Full Tilt 2/4 NLHE (6-handed)

Cobalt $396
SB $128
BB $398

Cobalt is button w/ Q J . Haven't been at the table particularly long, so lacking much in the way of reads.

Pre-flop:
3 folds, Cobalt raises to $12, SB calls, 1 fold

Flop ($28): 3 4 4 (2 players)
SB checks, Cobalt bets $14, SB raises to $28, Cobalt calls

Setting up pressure on the turn if there's a blank?

When people minraise, I want to stab them, but I usually wind up folding to them when they are unknowns because I take that to mean, "Hey I'm a moron and just outflopped the shit out of you and think I'm being sneaky." I especially fold when I have Queen high on a small paired, coordinated flush/straight board

I hate shortstackers.

Standard




We don't need to put pressure on the turn if there's a blank. It's a value call getting 5:1 with implied odds considering Aces and kings are more scare cards than a jack of queen.

I'd say we can bluff an ace or king and stack him with a jack or queen.

This is kinda silly sounding. Especially the part about stacking somebody if we spike a jack or a queen.

It's silly cause you didn't read the stack sizes. He's got $88 behind with an $84 pot at the turn. the ace and a queen are scare cards to an over pair and a jack and less so a queen seem like another blank. The bluff with an ace or king is a possibility, not really necessary to make this a good call, but still within our arsenal depending on villian's tendencies.

Reading is paramount.

I don't think floating here is a good idea, villain's stack is probably not deep enough to fold unless a great scare card or Q/J comes on the turn. I think he likely get's a good amount of his money in on the turn if he still has what he thinks is the best hand.

I don't like calling here that much.

I don't like this, unless you put him on complete air, and without reads you can't really do that (besides, if you think he has just air, you should push now, not on the turn). One problem is that not all of your "outs" are always good; it's reasonable (well, reasonable in a limited sense, since his min-raise here with anything is kind of stupid) that he might have the the nut flush draw, which would kill seven of your outs. Or he could have something like KQs, or some other variation, so even if you get a favorable turn card, you'll never know if your hand is good or not.

It's also conceivable that he could have a 4, and you're drawing dead. What's your plan if the Qh comes on the turn and he pushes into you? What if it's the Qc?

The only good reason to call is that you're getting 5:1 odds, which is a nice price. But I think that's mitigated by the reverse implied odds you have for the times your hand improves to a second best hand that you have to pay off with.

100% agree with this post.

Thinking about it more I probably just let him have it and if I don't do that then I shove on the flop.

His min checkraise seems insane without a hand hes willing to go the distance with. I'm assuming he'll get all in with any pp and AJ+ right now, which is probably what he has, only I would also think shortstackers would reraise with this range. It's just a very strange hand.

Despite everyone's disagreement, that's my general feeling as well.

If villain had a medium stack or a shorter stack, I think I can easily fold this. It's a little more iffy if he's got a particularly large stack, because the RIO are potentially bad. However, a re-raise works better in that scenario due to leverage. My feeling was that villain had a medium pair and was probably going to stack off on a Q/J turn. If he was just "testing" and checks a potentially scary turn, I think I can get him off of the hand. I realize that we're only seeing 5/1 immediate, but we're actually looking at about 11/1 with bare implied odds...that's probably enough to chase our 6 outs (more likely discounted to 5).

I'm certainly not saying it's an obvious call, but I do think a decent argument can be made in support.

Oh, and a call here is also potentially good for meta-game. =)

Is it standard to justify one's mistakes by referring to some vague, potentially unrealizable "meta-game" benefits? I know I do it all the time.

bet a little bit more on the flop.

we're not deep enough to floatcall here.

let him have it. who cares?

Related to what I posted earlier ... and I like your thinking. How'd the execution of the plan turn out?

I donno, this feels more like the flush draw to me then a middle pair. You'll have trouble stacking any draw, and the 4 he has here sometimes.

With absolutely no redraws I think this is a marginal play at best.

We don't know if you hit your 5-6 outter if you'll even be good, and we don't know if we hit you 5-6 outter if we can really stack him.

To make this play you have to be willing to fire on the turn, no matter what card comes, and I just don't know if that is going to be a profitable play.

Lets just say, you would be in much better shape here if you had a hand like 77, and I still won't like the spot.

I find that two- and three-barrelling works about 60% of the time. Plenty enough to be profitable if not over-used and conducted in the right spots.

For him to two barrel this pot, it isn't just betting the turn. It involves calling the raise ($14) then betting on the turn ($30 min) So that is actually betting equivalently $44 into a $70 pot.

This means even if he took it down 60% of the time, it would still be a -EV play.

Secondly, two barrel bluffs work A LOT better when you oppenent is not playing back at you.

I wouldn't say that it's wise to do "all the time", but a spot like this...it's really going to affect your image.

Since we're early in the session, if we fold to this min-check-raise...particularly at a short-handed table...it's going to encourage a lot of playback. Generally, we'd like to have some control of the table. Folding here, while motivated by good thoughts in a marginal situation, is going to look really weak-tight. Obviously, we can use that to our advantage later if we get the right situations. However, in this case, I decided that I'd rather have my opponents view me as loose-semi-stubborn. If we hit and people are paying attention, we're going to get some nice advertising. If we miss and he bets...well, we paid a small price as an investment that we'll expect to be returned later.

Dustin, I agree that we probably should've bet a little more on the flop. Funny part about that is that I would've had to fold to the min-check-raise in that scenario. =)

What hand min-raises this flop?

Badly played medium pairs typically...or some sort of draw.

I'll wait for a few more people to tell me how badly I played it (I'm not adamant that I didn't play it badly) before sharing results.

I agree. Any turn card is going to give us the pot. If it's an A or K, I think we can push villain out. If it's a J or Q, we're ahead. If it's another turd, we may STILL fold villain with pressure because we've been so sticky. I do this like one time a session with a hand-picked villain. Works almost every time.

All this stuff might be true if we are OOP, but he is so he gets to bet first. He minraised to get some more money in the pot while he is ahead and he has committed himself to this pot. I think we have 6 outs and one shot at hitting because he isn't going away and is going to blast any turn. This would work much better against a deeper stack, floating against shorties just isn't a winning recipe.

He's only 25% into this pot and I think he's on the run. We don't have 6 outs, I think we have anything over a T as an out. At least it's my sense that this is the way Cobalt is playing it.

I get stubborn in pots like this myself. I certainly hate folding for minraises, which is why I suck so much at limit.

This is almost always a small pair. I guess it comes down to whether you can push this particular villain off a smallish pair here. I think if that's the goal, I would prefer a flop push.

I think we all agree what his most likely holding is. Just that we disagree on how he is most likely to play it. I think it's very hard to push him off this hand ever, once he minraises.

I agree with that...which is why I called as opposed to pushing him in. We've got as many as 6 "real" outs and then another 8 "bluffing" outs assuming he gives up on the turn (which is not unheard of).

As for results, the J peeled on the turn, he bet $35, and I pushed him in for his last $53. He called with the K T and bricked the river. Obviously, my read was a little off and my outs were pretty dirty, but it wasn't a "terrible" spot. If I push the flop, I assume he calls and I'd be drawing quite slim. As it stood, I got a little bit of money in behind and got a good chunk in ahead.

Cobalt almost got cobalted.

You got lucky and hit a 4-outer when it was somewhat predictable that you might be drawing that slim (see my earlier post in which I suggested one of Villain's likely holdings was a flush draw with overs that takes away our outs), and even when you hit one of your four outs, you still had to dodge 12 outs on the river. I can't imagine how this was a good play. Justifying this mistake with "I got a little bit of money in behind and got a good chunk in ahead" is wrong-headed thinking. "I made a small mistake, and got very lucky it didn't turn out to be a bigger mistake" strikes me as a much more accurate appraisal.

I realize that you think I'm being results-oriented, but I really think it's the other way around. You think I would've bet in the first place or called the min-raise if I knew his exact hand? Obviously not. I admitted that I got fortunate in a worst-case scenario...in which my play was a tad -EV. However, against his range of hands, I believe an argument can be made that it's neutral or marginally +EV to call in this situation.

Hand 0: 21.608% 20.67% 00.93% 13509 609.50 { QsJd }
Hand 1: 78.392% 77.46% 00.93% 50612 609.50 { JJ-22, AcKc, AcQc, AcJc, AcTc, Ac9c, Ac8c, Ac7c, Ac6c, Ac5c, Ac2c, KcQc, KcJc, KcTc, QcJc, QcTc, JcTc, Tc9c }

Simplifying, assuming there was no more betting in the hand, I was getting the correct odds to call against that range. Then, add in that implied odds and bluffing odds are larger than the associated reverse implied odds. Continuing with the range assessment, I called $14 getting 5-1 as a 4-1 underdog...and then proceeded to win $88 more as a 4-1 favorite. I'd call that a decent (or at least defensible) play.

I'm not shocked that you have a slight equity edge against his range, but that's really irrelevant, since you can't assume there will be no more betting in the hand. Equally irrelevant is that you won $88 more as a 4-1 favorite, unless you first multiply it by the likelihood (at the time you made the decision) of its occurrence, and the include the likelihood and payoffs of the other possible outcomes.

Given that, I'm not sure how you justify your assumption that "implied odds and bluffing odds are larger than the associated reverse implied odds"; I'm convinced it's precisely the other way around, which is really the key issue in the hand.

I'm too tired, though, to assign probabilities and payoffs to outcomes and figure out all the math, even assuming it could be done accurately (which is doubtful, because you'd have to include probabilities that he would bet vs. checking, fold to a bet, etc., and there's no way to precisely estimate those). It's something of a judgment call, and since all the reasonable arguments have been made already, we can agree to disagree.

Edit: I also noticed that the range you assigned him did not include the possibility he's holding a third 4. I think this is a mistake.

I'm obviously not gonna catch up on all the threads that I missed, but this one looked like fun.

Cobalt - Like Naismith said, getting stubborn in spots like this is easy because it's potentially cheap and if nothing else, you'd like to make your opponents believe that you won't be folding for minraises, no matter how badly you've missed the flop.

In actuality, I tend to agree with coremiller here although I don't really like a lot of his actual reasoning for the decisions.

I feel that your outs are terrible. You sometimes have 4-6 outs, but if he has a flush draw (which I feel is a VERY large % of his range) then you probbaly only have 4 outs and can maybe bluff the other big card (the A or the K) that isn't a part of his flush draw. He easily shows up with a hand like KQcc or KJcc here and you're just in terrible shape. I think more often than not, if he has a middle pair, he's shoveling right there on the flop. I think his range is made up mostly of draws and hands that he feels are way ahead, which probably means trips or an unlikely big pair.

The pot odds are ok, but are weak considering that he's unlikely to check the turn and when he bets, you'll be left with no FE. If you hit a pair, you're pretty much gonna stack off every time if he's got you beat since the pot odds will just be too much.

All in all, I think a fold is in order here (I'd rather float if he had another $50 or more) almost all of the time. You can start calling the minraise more often if they start doing it with any frequency, but I think that most players aren't going to observe that you folded for a minraise once and then deviate from their normal gameplan (which likely never includes minraises) to go out of their way to minraise you to try and buy pots more cheaply.

I see a lot of parallels with this hand. Pretty much everybody else hated that one as well. What's your view on it Cobalt?

It's weird. In Cobalt's hand, he's got no hand but he's got position. In your hand, you had an ok hand and no position. I think that those factors neutralize each other and put you both in very gross positions.

The thing with your hand David was that there were so many draws and that your hand can actually be ahead of all of the draws as well as many one pair hands. There are also a lot of terrible turn cards for you to see where you are just gonna fold as well as some which will just get you into trouble.

In Cobalt's hand, there aren't many draws. Like you, he could be drawing dead or close to it. The difference is that Cobalt will see so few cards that enable him to continue with the hand and often catching what seems to help is the one that gets him stacked. He's never ahead and probably won't be able to bluff to win either, so he's really usually relying on catching a card to win, which won't happen enough to make it profitable.

In your hand, you're not looking to improve your hand becuase it's unlikely that you will. You're just trying to gage whether or not the turn helps your opponent or if you were already behind.

The hands are similar in that they're marginal situations that the consensus was that the forum disliked them, but aside from that, I feel they're really different.

I had position on the villain.

I read my reply to your original thread and I thought you were OOP and my comments were based on that. In position, your hand is much easier to play and is MUCH different than Coablt's here. You have showdown value and FE. He has neither of these. That really makes the 2 hands like night and day.

They're also similar in proving that you like folding to minraises, limit donk.

"Friday night was kind of uneventful. I bluffed a guy out of a pot when I raised prelfop with A4o and the flop came down KT7 with 2 spades. I led for $120 and he made it $240. I hate minraises. I ask him why he did it. The player on my right informs me that it was obviously to annoy me (true) and the guy who made the raise said it was to take down the pot right there (not true) which is absurd. I raise $400 more, he folds and I show him the hand and ask him not to min raise me anymore."

That's from my blog. I probably reraise minraises (when deep enough to fold after being shoved on without looking like a tool) as much as I call or fold to them. It's probably a leak, but I like it.

You make a lot of valid points.

The way in which I think they're similar is that they're situations we hate at least in part because of reverse implied odds, but we're getting this absurdly good price to continue. We all seem to hate the min-raise when someone else does it. That seems to be evidence that it's a good play. Lots of times a min raise bluff can be very profitable if our opponent folds even occasionally.

I think we need to think more about how to address these small raises in general, because we can end up leaking.

I like it. You guys come up with a plan, prove to me it works, and I'll agree to implement it into my game.

Yeah, I agree with everything that you're saying. I just think it's hard to compare the hands on a larger scale apart from the minraise itself becuase in your hand, you have a made hand. You have position and the only real RIO comes from the times when you're already losing and decide not to fold since it's unlikely that you'll be improving your hand or even appearing to catch a card that improves your hand.

In Cobalt's case, he's got no hand and really the only implied odds that he has are reverse implied odds. He's trying to catch a card to win the pot when he doesn't know which cards are winners and which aren't.

minraises are one of the things I take notes on whenever I see it. It can mean such a wide variety of things from different people.

Disclaimer: Taking notes will not be part of the implementation.

More of the you guys put your minds together and come up with a strategy that is impossible to be taken advantage and I implement said strategy having put in 0 of the work. TY.

Right, my hand > Cobalt's hand, except for maybe the stack size considerations. I felt like Cobalt might be compelled to approve of my line and join my min-raising-calling support group.

Is this the unexploitable strategy? I think your hand > Cobalt's hand and in both spots Fold > Call. Which is what I said about your hand a month ago, so I'm either not getting better at poker (very likely), or they are the right calls (possible). Obviously those aren't mutually exclusive.

Probably not.

The thing that makes the min raise work in a largish pot is that it threatens the whole stack for cheap. E.g.,

Big stacks.

Preflop
Hero raises with A A . Villain calls on the button.

Flop
J J T

or

J Q 5

Hero bets. Villain min raises. Hero ??.

We're in a slightly ahead/way behind situation, getting excellent pot odds to compensate. I think a lot of times we need to dump this when we're OOP but call it when we're in position. I think we need to make the villain commit something on the turn, not just threaten to commit it on the flop.

To me #1 is easy call to try and get to showdown cheaply and reevaluate, #2 is not the same way I don't really know how to articulate why. One easy reason is because we have no redraw outs, a J or A on the turn here and we are fairly sure that we have the best hand, there is no such card that gives us the same security for hand #2.

Other than that I can't identify why I think it's not the same, or why it is worse to call in hand #2 but I feel sorta strongly against it. Something compels me to think it's a losing play whereas in #1 I think it's a winning play.

You think hand 1 is an easier call becuase there are fewer bad turn cards and more ways that we're currently ahead. The problem is that in hand 1, he only needs 1 card to have us drawing to 2 outs, where in hand 2, he needs to have both cards match up with the board in some way to give him an edge over us.

The thing is, essentially both hands are the same and he posts it cleverly to disguise that. We have a hand which beats all other 1 pair hands and loses to everything else. We are in position, but we are not drawing to anything. We are getting a good price to continue, but what are we hoping for on the turn. There are any number of massive combo draws that we are a slight underdog to or made hands that we are a massive underdog to. We are almost never far ahead.

The hands are so read dependant. Sometimes I will call. Sometimes I will reraise and sometimes I just muck it. It has everything to do with how clever my opponents are, what my image is and every other variable that goes into a poker hand.

The thing is that if you're constantly folding in these situations, you're probably giving up less than if you're constantly trying to navigate your way to the end of these hands without a map or any real idea of what you're looking to accomplish.

Yeah, I guess I'm just not too concerned about these spots because they happen so rarely to me that I don't see a leak. Also we're OOP in these hands. Get some sleep.