Well, this is one of those, "let's take a shot at a higher limit" sessions; I like to take risks........

Anyway, I'm getting better than 7:1 to call, but I'm not a big fan of chasing 4 outs. No one seems to really want the pot here though, maybe some weak A's, K's or a flush draw.

If my noobie math is correct, I actually need about 12:1 in order to make the call correct. But something just doesn't seem right about the bet and calls. My initial thoughts were to raise due to the weak play before me.

No real reads on anyone. What's our best play here?

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em, $1.00 BB (9 handed) Hand History Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com (Format: FlopTurnRiver)

CO ($18)
Button ($16.50)
SB ($29.40)
BB ($63.80)
UTG ($56.35)
Hero ($68.40)
MP1 ($54.50)
MP2 ($27.65)
MP3 ($102.50)

Preflop: Hero is UTG+1 with J, T.
1 fold, Hero calls $1, MP1 raises to $3, 3 folds, Button calls $3, 1 fold, BB calls $2, Hero calls $2.

Flop: ($12.50) 6, K, A (4 players)
BB checks, Hero checks, MP1 bets $3, Button calls $3, BB calls $3, Hero ?

ETA: I guess my actual odds would be a little worse than I first thought, I need to discount the Q of spades due to the flush draw on the board. So my odds here are more like 15.6:1, not the most favorable.

ETA part II: lol, my math sucks....... if I have 4 outs, I think I'm 10.75:1, twice. 3 outs would be 14.6:1, twice. I really need to work on this part of the game more.

Pretty easy call for me, closing the action.

So position here is key? And the odds we are getting are not all that bad, so a call is justified due to both of those reasons?

Why not raise? Although a raise may thin the field when we really don't want to at this point. Until we hit the straight I guess we prefer more people putting money in the pot.

Why raise?

Fold preflop instead of limping. Once it is back to you and you close the action though, you're getting good odds to play JTd.

On the flop, I fold. You're drawing to at BEST 4 outs, you're OOP, and it's likely that at least one of these players is drawing to a full house (two pair/set) and is too dumb to raise. Also, spades are bad. It's rarely correct to call on a belly-buster straight draw, and this isn't one of those times. It's not unlikely that some Queens are in people's hands. If the board was A75r and you had 98, it'd be closer. But still probably a "nuh-uh."


You like suited connectors too much UTG+1 with JTd is a fold unless the table is playing a certain way that rewards limping cruddy hands in verrrry early position.

I think I covered that in my response......

A few things.

I'm not sure I need to be concerned about weakly played sets or two pair until the board pairs. My straight will take out both those hands without a paired board. Maybe I'm too much of a noob, but this seems like we are playing too scared being concerned about those hands.

As far as Q's being in other people's hands. Again, unless I'm mistaken, that doesn't matter. The cards are predetermined with the shuffle, and we don't need to discount any outs for that reason, technically......

Yes, I've come to like suited connectors. Too much? probably. But these hands can be big winners because they are well hidden.

Yes, but your reason for calling is to make the best hand. I'm saying that just as you need to be concerned about spades, you need to be concerned about full-houses. If the board pairs the turn, then there's no point in continuing. If the turn is a Queen, great, but then a board pair on the river could kill your hand. So this is something that should concern you. It is scared, but you are drawing to just a straight on a board with lots of high cards where with 4 way action, broadway is still very vulnerable. I hate drawing to such a vulnerable hand, especially OOP, especially when a spade or board-pair is very scary.

And about the Q's being in other people's hands, I know you don't have to discount outs, but come on. AQ/QQ/KQ/QJs/etc are all very possible holdings here. I would consider it an error to NOT consider at least ~1-1.5 queens as gone here. The Qspade really doesn't help you. So I feel like you're drawing to about 2 outs. Then factor in the board pair/spade scariness and your bad position, and your EV is verrry low in this pot.

You're wrong.

We're drawing to 3 outs, plus a backdoor flush draw. There's no more analysis than that.

We don't worry about the board being paired, because it ISN'T. We aren't calling here because we intend on going to the river. We are calling here to make our 3 outer, and to get money in while we are ahead, if we make it on the turn, but lose on the end to a boat, that's not a bad thing, as long as most of the money goes in while we are a significant favorite. We call here to make a hand on the turn. If we miss, we c/f unless again, we are giving 15-1 or whatever we need in pot+implied, and the board didn't pair, flush didn't come, etc.

Also, a spade or board pair isn't scary on the turn, because all we have is jack-high. We c/f. We invested 3 BBs on the flop.... big deal.

I'm a weak-tight noob as it is. However, I fail to see the need to worry about losing a 75/25 if the Q, other than the Qs, hits the turn.

I think those are odds we need to get all our money in the middle with if our Q hits.

i have to disagree. the value of your draw decreases when the chances of your hand holding up when it hits are lower.

the spades and possible board pairs decreases what is already a crappy draw OOP, and in this specific hand, our opponents are fairly likely to hold our outs in their hands.

I realize that we're only looking to get money in while ahead on the turn, but if we only win 67% of the time we hit our miracle on the turn, which is somewhere around a 2 outer, .67x2 = a 1.34 outer. i dont like saying "we're only looking to get it in ahead" and ignoring the chance that we lose even if we hit our card.

see your odds are like 7:1 right now, and you're like 16:1 to hit a queen. implied odds dont make up for this huge gap, especially when we can still lose the pot afterwards.

Holy double taxation batman.

It's a 4.5 outer, when you count the BDFD, and THREE clean outs.

If you want to do your stupid .67 thing, then go ahead, but there's no guarantee anyone even has a set, or a flush draw.

Frankly, this is a bad argument.

We can't factor in RIO, because those only refer to when we hit our card, but are still behind. Since we aren't even counting the Qs as an out, then it doesn't matter. All that matter is if we do hit our non spade queen, and get it in vs anything, we'll be ahead, and we'll be putting a substantial amount of money in as a favorite, all for a 3 BB flop peel.

Hmm. okay, 4.5 outer. I don't like counting the BDFD because it's not the nut-draw and we'll rarely chase it depending on what the turn action is, but okay.

I think the key is, you guys are 100% against possibly discounting your outs. And I feel like in this pot, it's very likely, based on our opponents' action, that a Queen or two would be in someone's hand already. It fits into too many people's possible holdings.

If you factor in the other dangers of this board (spades, fullhouse, split pot) and our out of position-ness, I don't think that calling even 3BB here will gain win money in the long run.

The double taxation you talked about is just me at first subtracting 1.5 Queens, then the chance that we lose even if we hit our hand. You don't calculate outs "to get it in with the best hand." Pretend you were getting 100:30 on a call for a 10% chance to get 200 more in as a 70% fav.

90% you lose 30
7% you win 300
3% you lose 230
lose 13 each time you call

you're just saying "yeah we lose 3 when we miss our draw but we get to get a lot of money in as a fav when we hit." if you use that logic in the example i just gave, you'd accidentally calculate it as +EV

A raise would be really bad, against 1 player I can see raising a weak bet but not against 3. I won't say too much about preflop since you did call, but I'm not limping that early with JTs. It's a pretty hand but becomes a lot harder to play OOP.

I would also lean towards a fold on the flop because there are still 3 other people in the hand, it seems a flush draw is likely from one of them. Plus you have no overs, I would just dump it here.

Ok, Zach and Sefaje have covered the important parts. They're actually both right. Here's the deal as I see it.

Reverse implied odds count to you drawing to a hand that cannot win as well as being redrawn out on. Here, they are a marginal consideration IMO because you're only seeing one more card and you know what your 3 clean outs are. If you make the nuts on the turn, you'll be betting enough to make it a mistake for any draws to continue.

The odds of someone holding a Q are possible, but cannot be considered. That actually adds value to our draw becuase if we do hit, other players will improve their hands as well and we will get paid off better. In fact, we hope a player holds the Qs, since we weren't counting that as an out anyway.

As for the BDFD not being the nut draw, that doesn't matter. If we runner runner diamonds (somehow seeing the river) and make a flush and lose to a higher flush, that's like a super cooler and I don't really worry about that.

As played, I'm calling the flop here. If there was a chance that the pot could get raised behind you, you'd fold. You close the action. You're drawing to the nuts. Take a shot.

No one has claimed this pot yet.
So I don't like it, but this is probably what I end up doing, too.

If I am closing the action and I am drawing to the nuts, I will call this most of the time. The only reason I wouldn't is if everyone was really short...

Why not? I feel like we need to use all the information we have. The possibility of any of our outs being dead is very serious. This isn't the difference between 13 outs and 12 or 11, this is the difference between 3 outs and 2 or 1. The chance of us splitting this pot also nudges me towards a fold.

I don't see how anyone can argue that our opponents aren't fairly likely to hold a Q, or how that information is useless once we have it. I'm not saying that any time you fear someone holds one of your outs you should majorly discount your draw, but if even one queen is out of the deck, which is real likely, then that's 1/3 of the value of our draw gone.

I agree with you about the Qs in someone's hand adding to our value though. Except anything that would play after that would have a redraw against us

What I'm getting at is there isn't possibly enough information that has been given away in the hand to discount our outs because we fear someone holds a Q. It's not like it's a multiway pot, we have a gutshot draw needing the A to complete it and we feel strongly that one of our opponents holds AA or AK. We'd simply be guesisng here. We can't say "well, villain A probably has A with a good kicker, maybe a Q, so I should deduct half an our just in case." It doesn't really work like that.

Yeah, if the hand were more well defined, I'd consider the possibility that some of my very limited outs are already missing and I'd just fold. I don't think that's the case here however.

i'm with zach and AK and the others here. closing the action, with that small of a bet, drawing to the nuts, i call. its such an easy hand almost because its either you hit your hand on the turn and bet accordingly, or you c/f. i don't see why we need to be afraid here.

1 - So hero calls and turns one of the safe queens.

Lead? And for how much?

2 - Hero calls and turns the bad queen

Then what?

In a 4 way pot, with that board, if you hit the bad Q, you shouldn't act like you hit your hand at all since more often than not, you're drawing dead.

1 - Lead for about 20. Too many draws, so you need to protect your hand. But also, with so many big cards you could easily get paid off by worse hands, perhaps even raised.

2 - I would be shocked if there wasn't someone in that 4 way pot with a flush draw. If the Qs comes then i think you have to c/f.

Running some quick numbers on this...

You'll miss your 3 outer 93.62% of the time. So
93.62% x -3= -$2.81

You'll hit it 6.38%. So the 6.38 % you hit, you need to make enough to make up for 93.62x-3.

So +2.81 / 6.84% = $44

----

Will you have $44 of equity after hitting your 3 outer? The pot is currently $21. Assuming we will be against a naked flush draw only(56s for example), no sets or two pair, we're 80% to win. That means the pot must reach at LEAST $70 heads up against a naked flush draw. Which means we'd each have to put $23 (>pot) into the pot. That's not happening. If we are able to play against a set of Aces and a flush draw, then we're 60% to win. In which case we'd need to pot to reach 73$, and that's assuming no river action when we're ahead/behind. This requires a smaller bet, and actually being up against a set of aces is really our best case scenario as any bet we'd make to achieve our necessary equity would drive out a flush draw.

Fold. We'd have to hit our perfect card AND get two callers at least, and then put $0 in on the river when we're behind. We're OOP. This makes playing this hand profitably enough to call very difficult. We're only really getting paid off all the way by a set. Two pair won't come along(and isn't very likely, hand like this will raise this flop most of the time. I think we're against a combination of one pair hands, straight draws, and flush draws) and a flush draw won't pay us off enough to reach our necessary equity. No one has showed enough interest in this pot to pay off what we'd need, and unless someone has played two pair or a set verrrry poorly on the flop, we're not gonna be able to get enough money in the pot on the turn. If we do bet small and try to get money in on the river also, then that's poor play that gives someone odds to outdraw us. And what we're trying to avoid with this hand is tough decisions OOP without the nuts.

We don't want to call, hit our card, and then win the $21 pot. That's a disaster getting 7:1 to draw at 14:1.

This post also assumes that we'd never split the pot with QJs, JTs, a different JT, etc. The possibility of splitting even with JT murders our equity, not to mention a flush draw with a J or T that could split/win on the river. Also, this post assumes we have 3 whole outs. Which I feel in this pot, although others disagree, that with 4 way action here, a queen or two is likely to be in someone's hand.

I agree to all of that, but there are also benefits when you hit that card and people see that you called with a gutshot. METAGAME my friend.

Not to mention that you have better equity than 3 outs, due to the BDFD. You HAVE to account for that. SSHE values it as 1.5 outs. I'll round it down to 1 full out, simply to take in the fact that we may be forced to fold the turn even if we do pick up the flush draw, because we are given bad odds, etc.

So we have 4 outs. Meaning we need 11.5-1 to continue. We are currently getting 7-1 already. When we hit our hand, we only need to make up 4.5*$3 in implied odds to make it up. We only need to win $13.5 more, and the size of the pot will be $24.50. I can't imagine a scenario where we don't get that. Especially since you are so sure that everyone else likes their hands and have sets and full houses and two pairs, etc.

Even if you completely ignore the BDFD, we need 15-1ish, so we only need to make up $24 after the turn falls. That's just the size of the pot. This should be a no-brain flop call, closing the action.

We're never going to agree on this. I don't think we have $44 of equity when we hit, and you do. I don't count the BDFD, and you do. I rarely factor in BDFD, but especially I do not when I'm OOP, it's not the nut draw, and I'm not guaranteed seeing both the turn and the river.

I do not estimate that we always have 3 queens left in the deck - you do.

Especially since you are so sure that everyone else likes their hands and have sets and full houses and two pairs, etc. I never said this, I'm saying that if we are going to get the action we want on the turn, this is the type of hand that it will be from --- from one where we are afraid of the board pair. I'm sure you understand that.

I don't think we'll get all that equity we need; like I said, I feel like we're up against a combination of one pair hands, straight draws, and flush draws. If we are, we will not get the action we want and our calling on a gutshot is worthless. If not, then a villain has played a set or two pair rather poorly and in this rare case we will get paid off, but must be afraid of the board pair / spade if they really love flush draws or have JTs, which we'd be anti-freerolling against. Maybe QJs for a different combo-draw.

It may be a no-brainer call to you, but I see it as at BEST very, very marginally +EV and most likely losing a BB or so each time we call.

I agree with this totally. You're probably folding on the turn if you don't hit the straight, so whatever happens on the river will be kind of meaningless to your hand since you wont' be in the pot anymore. In many respects, you don't want to pick up your FD on the turn becuase it might compel you to stick around to the river.


I am not sure how you are discounting your outs here. You haven't seen the queens. Nobody's play really defines their hand as one that is likely to have a queen in it. I just think that it's a terrible assumption to assume that your outs are in someone's hand rather than the deck. They are unseen cards and should be counted as such. After all, you don't take into account the likelyhood that someone in a 4-way pot holds a single diamond when you have flopped the nut flush draw, do you? They could easily have one, but you can't know, so you can't worry about it. You just count UNSEEN CARDS and move on.


You're right that it's not a no-brainer. It's a little gamble and it's a small investment in your image if you get to win a pot while showing that you called with a gutshot. In terms of EV, I think that in the long run, it's probably pretty close to neutral. I think that we will get paid off properly when we hit, but that won't happen very often.

Wow, some great responses folks.

As for the way I played the hand out......... well, you'll just have to wait a while longer!

Keep it coming.

I think once we make halfway through page 2 its time for results.

its probably gonna be like "turn was a Qd, we got it all in 7 ways and my straight held. in fact, the river was a 3d and I hit my BDFD"

lol.....

Well, HH is on another computer so I don't have it to post. I'll post it tomorrow when I find it.

However, I can tell you I folded here, and really questioned my fold when the Q hit the turn, non spade I believe. If memory serves me correct, one pair took this pot. But I do know that my straight would have won here if I would have called.

Even though the odds were not correct for the call, the weak play by the other players in the hand really left me thinking a call would be ok, but I just don't like chasing inside straight draws.

Thanks again everyone for some really great discussion.

It's been a while since I read SS2, but I distinctly recall Doyle talking about loving gutshot draws.

Well, memory was close, 2 pair wins......

Either way, on a weakly played hand by these guys, I'm not convinced my fold was optimal.

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em, $1.00 BB (9 handed) Hand History Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com (Format: FlopTurnRiver)

CO ($18)
Button ($16.50)
SB ($29.40)
BB ($63.80)
UTG ($56.35)
Hero ($68.40)
MP1 ($54.50)
MP2 ($27.65)
MP3 ($102.50)

Preflop: Hero is UTG+1 with J, T.
1 fold, Hero calls $1, MP1 raises to $3, 3 folds, Button calls $3, 1 fold, BB calls $2, Hero calls $2.

Flop: ($12.50) 6, K, A (4 players)
BB checks, Hero checks, MP1 bets $3, Button calls $3, BB calls $3, Hero folds.

Turn: ($21.50) Q (3 players)
BB checks, MP1 bets $5, Button raises to $10, BB folds, MP1 raises to $15, Button calls $0.50 (All-In).

River: ($47) 6 (2 players, 1 all-in)

Final Pot: $47

Results:

MP1 has Qh Kd (two pair, kings and queens).
Button has Ac Th (two pair, aces and sixes).
Outcome: Button wins $42.50. MP1 wins $4.50.

Better luck next time.......

Hi. Will you stop doing that please.

We calculate pot odds based on unknown cards, not cards in the deck.


If you want to go down that route you need to start factoring in that there is no reason to indicate that any of the 3 other players still are likely to have a non-spade Queen beyond random distribution.

However the likely hands for the action include Aces,Kings spades and sets all of which actually increase our chances of the Queen being in the deck (as opposed to unknown cards)

Good luck if you want to start making that a major concern with every draw.

This pot is cheap right now and we're closing action.
You can call and see if you think you'll get paid.
AAKK can't help but pay us off here, especially when we made the bad flop call.
If the situation were otherwise, we should do otherwise.

I absolutely agree here. I mean, you can't chase them every time, but in the right situations they are very profitable.