I saved the second time I was dealt pocket aces that day for the last story to tell because I think it’s the most interesting from a hand analysis perspective.
UTG, I looked down at two black aces and just called the big blind. My intent was to re-raise, and given the raising frequency at the table, I was pretty confident I would get my chance. Foolhardy me! Eight people saw the flop in an unraised pot, and already the hand was off to a rough start.
Things looked brighter though after I flopped the nuts. The flop came Ac Kh 6h. With so many people in the pot though, I was done taking chances, and bet $35 into the $40 pot. Everyone folded except for one person–a player I had seen make a number of loose calls in the past. I had a better read on this player than on anyone else at the table, so I was fairly happy to get a call from him. At that point, there was a very wide range of hands he could hold, but a flush draw seemed most likely.
The turn was an off suit jack, but I remained unworried, as the only hand that could beat me would be a queen-ten which would have hit an inside straight draw. I bet $100 into the $105 pot, confident that any draw my opponent had would happily take the horrible odds offered and stay in the hand. Much to my surprise, my opponent now raised. He raised the minimum amount, making it $100 more to me.
Time to put him on a hand. First of all, I had picked up on a tell. When my opponent had a strong hand, he would slide way back in his chair and lean sharply forward. He looked like a defensive lineman getting ready to tear straight for a quarterback. Given this guy’s build and appearance, I honestly think he probably was a college football player once upon a time. He literally seemed like he was assuming a three point stance when he had a big hand. That’s exactly my opponent’s posture at that moment, so I could dismiss all weak holdings, bluffs, and draws.
This guy had a made hand, but it was one he couldn’t raise with preflop. He definitely wasn’t afraid to raise a lot of limpers preflop, so I dismissed A-K, A-J, and K-K from his range. I decided that K-J was very unlikely as well. First, he probably would have raised with it preflop. Second, he might have folded it on the flop. Third, I think he would have been a little more cautious with that holding. Fourth, I don’t think his Strong Hand Tell would have been so pronounced with that weak two pair. While I concede it might be a mistake to dismiss K-J from his range of potential holdings, at the time, that’s exactly what I did. That only leaves two contenders: Q-T and 6-6.
Some of you might be thinking he wouldn’t have Q-T there because it would be an inside straight draw. You would be making the mistake of projecting the way you play onto another person. In reality, I had early on seen this player draw at inside straights with much worse implied odds. As it is, if he got all-in, he would make enough to justify calling a pot sized flop bet with only 4 outs.
If he had 6-6 then I had him crushed. If he had Q-T then I had 10 outs to win. I was getting about 4:1 pot odds on a 3.4:1 draw, so I happily called. First though, I decided what to do on the river. I didn’t want to have to think about it after the card was dealt, so I decided to think about it before making the easy turn call. That added the benefit of making my hand seem weaker, and increasing the likelihood of getting paid off if I filled up on the river.
If I missed, I would check, my opponent would bet, and I’d have to think about calling. He had about $350 left in front of him, and I had him covered. There was about $500 in the pot. There were three ways he could have 6-6, and sixteen ways he could have Q-T. As such, I could expect to be ahead 3/19 of the time. If his bet was greater than 3/19 of the pot size (inclusive of the bet) then I would need to fold, otherwise I’d need to call. That’s a bit of a tough calculation to do in your head at the table while under pressure, but it’s surprisingly easy to guesstimate. 3/18 would be one sixth, which is 16 2/3%. 3/20 would be 15%. So if the bet size was much greater than 15% of the new pot size, I’d need to fold. With 500 in the pot, and given the flop action, a bet of $100 or greater would seem normal. A $100 bet would bring the pot up to $600, and 15% of 600 is 90–dictating a fold. Basically then, I decided I would fold to any bet $100 or greater, and call any bet that was smaller.
Take a minute to take this thought process to an even higher level. I was against an average-at-best opponent, but imagine if I’d been up against a top player. That player would himself be able to do all this reasoning, seeing that I would reach the conclusion I just reached. That would inform him that if he had 6-6, he needed to bet over $100 in order to get me to fold my winners. As a consequence, I’d have to make much looser calls against a top opponent (especially since I wouldn’t be able to eliminate the chance that the player was bluffing were it not for the tell–a tell I wouldn’t expect to pick up on a top player).
I also needed to decide what to do if I filled up on the river. This is another interesting conundrum. If my opponent has 6-6, then I make more money by check-raising. Betting into a paired board represents the full-house, and a scared bottom full might well just call. If checked to, however, he would certainly bet, and would probably have to call the raise. Conversely, against Q-T I’d probably make more money by betting out, as he might not bet the hand, but would probably call a reasonable bet. I decided to bet out $150. The times he held 6-6, betting out would probably cost me about $150 in opportunity (since I wouldn’t get to set him all-in with a check-raise), but against a straight, checking would probably cost me about $150, as I think that’s a bet he would call given the size of the pot. Since the straight was the more likely holding, I decided to bet out $150 on the river if I filled up.
The river was the eight of hearts for a final board of Ax Kh 6h Jx 8h. I checked, and my opponent said something about the heart killing his action and checked behind. Yeah, all that work figuring out what to do on the river was for naught.
I showed my set of aces, and he turned up Q-T for the win with a turned inside straight.
Posted by Beck as Poker at 4:34 PM PDT
14 Comments »
This past weekend, I found myself in a pleasantly soft 2/5 NLHE game in Atlantic City. Even better, I caught good cards for most of the seven hour session, including being dealt pocket aces four times. They held up twice. I decided the story of those four hands would make an interesting post, so here it is.
The fourth time I was dealt pocket aces was the least interesting. I raised, got one caller, bet the ragged flop, and took down the pot.
The third time was one of the losers, but I somehow managed to lose the minimum. There was one limper, and I raised to $25. Two loose players called, and the big blind–a young player of marginal skill–called. The limper folded. The flop came J-9-5 with two hearts (I did not hold the ace of hearts). Action checked to me, I bet $60 into the $107 pot, and only the big blind called. Interestingly, I had intended to bet $75, but accidentally came forward with too few chips. Then, rather than draw undue attention by acting weird and pulling my hand back to grab more chips, I just went with the $60 level. It would not have made any difference in the outcome of the hand, but it did save me $15. The turn was the last card I wanted to see: the ten of hearts. My opponent checked, and I checked behind. I don’t even remember what the river was, but the action went check-check, and the big blind turned up jack-ten offsuit for top two pair.
When I turned up my hand, the big blind commented, “Oh, I should have bet!” Clever fellow, wasn’t he?
The first time I was dealt aces was in only my second orbit of play after arriving at the table. I was sitting on about $425 in chips. The player UTG, who seemed relatively tight, open raised to $20. I was second to act, and re-raised to $40. It folded around to the big blind, who called, and the player UTG called. The flop was nine high and ragged. The action checked to me, and I bet $80. The player int he big blind check-raised to $160, and the player stuck between us folded. Now I had a tough decision. Basically, I needed to decide if my opponent had a set. He had shown signs of being a pretty loose preflop player in earlier hands, so ace-nine was possible, as were the over pairs.
The key realization at this point in the hand is that you’re not really being faced with an $80 call, you’re being faced with a call for all your money, as your opponent will almost certainly be getting the money in unless he’s on some sort of strange stone bluff. I asked him if he had a set, and he laughed and joked back with me. He seemed easy going and relaxed and genuinely happy with his hand, which was worrisome, but I ultimately decided that he probably didn’t have three-of-a-kind (key word: probably). I decided that he’d be trying harder to suppress his excitement if he had a hand that powerful. So I called.
Then I called his $100 turn bet. Then I called his $70 river bet. The small river bet was actually the scariest one of all. The decreased bet size seemed like a suck bet designed to vacuum a few last drops of money out of a marginal hand. My opponent then turned up his hand: pocket kings. He had set a good trap, successfully disguising the strength of his hand preflop, but wound up trapping himself against the one possible superior hand.
I had given serious thought on the flop to simply pushing all-in after the check-raise, and indeed, had I done that, I would have made a little more money on the hand. Conversely, I would have lost more money on the hand had I been behind. There was a greater risk though: that a hand like pocket tens or jacks would have folded, and that bluffing hands would all have to be abandoned. It’s impossible to do an EV calculation here without knowing the frequency with which he would have bluffed or semi-bluffed that flop, but on the whole, I think the decision is very close to break-even. Regardless, all but about $50 of my money got into the pot anyway, and it was a great way to take a lead early in the session.
When the hand was over, one player commented something along the lines of, “Great call. There were a lot of big hands possible there!” He was referring to the final board which was something like 9h 6d 4c 8h 6h. What the commenter completely failed to realize is that the only reasonable hands I had to worry about based on the action were pocket pairs. It hardly entered my mind that my opponent might show down a flush or a straight.
Posted by Beck as Poker at 1:17 PM PDT
1 Comment »
I had the an exchange with another player in a no limit game at Foxwoods a while ago where I had to bite my tongue and smile. It wasn’t easy. Now I’m going to respond.
First of all, here was the situation and conversation as it unfolded:
I raised with a pair of tens before the flop and got three callers. The flop came with a ten and two clubs. I bet about three quarters of the pot. Two people folded, and a decent player called. The turn was a brick, I bet half the pot, the other guy called. The river was a club. I checked, and my opponent checked behind. I turned up my hand and said, “Set of tens.”
He asked, “Why didn’t you bet the river?” I responded, “I was worried about the flush.” At this point, my opponent went into full on lecture mode, declaring, “Oh please, do you know what the odds of me actually having two clubs there is?” I made no response. “Seriously, do you?” “Not off the top of my head I replied,” and left it at that, my tongue crying out in pain.
OK buddy. Here’s my answer.
You’re asking the wrong question. It doesn’t matter what the odds are of you being dealt two clubs; what matters is the odds of you having two clubs given all the action to that point. On the flop, I have to worry about three people who might have two clubs, so the chances that’s what I’m up against is tripled for starters. That you are the one who called my flop bet doesn’t suddenly decrease the chances of one of the three of you holding two clubs. And while a great many of your potential holdings would have been folded to my flop and/or turn bets, none of the holdings that include two clubs would have folded. So what you should really be asking is, “What is the conditional probability that you have two clubs given the range of hands you could be holding after the action in the hand to that point?”
The next question should be, “What’s my expected value of a bet given that range?” If I bet there, there’s a certain number of hands you’ll fold–probably a pretty large chunk of the hands you might be holding at that point–turning my bet into a pointless exercise in increased risk. Some of the time you’ll call with a worse hand, and I lose money there by not betting into those hands. Some of the time you’ll call with a flush, and some times you’ll raise with a flush, at which point I have a hard decision and a very good chance to lose a lot more money. So while the two clubs hands only represent a fraction of your potential holdings, they have to be weighted very heavily as they’re the money-loss-causing fraction of your holdings. Any more questions smartass?
Incidentally, the odds of being dealt two clubs are 1/4 * 12/51 = 1/17 = 5.9%. Of course, with three clubs on the board (and four other cards definitively eliminated), the chances are decreased to 10/45 * 9/44 = 1/22 = 4.55%
Posted by Beck as Poker at 11:55 AM PDT
2 Comments »
So, Beck will be in Vegas in mid-July, and Mike is talking about trying to go then because that’s around his birthday.
However, my birthday is June 5th — the day the WPBT 2008 non-event starts. I’ll be 30 and what better way to celebrate my 30th birthday than donking it up with poker bloggers?!
But, that’s also when summer school starts, and a trip to Vegas isn’t exactly the most responsible thing to do as I try to finish out school. Hmm. Decisions, decisions.
Posted by Jaxia as Life, Travel, WPBT at 1:41 PM PDT
4 Comments »
