Hand poll

You forgot one group of hands Chuck, the regular straight or flush draws that are less than 40% to win against us. These hands we don't want to give a free card to. I agree with you though about the draw/pair combo. If he turned over and showed us bottom pair plus a flush draw then yeah, it would make sense to check.

The hard thing is assigning a probability to each group of possible hands he could hold. Without doing any math or anything though I'd say the probability is greatest that he has either a hand that is crushed by us OR a regular draw. And the lower probability is he has either a hand that already has us beat, or a draw/pair combo that is over or about 50% to win against us.

^see the edit in the last post; i did forget that group, and it is important as it's the only one we're making a critical mistake in by checking.

Also true, but not really necessary.

Just look at the number of groups - three that favour a check, and one that favours a bet. Not only that but there will most probably actually be fewer hands in the OESD/FD group.

re: OESDs, villain is probably 3-betting AQ preflop, so that's not very probable. A 9 for the straight draw is, but still not very likely since villain rarely calls with small cards like that OOP. The only hands we're really worried about here are pairs+OESDs like QJ, QT, 89 etc, but our equity against those hands is actually closer to combo draws than to naked straight draws. So again, checking there is best.

re: FDs, villain could very well have some, but again they're not all that probable. Any flush draw is most probably going to connect with the board in some way since he's rarely calling OOP with 56s and similar hands, so he's gaining additional outs, thus making it closer to a combo draw again, and further supporting the case for checking.

Well, you've changed my mind, if no one else's, Chuck. What our line here if he fires on the turn and river with no further scare cards? We're obviously calling the turn (or betting if he checks again), but if he pots it on the river, we're still facing a tough decision.

That's just about the worst thing that can happen, and we would basically have to assume that we're beat at that point barring some very convincing stats on the guy.

I'm not sure a good player will double barrel very often here though (assuming we're a 'good' player too) since our check will set off some bells in his head.

There's two groups where we're betting off betting and two where we're better off checking, not three groups where we're better off checking. And here's another question to think about. If he really did have a hand in the "hands that have us crushed" group like a set or two pair, would he really check here on such a draw heavy board? If he's a decent player he wouldn't slowplay here he would lead out with a bet to try to take the pot. And with a big draw or a pair and a flush draw, he knows he's not that big of a favorite over one pair like AJ, so wouldn't he try to bet? You already said he's an aggressive thinking player, and a smart player wouldn't even try to slowplay a set here. He might check with a straight though... So since we know he checked I think it's more likely he has just one pair and no draw or nothing.

It's the draw/nothing hands that we should be worried about check-raising us off the best hand here. If he holds something like KJ (A hand we're ahead of but with TP and gut-shot) and he check-raises our flop bet we lose value by folding the best hand.

Crushing - check to induce bluffs

Crushed by - check to save value

Well ahead vs - bet to protect

Barely ahead - This is debatable, but as a part of his range, we want to check here.

If we knew we were up against a hand we were barely a favourite over, technically in a cash game we would take that edge. But what combo hands are we looking at? QJs for one (we're actually a significant dog against this - ~63/37), KJs for another (again, we're a dog - ~55/45), etc etc. The only ones where we're actually barely ahead (~55/45 or 60/40 etc) are the QT/QJ type hands.

So overall we're actually probably a dog vs the combo draws - I could draw up some numbers via Pokerstove if you wish.

Smart players rarely donk, though it's certainly possible if he's trying to bet-push (ie with a set).

Most likely though is that he's going for a check-raise, not trying to slowplay. We're betting this flop a lot of the time with other hands in our range, and he's expecting that.

First group is hands that we are beating, for instance 10 K. You say check to induce a bluff but he has 9 outs to beat us. So we're better off betting against this group of hands.

Second group is the regular open ended straight or flush draws and we're better off betting against these.

Third group is the hands that are beating us like a set or two pair or straight. So we're better off checking against these.

Fourth group is the combo draws that we are better off checking against.

This is a mistake that so many people make, differentiating between "made" hands and "drawing" hands. It's these people who talk about how AK is just A high (when with 5 cards to come depending on the suits could be a favorite against some pocket pairs). All that matters is our percentage to win, and how that will change on the next card. Chuck did an excellent analysis of this. It doesn't matter whether it's us or our opponent drawing, remember the cards are just tools for representing probabilities. We have a certain percentage to win, and the turn will change this probability, and we know the odds of the probability changing to each number (well we can calculate it, and it depends on the hand of our opponent).

The other big mistake people are making is the fact that it was said this is a good thinking player. A player like this will basically put us on this kind of hand when we bet, and may consider coming over the top unless of course he thinks we're good enough to be trying to induce him into doing that with a strong hand (straight with flush draw or something). If we bet a reasonable amount, we fold out a straight draw (mainly because we want to take away odds when we bet, and if we do the thinking player will fold, especially since even if he hits 1 or 2 of his outs, depending on whether he's on a gut shot or open-ended draw will also put a flush on the board.

The only hand I can see calling us here is just a plain flush draw. If it's the nut flush draw with A-rag we are in good shape, because an A is not an out for him. But for example say K5s here. He is ahead of us. and if he has a decent hand, which since he's a thinking player calling OOP we have to assume he does, what could he realistically have that we have beat and would call us on this flop? AKs has us beat, AQs has us crushed. Even KJs (which would probably be a raise, not a call) has us beat despite us having him dominated.

I can honestly not think of a hand that:
1. A thinking player would call a raise with from the BB
2. Would check-call this flop
3. We have beat

He could be calling with low suited connectors or a low to mid PP, in which case he folds to our bet and isn't likely to catch up if we let him draw.

But the big idea here that I think needs to be more understood is that it doesn't matter who has the better poker hand on the flop. It's easily seen here how it can be TPTK vs. A high and the A high has TPTK dominated (not in a poker sense, just is a heavy favorite to win). Your current 5-card poker hand means nothing on the flop, it's your odds of making the best 5-card poker hand by the river. So although there are about a million draws out there, there is nothing a thinking player would be playing right now that we would benefit from betting here after his check.

Chuck you have changed my mind!

I am convinced that the correct play would be to check.

Very interesting indeed.

If the board were Jh 10h 2c, I would bet out strong to protect against the draw. However since our opponent could already have us nearly drawing dead, I would opt for the check, and call down lest some fishy draw completely card shows up.

I think this hand represents both a challenge and an opportunity. As I read it both are about even coming into this hand, so a tread carefully approach here is necessary. Bets are starting to eat into that 100bb threshold, where below that either timidness or aggressiveness will impact us greatly.

Since villain was described as an aggressive, thinking, normal player (discounting the trickiness factor), and he was the BB (open ranged), even though he called, I still like my feeler bet. Villain HAS to put the very real possibility for us holding KQx in his assessment of our range. It would be a great explanation for our PF CO raise.

Let me add here that IMHO this is one of those situations where we would probably not play it the same every time, nor would we want to play it the same every time, even if ALL the other situations were exactly the same.

Very true, dj - there are no alwayses (new word! ) in poker.

Similar to saying 'don't open limp in 6-max', this isn't a concrete thing and can always be deviated from. This is, however the play that will probably give you the highest return on average.

OK so now how about the stack size question? How does this problem change if we have 20BB?

With 20BBs I'm looking to get all of our stack in with TPTK. The preflop pot is 7.5BBs, so it's big (in comparison to our stack which is now 16.5BB). Raise the flop. All-in on turn.

I agree, with 20bb, I too would be looking for the double up. I could easily shove on the flop. I don't want villain to see another card when I'm sitting TPTK. Especially when I know the villain is an aggressive, thinking normal player. His thinking could be that he sees us as the shortstack panic bet, and calls. Fine, but in this case I'd be ok with him folding. What I don't want to happen is me pushing, and him forcing me all in, and having to even deal with that ugly decision. So I would tend to shove up front on the flop, and put him in that ugly spot.

Since you didn't tell us what type of player villain might think you are, I will assume that his read would be similar to what my impression is. Solid, not prone to the stupid 'move'. In which case even if he held the ignorant end of the straight, he could seriously consider mucking. If it were me playing, his read would be 'silly, prone to the stupid gene' and he would call in a heartbeat!

Well at this point I think it's obvious we should be much more inclined to betting and probably stacking as well.

The issue now changes from the mistake of losing 100BB with AJ on this flop vs the mistake of giving a free card to the (not so bad) mistake of losing 20BB with AJ on this flop vs the mistake of giving the free card, and the latter is much bigger of a mistake.

Of late I have been shying away from giving shortstack any of my chips in speculative situations. I know conventional wisdom might be to call the cheaper instances of a shortstack shove. My thinking, since this usually happens late, and results are magnified, is that I want to at least keep shortstack short as long as possible. So as villain in the BB, I might very well, in this case, fold even something like AK, or AQ to a shortstack shove. The AK easier here to muck than the AQ.

Keeping the shortstack short might be a good topic to explore.

Why would we want to keep the shortstack short?

Btw, this is a ring game right? I think it's better to take more coinflips and tossups in a ring game than in a tournament, so I think I'd be more inclined to bet if this hand is a ring game hand instead of a tournament hand. Remember, even if he does have some good draws like a straight draw and a flush draw, it's possible the turn and river could both be blanks and we can win with TPTK.

200nl = ring game

It's all about equities in rings. We exploit any edge we have unless further metagame/strategic reasoning tells us we should do something else (like check here).

When we're at only 20BB we welcome calls from drawing hands. We're not trying to push them away by overbetting the pot on the flop. If we pot the flop and get called (pot = 22.5BB) our decision on the turn is made regardless of what card hits the board. At that point we only have to put in 9BB (the remainder of our stack) for a chance to win 22.5BB. Easy call or push.

If you read Professional No Limit Hold'em it talks a lot about SPR (stack-to-pot ratios). It tells us that TP or overpair hands fear the number 13 for an SPR (the exact number Chuck gave us in the 100BB example is 13.33) and perform well with an SPR of 4 (for most opponents). It the 20BB example our SPR is 2.2 and we should be willing to commit any time the flop hits us.

A nice article by my would-be coach, Ed Miller, on the subject: http://www.notedpokerauthority.com/a...ght-board.html