Do you pull a stop and go here or would you push all your chips in after MP1 move? There is someone still to act after me?


Full Tilt Poker
No Limit Holdem Ring game
Blinds: $0.10/$0.25
9 players
Converter

Stack sizes:
UTG: $39.35
UTG+1: $6.05
MP1: $14.05
MP2: $17.20
Hero: $26.25
CO: $35
Button: $16.80
SB: $48.80
BB: $27.95

Pre-flop: (9 players) Hero is MP3 with
2 folds, MP1 raises to $0.75, MP2 folds, Hero raises to $2, CO calls, 3 folds, MP1 raises all-in $14.05,

pots big enough to be worthy of protection I push.

based on COs stack size and your stack size its a push. CO only has 8 more than you.

a different form of stop and Go here, You want to call in hopes that CO calls, and you increase your EV, however @ .25 BB you're looking at making 68BB's. which is pretty nice. So i'd rather push and make it HU instead risk losing 3 way to CO if he hits his miracle flop

I ended up pushing...the guy behind me thanked the other guy for pushing all-in as he had QQ and decided to fold pre-flop. Guy that pushed all-in had AK.

thanks for the insight

NH,

if this situation was a all in push for 5 bucks or so, i'd opt to just call myself, and hope CO also calls. I want to now extract as much as possible from CO since he has me covered

Go for your "stop and go". Getting it 3-ways all-in with AA is amazingly +EV. Much better than 2-ways. Sure, you get cracked more often, but the times that you don't more than makes up for it.

If CO is smart, he should know that you have a big hand if you flat call.

If someone is willing to call a $14 raise, they are willing to call a push.

No. CO has much more in his stack and may be willing to see a flop with hands like QQ/JJ to make sure no overcards come. Or AK...hoping to hit TP.

This is a pretty easy one, guys. Why, may I ask, is ANYONE advocating a push, here? At least give a cogent answer.

Call the preflop push, and get the last, like, 12ish bucks in on the flop or the turn, depending.

Wang

I'm glad you agree with me. It's about maximizing your expectation, not simply about maximizing the number of times you win the pot.

It's simple guys:

In a $25 NL game, someone who will go from calling a $2 bet to calling a $14 bet, will call an all-in 99.9% of the time. Why risk getting your money in behind?

I agonize and flat call, but LJ has a point.

LOL... 99.9% of the time. Nice one. Please don't quote statistics like that with the intention of misleading

The simple part is pushing.

If we just call, CO now only calls 12 more in a 30.00 pot.
He probably isnt looking to play post flop unless he hits what he thinks he needs.

That being said, You gain 12.00 by just calling and hoping CO calls., or you lose 30+12 (+ the rest of our stack) if CO calls and wins.

YOu have too assume you're a huge fav to win vs MP. but with CO and MP, our winning chance is much less.
And like i said before, at this limit, winning that much is a good pot.

How are these final two statements at all relevant? That's like saying, "At this age, 100 dollars is a lot of money." Yeah, true, but it doesn't work as an argument if someone's offering you a 50/50 shot at winning 300 dollars.

Wang

of course it does, depending on how risk averse (or not) you are.
it's only irrelevant if the odds of winning 100 compared to 300 aren't that much better.

royal's point is simply that the pot's big enough that the trade-off between the high-risk, high-reward path and the lower-risk, lower-reward path is marginal enough where trading that margin for a little less variance is ok.

Yeah, but that's just flat-out INCORRECT. It's okay to feel that way personally, but when we're talking about the best way to play a hand, we should all always be thinking about how to maximize value, at least in a cash game, except in certain rare circumstances.

How can we even DO this if we're not all operating under the assumption that the best result is the one with the highest EV?

Wang

I don't think it's necessarily that cut-and-dried once you start getting into marginal differences in EV.
If one's tolerance for risk is low, then going with a high-risk play that pays off slightly better in the long-run may in the end hurt us more if we're more prone to tilting if we smooth call and get cracked.

Once you get to marginal differences, you're committing yourself to a much more long-term analysis. Consequently, I think it's wise to figure in things that might impact long-term profits other than just the long-run expectation of a particular hand. Plus, not only do you avoid tilt if you're prone to it, marginal long-run value could take longer to achieve. In the meantime, by taking consistently smaller, lower-risk plays, you may be able to grind up to a higher level faster, thereby increasing your potential hourly gain as well. By no means is this a hard and fast rule - merely a consideration that I think doesn't make things so black and white on the edges.

Keep in mind though - this is for marginal cases. We shouldn't sacrifice EV that we consider significant just because we are afraid of getting outdrawn.

Much of what you said is true, but still completely unimportant. If it makes us a penny more to make a certain play, then that play is right for the purposes of discussion, here.

Besides, a play that has a slightly more positive expectation actually DECREASES variance through most frames of reference, even if your chance of losing this particular pot increase.

As Sklansky would say:

Do you see why?

Wang

Well this really gets to the heart of the matter. The issue in dispute is not the result of "rightness" but rather your analytical framework that prefigures the answer. Or rather, the imposition of it to the complete exclusion of anything else.
To better illustrate - let me ask you a question. How is EV calculated separately from considerations of table image?

As far as what you say about variance - I'm not sure about that. It's been a while since I've taken stats, but I think variance is independent of expected value. Variance is based on how each outcome deviates from the mean (in this case, the expectation). Just because the expectation is higher, doesn't mean that the deviation from the expectation of any particular outcome is greater or lesser. It might mean that the absolute value of any variant outcome is greater, which is I think what you're trying to say. But it's perfectly possible that the standard deviation from the mean is itself greater, and this deviation in the short-term is what can cause tilt.

Someone with a deeper stats background is free to correct me, but that's my understanding.

By consistantly trying to push the limits of your EV you are risking most of your skill factor and therefore are left with the chance portion of the game.



Is the risk here worth it?
In poker, you have to know how to maximize your EV, but how do you define "maximize"?

Is it to try and get the most chips in the pot when we have the best hand?

the best hand can be anything from 51% to 100% favorite.

So if we're a 60% fav to win, we can only expect value on this 60% of the time.
Is it a good idea to empty your pockets everytime you have a 60% chance? sure, if we knew for fact that we would see the 60% return over time.

But thats the beauty of card games, they take time for variance to even itself out.
we're getting very good EV, and a good pot. Something we should be happy to take down heads up. The goal for most players is to have a good, consistant BB/100 win ratio.
You arent going to have a consistantly climbing bb/100 if you continue to push your edges to where they become slight favorites.

What? What do you mean "if we knew for a fact that we would see the 60% return over time"? How can we not? If we're always playing within our bankroll, and never go bust, sooner or later we'll play 100,000 hands, and we'll win about 60% of those hands, within a fraction of a percent. Guaranteed.

The goal for most players SHOULD be to have THE HIGHEST BB/100 win ratio, consistency in the short-term be damned. All things being equal, I'll take the good end of a 53/47 race situation any time I could, assuming there's a 0% chance I'll go broke. Which, if I play properly, I won't.

Passing up a positive edge to "wait for a better spot" is fine in a tournament, but in a cash game just shows a classic misunderstanding of the nature of the game, and a disdain for money.

Wang

Correct, fact is that variance will even itself out. 60% over time will be 60%.
but there is a variable. Time. we cant, and never will be able to say exactly when 60% starts to show as 60%.

you said 100,000. Yes, thats a large sample size, and will probably start to show us a true 60%, if we can last that long. You think BR management is going to be enough to withstand consistantly investing buy-ins on 60% favs?

In a downswing we might win our 60% fav investment 1 out of 20 attempts.
eventually it will even itself out, but there is that chance.
This could be a loss of almost half our BR.

And its a classic misunderstanding that cash game players need to push every edge everytime because they have the ability to rebuy.
The blinds never increase, and you can wait for spots a lot longer than you ever would in a tourney

Two alternate ways to look at this:

1. The amount of hands that you will need to hit the true 51% (or true 60% or whatever winning percentage you want to identify) may greatly exceed the number of hands you can play in your lifetime.
2. The amount of money you need to handle the swings to reach 51% may greatly exceed your bankroll.

Statistical equilbrium is often times dwarfed by meta-game considerations like lifespan and bankroll =)

Blackjack for example, is a beatable game if you can increase your betting exponentially after every loss. Statistics say that you will eventually win and make back all the money you lost. Naturally, casinos cap the betting limit to prevent you from eeking out a profit.

That's the other point, at the end of your lifetime, if all pots were equal, you're making $1 for every $100 invested. That's eeking out a marginal profit.

yeah, pretty much with petersun and royal on this one.

when you balance the time consideration for reaping marginal EV with negative short-term psychological impacts, it seems totally valid to me to take a lesser expectation. of course, if you're fairly immune to tilting, then by all means...

as far as bankroll - we should be properly rolled. however, even with the 20 buyin rule of thumb, i'm pretty sure that it's still not sufficient to meet the Kelly Criterion that eliminates the risk of ruin over the long-term. but i don't really think this is such a huge deal - while theoretically, committing to the very long-term can expose you to the risk of going broke against small edges, in practice i doubt it's ever much more than exceedingly rare (assuming we don't make other mistakes), making it kind of a non-concern.