.50/1.00 NL full ring on Party

I limp 8c9c from CO+1 after 2 limpers, CO limps, both blinds check/call. Flop 4c6h7c. Checks to me, I bet 4, CO raises to 12, folds back to me. I'm unsure of how much to reraise. I made it 50, essentially putting the CO all in, which I think is too big of an overbet. Starting stack sizes were 126 for me and 86 for CO. CO ended up folding, which is never bad, but do I just want to get my stack in on the flop here? I'm probably a huge favorite, unless CO has big clubs, but I think he was too passive to raiase with big clubs.

You won a decent sized pot with 9 high and you are unhappy? You played it well....going all-in is best play since you have 9high, but folding equity+outs. Otherwise, you might chase and not get payed off when you hit.

Push here. If you take down here you are happy since you would still need to improve. If he calls you want to see both cards anyways.

I think it was a good play. If he was on a draw, probably was, you cut him off. You at least made an effort to win the hand. Which I often kick myself for NOT doing.

Nicely played.

Nice raise. Like you said, you're only far behind if he has two bigger clubs. But if that's what he's on, he'll prob fold anyway. Against any other hand you're 50/50 + fold equity = good play!

We had an at-length discussion about these types of hands a week or two ago. You are ahead of any overpair, you are about 40% against any set. Overall I would say it's correct to get all your money in on the flop, but I don't like it. I think it's much more profitable to call the re-raise and jam if/when you hit your hand. A large portion of the time your opponent is going to "price you in" or slow way down on the turn. Since your draw is so good you can call just about any size bet.

I don't like pushing on the flop because you have 0 fold equity. You only have the strength of your hand which can be a coinflip, or damn near it, in many cases. That being said you need to make this profitable by being able to ditch the hand on the river if the turn and river brick, and you make up for fold equity by having implied odds for when you do hit your hand... your opponent obviously likes their hand, probably enough to call large bets if not an all-in.

Good points above, but I think it needs to be pointed out that we potentially give huge reverse implied odds to our opponent if he's raising with a bigger flush draw, which is quite possible. While taking a more passive approach may have it's merits, one thing that pushing here does is almost always (there are always bad callers) eliminate the possibility that we hit our draw and can't get away from it when the opponent hits a better one. If you push and get called, you are at worst a 40% dog to a set, whereas if you call down and push when you hit, you could be doing so drawing dead.

That is a strange thing to say considering that the opponent folded. You pretty much always have more than 0% folding equity, although sometimes it is pretty close to that.

Your logic makes more sense if...
a) you thnk you have pretty close to 0% fold equity
b ) you think opponent is bad enough to pay off flush draw, when it hits(which is likely at some levels, but unlikely for many opponents.) If he does not pay it off then you only get your "fair-share" value of the pot(since you had odds to call) which is essentially equally to entering a coin-flip situation although with less variance.

You can also end up second guessing yourself on later streets if the board pairs.(did he flop a set or have an overpair?). Furthermore, you might split agianst another str8 draw(that would fold the flop) or lose to another flush draw(that might fold the flop).

Finally, it depends on your style, but pushing here helps you to sell a push with a flopped set or str8. If thats not your style, then it does might not help in that department.

EDIT: I hear your logic that getting the right price to draw gives you about the same 50-50 equity as a push, but with the potential of getting more if you make a correct decision on a later street and your opponent makes a mistake(by paying you off). I outlined above how the reverse could be true(you make the mistake later) But also don't discount the value of entering high-variance 50-50 situations where you are ahead. There is a psychological benefit to breaking a guy on a "suckout" draw where he will reload and try to get back at you. If the guy correctly folds and you *only* get your fair share of the pot, then the guy will feel smug that he got away and you lose that mental edge of seeming a bit like a maniac.

Push, AINEC.

..and LJ? We have zero fold equity?

Are you high?

Even if you push, you almost always want a call here because you are ahead or even. The only hands you are behind is a higher flush draw, and a set. And against both, you have reasonable outs. You might be behind 2 pair if they hold one of your suit, I'm not sure. But its not by much.

You have huge fold equity imo. We see threads on here all the time about people flopping sets and wanting to fold them. I mean, even a set has to give you credit for the made straight already on this board. (Not saying I would fold the set, but maybe a tight guy does, and anything less easily) And if someone is loose and calls with something dumb, good for you.

This is pretty standard NL play. You've flopped the second best draw possible. This is where you become aggressive.

Mark

Almost. Quitting smoking makes me feel spacey like being high... I kinda skim posts etc. But I'm not here to make excuses.

If I were to re-word what I said originally I'd say we "generally" have little to no fold equity after a big raise.

EDIT:

Btw, if villain will fold if any reasonable draw comes, we gain more equity here anyway.

A 3 or 8 (8 more outs) also makes 4 to a straight on the board and makes 5 a winner. So any way you slice it, whether our opponent is disciplined enough to fold their hand or not, we have more potential to make profit by seeing the turn and the river rather than jamming UNLESS we have significant fold equity (which I don't think we will have here many times).

LJ - If a 3/5/8 or heart come out, this could shut villian down, while the majority of those cards actually make our hand. This is exactly what we don't want, imo.

Most likely we're ahead here, at this very moment. If villian won't fold, thats good. We want all his money in. If we hit any heart or any 5, the villian surely will fold if we put him all in. We don't want that. The only cards that scare villian away with which we are still behind are the 3s or 8s that aren't hearts.

I don't see any other option here then putting him in on the flop. If he folds, good, we win free money. If he doesn't, we're probably ahead. If we aren't ahead, we aren't far behind. And that difference is more than made up in fold equity, imo.

Mark

off topic:

what does 'AINEC' mean?

This is where I'm in the minority and disagree with about 85% of the posters here.

If you know you can get to the river by seeing only pot-sized bets on the flop and turn, given the circumstances we have painted for this scenario it's more profitable to draw out the hand to the river and not push. Now, I'm going to c/r with a strong draw and hope to take the pot down, but if I get called I'm going to only call the turn bet, unless of course, I hit (if villain wants to push us all-in I'm obviously calling).

Here's why calling is better...

I have 9 outs to the flush, plus 8 to the straight minus 2 shared outs. That's 15 outs against over-pair, which gives us about 55% equity (roughly). If we know we can see the river for pot sized bets, we already have priced out our draw. If the pot on the flop is $12, we know we are going to see the river for $12+$36 additional dollars, or $48 total. We are leveraging $48 with a 55% chance of being ahead by the dealing of the river. If we brick both the turn and the river, we've lost $48+pre-flop money. If we hit, we only need to gain a very small additional bet for this to be profitable... in fact, given our assumption of not having to call off all our chips on the turn, we are already guaranteeing ourselves 55% equity and therefore winning the opponent's $48, 55% is already guaranteeing us profit WITHOUT putting all of our chips in jeopardy.

If our opponent is super tight and is going to bail on any sign of a made hand, which includes 3,8, 5,10 or any club, then we will have our 15 outs to actually making a hand, plus an additional 8 outs that will allow us to bluff our opponent out of the hand, elevating our total outs to 23 and making us a HUGE favorite in the hand.

It's a perversion of pot odds. It's strictly return on investment.

Jamming the flop gives us value by:
Total Hand Value = Fold_Equity + Chance_To_Make_Draw

Calling down (under our assumptions):
Total Hand Value = 55% of 2 pot sized bets + chance of bluff card scaring opponent into folding + any value bet we can make after we've made our hand.

It's really a preference and dependent on many variables. I like my method for lower to mid stakes and jamming the flop for higher stakes.

LJ, I give you credit for presenting a good case, but it seems to me it's reliant on a few big assumptions:

1) Villain won't be making PSB or near-PSB betting a draw that stands to outdraw yours if you both hit a decent portion of the time (it doesn't even have to be that often, I think). In that case, you likely lose a substantial sum on turn/river that really eat into the long-term bottom line of calling down. Some of it may be made up by being able to bluff off the busted draw on the river if turn+river bricks, but we are not in position here, which makes bluffing *our* busted draw on the river much more difficult.

2) Villain never overbets the turn. If he does, you cannot use flop equity as constant throughout the hand to justify your ROI calculation. If the villain PSB throughout, then you still get 2-1 on the turn which matches your equity *on the turn*. But if he overbets, you will get less than that, and you will have to make up the difference by having to get even more out of him on the river when your draw hits. Plus you stand to lose more when it doesn't. I would also add that the chances the villain overbets the turn are greater in the situation described here, since a PSB on the turn commits the villain, so he may be inclined to push there.

Which means that the value of pushing vs. calling is twofold:

1) you are *guaranteed* 55% equity for the entire hand (or 40% in the case of a set), whereas by calling down you open the door for the villain to hijack the linear progression of your equity by hammering you on the turn.

2) you never offer implied odds to your villain on your draw

Yes, you made this argument before. I am one of the 85% of people suggesting a push, but I find this alternate thinking very interesting and it is presented very clearly. Do you chase till the river no matter what?(assuming pot-sized bets) or bail on certain cards?

My question is, what is your game plan on the turn if...
a) The board pairs on turn, and you are facing a pot-sized bet
b ) The board pairs on turn, and you are facing a 1/2 pot bet

If you call in the above scenarios(as you wouldn't be putting in more money than a fllop-push), then what would you do if you hit your hand on the river?

Also, when you count these extra scare cards as outs, does that mean you are bluffing a river if you miss a draw but another scare card comes? I ask, because you could get induced into making a -EV play on the river. It is a common play to check-call to a villain when you put him on a draw. Albeit some of your scare cards are believable enough to make it possibly worthwhile.

Obviously bluffing would be read dependant, so maybe we can ignore that case, but I am interested in how you would react to bad cards coming, because I think you can end up making a bigger mistake by either folding when you still have all your outs or calling when you are dead. There are tons of arguments that have been made for pushing, and I won't rehash them, but I am itnerested in hearing how scare cards play a role in the LJ-calldown plan. Other than these minor complications(and details like assuming no overbets or not being against a better draw), I think the only other thing that I don't like is that even if you don't gain in EV by pushing, you lose in an opportunity to stack your opponent since your flush outs and the 5 should be scary enough for him to fold alot, and I think there is additional value is breaking an opponent.

I am interested though, as it seems like it could be a viable alternative for cases where you feel you have a good read on your opponent, he is likely to pay you off, and you have limited folding equity. If you put your opponent on a set, it might be better way to go.

You are absolutely correct which is why I highlighted my assumptions very clearly.

I think calling down works best at the lower limits because the assumptions tend to pan out to be true more often than not.



If the board pairs I'm going to stop drawing 90% of the time (10% of the time I will continue if my read is good). Nothing worse than drawing dead. Also, especially short-handed, your opponent is going to shutdown when the board pairs whether they have a boat or not. If they have it, they slow play it like the elite donks they are. If they don't have a boat they might put you on the middle pair that tripped up and give you smaller tester bets on the turn, allowing you to see the river for free and call according to how big your opponent wants to bet (fold to all-in), etc.

Another factor that a lot of people leave out is how many players completely shut down after flop betting, especially after their big raise is called. You might be able to see the river for the price of a "probe" bet (opponent wants to see how you react).

Again, I re-iterate that calling down is better at lower stakes where you are against unsophisticated opponents. They make lots of mistakes both before a potential draw hits and after.

I think its an easy push here. We dont even have a hand yet, and yet we have the oppurtunity to take it down.

Pushing just seems so right here.