WPT Niagara AA on a gross board vs Marc Karam

[Barry Greenstein]

Originally Posted by Jimmy Fricke

We definitely think the 3bet size should be tied to our stack size, and that's WHY we 3bet so small. We have to let Marc think we're capable of folding to a 4bet. We would not 3bet/fold to 200k.

That is certainly a consideration against someone who might four-bet light. But against players who won't, I think the small three-bet method needs an adjustment when playing for more than 60 big blinds. (The issue kicked in earlier here because the initial raise was only 2.5 big blinds.)

Barry

[Jimmy Fricke]

I'll agree with that for sure. But like I said, making sure Marc knows that Vivek can fold is huge in this instance because he LOVES to 4bet people light.

[Justin Bonomo]

Originally Posted by Barry Greenstein

I think the small three-bet method needs an adjustment when playing for more than 60 big blinds.

Barry

I agree. However, we aren't deep at all, and only have 52.5 BB in this hand.

[Isaac Haxton]

Originally Posted by Barry Greenstein

Vivek, Justin,

I disagree slightly with your numbers, but they will work out about the same as mine (http://www.pokerroad.com/tips_from_the_bear/lesson5/).

I use 1/8 for the chances of flopping a set, since two Aces are taken out of the deck. But I use a lower number of 7/8 for the probability of winning after flopping a set.

So in this case, if you had 840k to start the hand, Marc will be risking 800k if he flops a set and loses, but he will win the 160k in the pot before your 90k raise plus 710k more from you. So he can win 960k from the point of decision for him preflop.

Marc's chip EV = (7/8)(-90) + (1/8)( (7/8)(960) - (1/8)(800) )
= (7/8)(-90) + (1/8) ( (6720 - 800)/8)
= (7/8)(-90) + (1/8) (5920/8)
= (740 - 630)/8
= 13.75

I'm sure it's close to even with any numbers you might choose also. I think you guys are forgetting that there is other money in the pot and possibly even forgetting that he has already put in 40k of the 130k he needs to call preflop.

Is there any doubt in a tournament with a weak field which side of this even chip-equity situation you want to be on: the side that often wins an extra 90k but goes busted 11% of the time, or the side that takes a shot with 90k to more than double up to almost 1.8 million?

And Vivek, one of the many reasons you don't need to open for large amounts when you have big pairs and deep stacks, is that you will often get away from losing all your chips in those situations by folding at some point in the hand or because the normal course of betting doesn't get you all in.

I admit that we make good money on his non-pair hands where he gets a piece of the flop but still loses. But this field was amazingly weak down the stretch, so if I had good chips I wouldn't have been looking for close all-in confrontations. And remember, you could have raised an amount that probably ends the hand and gives you an EV of +120k at your point of decision by taking away calling as an option for Marc. Forcing him into a fold or shove situation may be your best way to hit the jackpot when he decides to shove with his middle (or higher) pairs or maybe even with some other hands.

Barry

I agree with you that this raise sizing makes it such that Marc can profitably call with small pairs and fold all flops where he doesn't flop a set. However, I'm pretty confident that getting marc to call preflop with a hand like JTs or AQ is vastly preferable to having him fold it because he'll often get the rest of his stack in way behind postflop. And as his pocket pairs get bigger, starting around 55 or 77 or so he'll be finding more and more flops where he'll stick it in either because he flops some straight or flush outs or because the board is dry and he decides his pair is probably good. If making the smaller raise makes him more likely to see a flop I'm very happy about that. I'll take the loss of letting him set mine his pairs and bust me occasionally for the gain of letting him call with suited connectors and AQ/AJ type hands that rate to lose a lot of money postflop. If he's calling the same hands regardless obviously we'd rather raise bigger.

Your math shows that our chip expectation against 22 when he calls this raise is 14k worse than if we had made a raise large enough to force him to fold. Additionally, we incur an extra 11% chance of busting. When he calls with a hand like QJ or whatever which will on average be behind when he opts to put more money in postflop, our expectation is 90k better those times when folds postflop after calling and, on average, more than 90k better when he doesn't fold. I think it would be conservative to estimate that getting him to call with QJs is worth 150k, 10 times as valuable (chip ev wise) as getting him to fold 22. Letting him see some flops does incur some added risk of busting, but relative to an average profit of 15% of your stack or more, it seems very worth it.

[Barry Greenstein]

Originally Posted by Justin Bonomo

I agree. However, we aren't deep at all, and only have 52.5 BB in this hand.

Originally Posted by Jimmy Fricke

I'll agree with that for sure. But like I said, making sure Marc knows that Vivek can fold is huge in this instance because he LOVES to 4bet people light.

Before I address what Isaac posted, let me address the posts of Jimmy and Justin:

It seems that by agreeing to my 60BB rule, you are both contradicting your earlier objections to what I said. I came up with 60BB because that is the point where I need to raise to a little more than 9BB to deny my opponent 10 to 1 on his call after he opens for 3BB.

As I said earlier, this number needs to be lowered here because another player called, and the original open was to 2.5BB, and the antes are substantial. So forgetting about poker considerations and just going at it mathematically, we see that in this case where we started with 840k, and with 160k in the pot before our raise of X more, Marc will be looking at calling X to win 160k + 800k. To deny him 10 to 1, we need to raise more than 96k at this point. Vivek raised 90k. (As I mentioned to Vivek in an earlier post, we won't raise enough to deny 10 to 1 odds when the stacks are extremely deep.)

Now to poker considerations: I agree with everything Isaac said and I'm willing to give up something to get Marc in there with weak holdings. As for catering to the light four-bet potential of Marc, I don't think a slightly bigger raise stops Marc from doing that since he has plenty of fold equity if we aren't strong. He will easily be able to deny us anything close to 2 to 1 pot odds. I still think the slightly bigger raise looks weaker when coming from players who would normally want to let their opponents come into a pot when they have big pairs.

The last consideration was the field. I think this was the first time I have started day three and not known a single player at my table. And when my table broke with 63 players left, I got moved to another table where again, I didn't know any of the players. Of course I was the big blind with 56 left and I was taken off my table and put on the only tough table with Vivek, Erik Seidel, Sorel Mizzi, and some other decent players, where I was promptly busted by Vivek.

When Vivek's pocket Aces hand came up, I only knew 5 of the 15 players in the field with Vivek, and Vivek was probably comfortable with some of those 5. (There were also two online players I didn't know but I was told that they had good online results.) I doubt the weak field considerations offset some of the preflop calls that Marc is capable of making, but it is certainly a factor indicating a larger raise. And we haven't factored in that we have been debating chip-equity. Payout equity would be better served here by tending toward the line of play that minimizes the chance of going broke.

Barry

[Mike Watson]

Now that I've actually read the discussion I have to say both sides are right. Vivek and Jimmy are right that keeping hands like T9s or small-mid pairs in the pot is a good thing because Marc is definitely going to continue when he flops a pair with T9 or an overpair with a hand like 88 and lose a lot more money postflop. Also, keeping hands like KQ in the pot is huge since he will almost always stack off when he flops the top pair.

That being said, I would personally always make it 140-160K. He can still 4-bet with lots of fold equity and our bet sizing shouldn't look any stronger. If anything it looks weaker to a lot of players and just gets more money in the pot which is always good when we have the nuts. However, it is obviously very read and player dependant which bet size is most likely to get us action. Berry's points about minimizing our chances of busting are certainly legitimate but again I have to agree with Vivek/Jimmy that it's far more important to give our opponents the chance to make a huge mistake. Increasing the chance that our opponent stacks off by say 10-20% should easily more than offset a slightly increased chance of busting.

Finally, I agree with Berry that some online players make their 3-bets too small in general, especially on deeper stacks. However there is a reason for that as well. I don't think it's a big secret that most online players 3-bet a lot wider than the typical live player. As such they want to give themselves a better price on their 3-bet bluffs, and also as Vivek/Jimmy already said, calling with a small pair or suited connector and only proceeding when you flop a set or huge hand/draw against that range is a huge mistake since even when you make a set you will not be getting paid off nearly as often as you will against a tighter range. 7 times out of 8 you miss your set and fold what is very often the best hand to a bet. As such, worrying about what implied odds we're giving when we actually have AA is not as big a concern since most people are not simply set mining against us anyways.

[Todd Terry]

The first thing Vivek said about the raise size is that he can do it with his entire range, but the rest of the discussion by him and others focused on how Karam is going to call super-light against this size raise. Which makes it a terrible raise size for 3-bet bluffing, which makes it a bit of a bet-size tell IMO, because it's a raise size which is much better for a monster than a bluff. I'd prefer making it at least 160, which gives away no information but still gives him ample room to 4bet light if he's so inclined.

Additionally, there is a difference between knowing in your own mind that your range is balanced for this bet size and how the raise size will be perceived by your opponents. I think generally this small 3bet OOP, because it seems to invite your opponents to call, will be perceived as a strong hand unless your opponents have actually seen you use the same raise size with air. It therefore is less likely to generate a light 4bet.

[Marc Karam]

Just for the record, the 4-bet was going through my mind on this hand. But then I said to myself, "Well, what if he has a big hand here?" It's only 90k more, and I have odds to call and try to flop big. If you raised more, say 160k or so, I'm not comfortable at all calling 120k more out of my 700k stack, which reduces my options to fold or shove. I'm a lot more likely to shove to the bigger raise than the smaller one.

I'm never going broke here with 1 pair... I need at least some sort of combo draw. Also, I love everyone's impression of my 4-betting, I think I've 4-bet a total of six times ever in a major tournament, maybe less. But I usually bust an online pro with it, so everyone knows. I think it works in my favor.

[Niman Kenkre]

This may be more of my deep stacked cash game mentality coming out (I never play tournaments), but does anyone consider checking back on the flop and then committing to the hand on a non-diamond turn?

I would think this line might be more likely to get bluff money, get a thinner bad call, get the money in as a bigger favorite, or get away with minimal damage on a diamond turn.