Would all you 3 bettors please meet me at the Bellagio tomorrow?
LOL, the truth is Doyle, you just don't like 3-betting in limit poker in most of it's forms. I remember discussing a limit hold'em hand with you in regards to Jennifer's chapter in Super System 2. In the book she describes that if a late position player raises, and you have 55 on the button, you should 3 bet the hand.
You thought it was an error, Todd, Jennifer, myself, and several others argued that flat calling there is more of an acceptable play in NL, but a mistake in limit hold'em. This is even more true in tournaments where you really only have two good options: raise or fold. Calling there invites the big blind into the pot and you find yourself in the worst case scenario with a small pair- playing it 3 handed. 55 does well heads up, and it also does well in a five way action pot, but playing it three handed is not a good thing.
The same holds true in Omaha 8 or better with marginal hands that have both high and low features. I would rather 3-bet that button with the AJ58 double suited or an AQ48 than I would with A-2-7-9 or A-K-J-10.
We have AJ85, and only one of our suits isn't easily dominated. Sure, the BB will be coming along a lot of the time with trashy hands, but he's correct to do so. We might dominate one aspect of his hand, such as his diamond draw, but we will never just have him crushed. We're allowing him to make a correct call way too often.
If we had AQ84, then things would be a lot different, but I really don't think our hand is strong enough to encourage the BB to call getting 5.5-1 in a 3 way pot.
I agree with Justin on the first part. Like I said, a big reason why I personally would rather 3bet over cold call is because...the hand isn't that good. Other than a miracle flop like 234 or ddd, I don't like my hand that much against 3 or 4 other people.
HU, especially in position, especially against a thinking player who I know is going to be raising preflop with more than just AA2x, I like my hand on a number of flops, and on a few that I don't, I'm going to like taking a strong bluff line because it's probable that he doesn't like his hand either (or, more accurately, he thinks that I like my hand more than I do).
Quote:
Originally Posted by Barry Greenstein
I don't claim to know what the cutoffs are, since it surely also depends on how our opponents play, but I doubt many of the three bettors would have played AQ84 any differently.
There is a tendency of the math crowd to cite preflop pot odds that aren't very relevant. The BB certainly doesn't get 5.5 to 1 odds here because the betting continues on, with the player often throwing good money after bad as he keeps justifying the decreasing (when you take into account all the money he has put into the pot on the hand) but still seemingly +EV odds he is getting. (He is often correct that calling has become +EV because of the initial -EV moves he made.)
Also, a mistake about odds is often made where getting good pot odds against one opponent may be bad odds having to beat two or three.
Barry
I also agree with Barry in that I'm going to be 3betting AQ84 in this same spot as well, for the same reason. I have a hand that works both ways, but isn't huge in either.
I'm not sure where he's going with on the odds part, though. If I cold call and it folds to the BB, he is getting 5.5:1 odds on his call. Therefore, if he feels he has higher than 18% equity in the hand, he has to call. Against Barry's hand and Daniel's hand, the most random hand I could think of (KJ93 rainbow) has a 23.1% equity in the pot, preflop. I doubt we could find a hand that shouldn't call 1BB into a 5.5BB pot given this situation.
Also, with the description of the blinds, I'm lead to believe that they aren't the savviest of players. This means that there is a high likelyhood of them making the correct decision (calling one more bet) for the wrong reason (not because of odds or hand ranges or anything meta, but simply because it's...just one more bet).
I'm not sure where he's going with on the odds part, though. If I cold call and it folds to the BB, he is getting 5.5:1 odds on his call. Therefore, if he feels he has higher than 18% equity in the hand, he has to call.
Aaron,
You are making the same fundamental mathematical mistake that many poker players make. As a matter of fact, this mistake is standard in most poker literature. If the betting stopped at this point you would be right, but it doesn't.
This type of thinking would have you never folding a hand in the big blind preflop to one raise in any form of Omaha and rarely folding a hand in the big blind to a small preflop raise in hold'em. Think about it a while and you will see that your odds are going to lessen as the hand goes on.
Barry
Last edited by Barry Greenstein; 10-04-2008 at 01:03 AM.
You are making the same fundamental mathematical mistake that many poker players make. As a matter of fact, this mistake is standard in most poker literature. If the betting stopped at this point you would be right, but it doesn't.
This type of thinking would have you never folding a hand in the big blind preflop to one raise in any form of Omaha and rarely folding a hand in the big blind to a small preflop raise in hold'em. Think about it a while and you will see that your odds are going to lessen as the hand goes on.
Barry
I don't want to misunderstand you, because it seems like I am (and feeling dumb since math is one of the things I hang my hat on), but it seems like you are disagreeing with the concept of pot odds.
Theory aside, don't we want to be putting chips into the pot when we have a positive expectation? I know that betting continues for 3 more streets, but we have the option to evaluate on each street and try to ascertain if we now have positive or negative equity for the bets we now face.
I do understand your point, that a lot of times people make bad calls and because of that it justifies future good calls. I agree that this is a leak. As an extreme example, if you call off 99% of your stack with 72, you have to call off the last 1% postflop because you are getting great odds. In the situation above, though, if you make (based on general math and player/situation-based assumptions) a good call preflop, shouldn't that be ok?
(I say theory aside because there are spots where we may want to make -ev plays on one street, be it to have the potential to bust a good player, or because we have a ton of chips and know that we can push people around or get a lot more of our chips in ahead. These situations are mainly found in NL/PL tournaments, though. In limit tournaments, I feel that unless you have a very very small stack or a very very large stack, your decisions should mainly be made based on the equity you feel you have in the hand)
I think what Barry's saying (and I agree with) is that early street "equity" is a meaningless term when there are future bets to be concerned about. Sure, you might have more than 18% equity in the hand, but if you have no way to realize that equity its irrelevant. I think a pretty good example is in limit hold'em, if you defend your BB vs a button steal with something like J2o, I guarantee you will have the correct preflop "equity" to do so against their steal range, but you are going to make mistakes postflop because the hand is just so difficult to play with limited information. Either your opponent is going to steal the pot many times when you both miss the flop and you don't call down with jack high, or you're frequently going to be calling down with jack high, both are pretty easy to exploit by a tough player. Your hand suffers from reverse implied odds due to what I'd call bad "playability".
It reminds me of something I've heard from Tommy Angelo, whenever someone questions his play and uses the pot odds as justification: "you're getting 5.5:1 on what?".
-DeathDonkey
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Limit hold'em ninja and DeucesCracked.com Founder.
continuing the betting doesn't stop preflop concept
Heads up limit or no-limit hold'em are the easiest games to see this concept in practice. The rest of the money on later streets gets put in at 1:1 ratio.
Aaron, you are in good company here with some of the best reviewed poker books. This is one the examples I often give about how people misuse math to analyze poker.
Razz is the game that most easily demonstrates the concept of making a -EV call that would be +EV if the hand stopped there, but then you will be forced to make +EV calls on later streets. If you call a raise with a bad one in three cards (other than heads-up as the bring in), you get into these situations where you are one card behind on subsequent streets, but the pot has been built up to the point that you have to keep calling.
Barry
Last edited by Barry Greenstein; 10-04-2008 at 04:36 AM.
Your hand suffers from reverse implied odds due to what I'd call bad "playability".
-DeathDonkey
Chris,
You are right about reverse implied odds, but it's not really due to bad playability. (Bad playability of the hand and bad position make it worse.) It's simply because you really aren't getting 3:1 on your big blind call if you are going to have to put more money in at even odds on later streets.
Here's an easy example: Let's say that your team is down 7 points after the first quarter of a football game and the right odds are 3:1 that the team behind will win the game. So you bet $100 to win $300. Fine. Now let's add the stipulation that after the end of each of the next two quarters, either player has the option of making an even money bet of $100 and the other player may take the bet or concede all previous bets if he wishes. You aren't getting full 3:1 odds anymore.
In the football game and in poker, if you started behind you will more often be behind on later streets, but subject to add to the pot at even money.
Barry
Last edited by Barry Greenstein; 10-04-2008 at 11:47 PM.
Reason: added parenthetical comment
Everybody is overlooking one thing. In this over aggressive poker world, everybody wants the lead in every form of poker. What if one of the blinds or Daniel makes it four bets? Now how do you like your hand? You are pot committed and have to draw at some funky straight draw. I would throw my hand away as Barry did before I would three bet. If you get a bad flop, you can take a minimal loss. And Daniel is right about me not liking to three bet with a small pair in limit hold em. Of course, I always think about poker in cash games, not tournament poker where the value of money changes.
Everybody is overlooking one thing. In this over aggressive poker world, everybody wants the lead in every form of poker. What if one of the blinds or Daniel makes it four bets? Now how do you like your hand? You are pot committed and have to draw at some funky straight draw. I would throw my hand away as Barry did before I would three bet. If you get a bad flop, you can take a minimal loss. And Daniel is right about me not liking to three bet with a small pair in limit hold em. Of course, I always think about poker in cash games, not tournament poker where the value of money changes.
If they make it 4 bets we have a pretty good idea of what is in their range.
Isn't flatting and having them 3 bet worse?
Also, by three betting they take the minimal loss on the bad flops.
If they make it 4 bets we have a pretty good idea of what is in their range.
Isn't flatting and having them 3 bet worse?
Also, by three betting they take the minimal loss on the bad flops.
imo.
No, it's not worse to put less money in the pot when you have the worst hand, although you may claim that the extra information offsets it a little. This certainly wasn't what you were hoping for when you decided to three bet this hand instead of call.
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