between folding and calling and after all this analysis it is pleasing to get the exact same answer!
Ok. The hand described was a real hand that did happen to me about a week ago. I am going to analyze the hand quite indepth but in reality most of this analysis did not happen during the hand. Sometimes you just have to trust your own experience and judgement and of course your instincts on decisions such as this. The fact is that after I made my decision I was not sure if it was the correct decision so decided to analyze it and see if I could come up with a firm answer.
2nd UTG raiser, who raises 6* the BB with 8 people left to act behind him will generally have one of the following hands :- AA, KK, QQ, JJ or AK. I will cover other possibilites later in the analysis.
Now, the betting pattern that was initiated by the original raiser is consistent as far as the above hands are concerned with the following combos of hands only :-
1 combo of KK - K
K.3 combos of AA - A
A, AA, AA.6 combos of AK - A
K, AK, AK, AK, AK, AK.We are losing versus all of these combos.
and...
3 combos of JJ - J
J, JJ, JJ.We are winning versus these combos. (Note only 3 combos of JJ because only when he has the JH does it logically fit in to the above criteria, any other JJ combo would just be counted as a bluff)
So that is 10 losing combos vs 3 winning combos which is just above 3-1 (3.33-1).
The original raiser bet $380 into $380 which gives us exactly 2-1 on the call which is about 1.33 short of a break even call or :-
10 times I lose $380 = -$3800
3 times I win $760 = +$2280
Loss = -$1520
Avg Loss per hand = $1520/13 = -$117 loss per hand every time I make this call.
Ok, so we agree a fold is certainly in order if we limit him to the above precise scenario. Unfortunately we can't do this because we have absolutely no information on him so there has to be a chance however slim that he has other possible holdings and we certainly have to factor them in somehow. This is where it gets tricky.
Other possible combos :-
3 combos of AJ - A
J, AJ, AJ. (Very inconsistent with betting but small possibility)2 combos of KJ - K
J, KJ. (Highly unlikely possibility)2 combos of KQ - K
Q, KQ. (A more likely possibility from the flop and beyond but loses credibility based on pre flop action)1 combo of JT - J
T. (Very unlikely pre flop action)So here is a further 5 combos we can beat and 3 further ones we lose to. This would take us to 13-8(1.62-1) which would technically turn this into a call. However, you cannot just weight these combos in the same way as the ones we talked about earlier as they are far more unlikely. At an estimate I would say these possibilities would take us down by only a tiny bit, maybe to 2.5-1 which would still keep it as a fold.
The final thing we have to take into account is the possibility that he is just bluffing and doing a crazy bet on the end. This is of course impossible to quantify but I think it might just be enough to take us down from 2.5-1 to around 2-1 or maybe slightly below which would give us a break even call or slightly profitable call on the river.
Some things to consider though :-
1. He raised 6*BB (Increases the odds that he has AA, KK, QQ, JJ and AK)
2. He raised 2nd UTG (As above)
3. He did a full pot sized bet on the river (This is slightly inconsistent with only the J
as surely he can see it is unlikely he will get called by worse. You would more commonly see a half pot bet or smaller on the river if he held only the J.)4. There is still another player to act behind me if I call. A small percentage of the time he will be slow playing one of the above monsters and raise me.
Based on the the final 4 points I think a call on the end turns into a slightly unprofitable call. If any of the final 4 had been different, 4*BB or middle position raise or a half pot bet on end or no opponent behind me then it would probably swing back towards a call.
So I think we have answered the question and got about as close to an accurate answer as possible.
Correct Answer = Fold or Call (I think fold in the precise scenario laid out above is the correct play with calling being nearly as correct, when I say they are close we are talking 51% to 49% or closer, it really doesn't matter much.)
Wrong Answer = Raise (Anyone who suggested raise is clearly wrong - sorry!)
You are now probably wondering what exactly happened when I played it =)
Here we go, I folded on the river, the other guy also folded. The initial raiser then flashed J
J assuming he had the best hand =). And no this doesn't prove a call is clearly the right decision =)I'm glad after playing over a million of hands of poker where I have seen the above situations thousands of times that my gut instinct leads me in the right direction. I knew at the time that it was a very close decision between folding and calling and after all this analysis it is pleasing to get the exact same answer!
posted by TillerMaN | 4:30 PM
26 Comments:
Your so smart Tillerman,but! Odds and % dosent matter sometimes,just trust ur insticts and call that bet.
Gl next time
What do you think of his river bet?
Damn I got it wrong, I said raise. I understand your logic completely, but at lower limits there are so many hands people raise with here. 2nd UTG and 6xBB means MUCH less in an online .5/1 No Limit (what I play) then a live table at a card club or at high stakes, and that's why I put him on more hands then you did. However you analyzied probably just like Harrington would (I read his books about a month ago), so I guess it's the right decision. The more I think about it an especially bad problem with raising him a pot sized raise is that if someone else raises all in, then you would fold fearing the AK, AA. And here you would fold to the guy who thinks he has the best hand with the nut flush. And you would be laying down your winning fullhouse after investing more in the hand.
What site did this hand happen on?
I voted call but this may be the one and only time I ever sniffed out the raiser's starting hand in one of these situation questions. I am pleased. Jacks are a pain to play. Now back to the PL Omaha tables.
Tillerman, i cannot believe you folded! I asked 2 very high profile professional players and they said it is a clear call (maybe they dont respect the fact that it was only $380) i ask them if they would make the call if it was 10k into a 10k pot and they said that it looked like the other player was "buying" the pot and yes they would call.
To last poster, you are saying that he should have read a bluff and called. He read a real hand and folded. Turns out the guy probably thought he had the best hand with JH. No bluff!
For me it was the presence of the LP player more than anything that turned it into a fold.
As for the original raiser: Sure, it looks like he's trying to buy the pot, but this is also a tough game where you have no further information on the player. I think it's equally likely that he does this with a strong hand trying to look weak. I can read that post flop action as him checking twice in hopes of someone catching up, then realizing on the river that nobody has, he overbets hoping to look like he's buying the pot. I see that as a more logical course for a high stakes thinking player than "oh damn, nobody has bet, I better overbet to try and steal". Given that that is in fact what he was thinking, it would make a good player note for the future.
Abs
I think this is an easy call or even raise for one simple reason.
think of this, when you are at the original raiser's shoes, whats the 380bet really is going to accomplish, if someone has the King, he will call your bet. if he doesn't have the king he's not going to call your bet. simple as that. why bet so small if you have the AK or KK or AA? it's either action or no action. if i had ak or kk or aa, i would have bet more than 380, its action or no action time. the opponent either has the king or not.
I disagree with that last post quite a bit. If you were the original raiser you would want to bet an amount that makes you look desperate if you have a strong hand. By your logic you aren't giving your opponents a chance to make a mistake, which is a very poor play.
Abs
To those that say it looks like the original raiser is trying to buy the pot, I think they underestimate the level of sophistication at 10-20NL (maybe I overestimate it, but I don't think so). At a *really* unsophisticated table, where bet size is almost always proportional to hand strength, the bet indicates strength. At a garden-variety unsophisticated table (say, 0.50-1 NL), the bet makes it look like you're trying to buy it and indicates weakness. At a more sophisticated table, the bet makes it look like you want it to look like you're trying to buy it.
At a game as tough as I presume the online 10-20NL to be, it's just the poison cups discussion from "The Princess Bride".
Read too much into that bet, without a read on the player, doesn't really accomplish much. I think you have to base a call or no-call here on the math of what potential hands you could be up against. A solid read could push the decision.
Personally I think the presence of the 3rd player in the pot makes this an easier fold than Tiller alludes to. Gap concept and all. But what the hell do I know - I beat the 2-4 limit pretty well, but it's still just 2-4 limit. The nice thing about hypotheticals is, it ain't my money I'm playing with :)
Is there anyway to quantify the fact (or should it even be considered?) that the odds of the guy holding any Aces or Kings are pretty low, since their are already two kings and and ace on board?
Does that somehow reduce the possibility that the guy is holding any Ace or King?
He did quantify the cards out there, by considering the total remaining possible combinations.
In my opinion there is a flaw. When you have absolutely no read on a player, I don't think you should factor in bluffs or weaker hands than JJ, because I consider it minus expected value factoring over time in such a spot. This has nothing to do with the actual hand and how it comes out, but the general outcome of different hands up against this early position raise. Also it's hard to find the true value of these factors, and in the end it most likely will be pure speculations, so why go there?
In other words, I consider this a clearer fold than 51-49, even if a call isn't horrible play.
hey, Tillerman's analysis matched mine almost perfectly , so I'm happy :)
Also, I didn't even understand some peoples reasoning in this thread.
Some guy just said something like "id bet much more than a pot sized bet if I had AK, cause any king would call". why would a set of kings be good at that board?
other awkward things were written also...
If he already quantified it KMAC, then he would have discounted the possibility of an AA, KK, or AK holding.
But he didn't, and I'm wondering if this sort of thing should be taken into account.
Equally weighing his possible holdings, where AA is just as likely as JJ, is what I'm wondering about.
With no Jacks on board, does that make his possible holding more likely to be JJ than AA, since an A is already on board.
It seems he would have a higher chance of being dealt two jacks since no jacks are showing.
This is all speculation, just wondering if this sort of thing should be taken into account.
i disagree with the last comment. i believe that you would need a specific read not to factor bluffing into this analysis. the average, unknown player will bluff. in hoh, it says that usuually at least 10% of the time, the player will be bluffing. now i don't know how accurate that number is, but i'm just saying that if you discount bluffing completely just because the opponent is unknown you'll be folding way too often.
bet the turn and u will know a bit mor e on the river
"I'm glad after playing over a million of hands of poker where I have seen the above situations thousands of times that my gut instinct leads me in the right direction."
Amazing! After only a _MILLION_ hands!
Your conclusion may or may not be correct, but how you arrived at that conclusion has nothing to do with math. I'm not gonna say whether it's a call, fold or raise in your specific scenario because I don't know. I do know, that how you tried to prove your 'gut' feeling with numbers has no scientific value. ;) It does however, explain your reasoning for folding, which IS interesting.
poker ist just more than math, you have to do the wrong decision at the right time.
How is determining a range of most likely hands and then calculating their probabilities vs pot-odds not math? I agree that the second part of his discussion is somewhat sketchy and it looks like he's trying to find a call, but the first part is proper math. That math indicated a fold so it looks like it does have something to do with math.
Anyway, I think it's reasonable to ignore the unlikely holdings and bluffs that you can beat sometimes when they can be counterbalanced by unlikely plays that make you lose. For example, there may be a 10% chance UTG+1 is bluffing, but there may also be a 10% chance that the LP player will come over the top of both of you smelling weakness (rightly so). Are you going to make that call? Probably not. I think you can just keep it simple here and the simple MATH indicates fold.
Because... he clearly started to analyze the hand in depth after his opponent flashed the worst hand, and made him question the fold. When your intention is to prove you made the right decision, it's pretty easy to arrive at that conclusion. In fact I recently received a Steve Brecher article in my mailbox from full tilt that would illustrate my point rather nicely. These numbers by themselves are meaningless, because certain psychological factors are of much greater importance. Don't get me wrong, I respect Tiller a great deal, I just don't agree with his approach.
Well, I suppose then that depends on how good you are at not thinking results oriented. I came to the same conclusion before he revealed the answer just based on possible holdings. It's just hard to argue otherwise that an unknown UTG+1 player raising 6xBB has anything but a top 5 hand. The second part of the argument is more handwavey for sure, but that's what you have to do sometimes in a game of incomplete inforamation.
betting the turn is suicidal, stop mentioning it
shouldn't it be 1520/14 due to the other 2 queens?
why is it so bad to bet the turn?
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