CHECKING DOWN

I am slightly new to this concept - so please forgive my ignorance.

So there is more value in actually having the small stack who is all-in win the pot so he can keep the heat on the other players?

I understand what you are saying - and there is no reason why people should "play along" with checking down. But It can mean more value for you when someone else has been eliminated. I get it it is not a team sport - even when I sit down with some of my oldest mates to play, we understand that metaphorically speaking, we are there to slit each other's throats.

I suppose the concept of checking down boils down from a "pack mentallity"/survival instinct to get in the money.

Yes there is Scouse which Dorkus explained it very nicely.

Expected Value, actually. Often called "Expectation" as well. It's the sum of all possible events' values, times the chance that they occur.

http://www.cardschat.com/poker-odds-expected-value.php

lol I call it Equity.. Cause it still relates to the money aspect of it.

Equity means "share." Your equity is simply your likelyhood of winning a specific hand; it has nothing to do with money value, it's only a percentage. If you're specifically talking about the money, then you definitely want to use "expected value" since that has a dollar sign, not a percentage, attached to it.

I promise.

Thank you for the link! As it turns out, I am already familiar with the concept - just not the terminology.

I spent months going over this stuff at A-Level, only to find I actually only really got it after playing poker for a few years. Then it just clicked.

Cheers!

LOL if you win a specific hand.. then you've won money. I use "Equity".. yes it is "Expected" value.. I just personally use "Equity"..


Just like I call trips 3 of a kind even though it may be a set.

I use "Elephant" value, because you can use money to buy elephants!

LOL hey if Elephant works for you.. then more the power to help you remember.. lol ironic.. remember and elephant in the same sentence..

But still you explained it the best as to why the villian could make the bet.

Very nice thread you started here Buck. The subtleties of this game continue to amaze & fascinate me. Would you believe that in considering this particular situation elephants never once crossed my mind. Manoh man, do I have a ways to go.

Thank You Kenzie, well by allinking betting he gained NOTHING, but lost on 2 counts, he lost chips and he kept in a Very tough player by tripleing him up, Is that really worth making a bet on the river after he checked on the flop and the turn, then he bets on the river with only Ace high, and i fold, I just cant see the logic in betting with Ace high, like i said before if JL had ANY card on the board he was beat, so why take that chance, he had plenty of chips already, I consider it one of the most stupidest moves ive ever seen.>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> buck

Buck, I agree with Dorkus and Fish really, there's a time and a place for checking down, and that was just too early in the game. You should have bet post flop with your 4's to get Allinking out, and go H2H with JL who was all-in. I agree with you that the final bet with Ace high against someone who wont fold is probably a mistake, but it stopped you from winning the pot, and even if all the play did was to get you in a strop, it was still a success in part if it got you on tilt. And "why take that chance?" - cos he had a big stack, didn't stand to lose many, and would have more than tripled up on the bet - and "he had plenty of chips already?", don't get this, are you saying once you've reached a certain amount you shouldn't try and win more?

Again, i'm just repeating what Fish and Dorkus said, and I wouldn't have made the bet, but I dont agree this is the worst play i've ever seen, and I do believe you should have made a proper stab at winning the hand earlier yourself.

Err, I read through the thread a bit more - should have done this first. From the hand history Chris posted, he didn't bet post river, he bet pre-river. With 2 people in a pot with 8,000 stack each, a 600 stack player is an irrelevance - I wouldn't check and let YOU hit a hand, bet, and have to decide whether your hand was better than mine (if i'd made one too). His bet was fine in my opinion, to either get you out of the hand, or to build the pot if he does hit.

There is a time and a place- normally i found it on the final table - but please correct me if i am making a mistake here.

otherwise if you hit the nuts - of course, you HAVE to bet - only question is how much to milk out of the foo.

I reckon down to last 3 or 4, certainly not when 8,700 is up against 8,100 and 600. This hand could end up with 17,000 chips in the pot, so who cares about 600?

this thread really amazes me. I have never seen a topic of discussion on here that made less sense to me, or that i disagreed with more completly (with the exception of buckster's comments of course)

what better oppertunity could there be to check down in then the exact situation here discribed, a spot or two away from the money, in a pot where no one had much of a hand, the two chip leaders up against a dangerous small stack? I'm sorry, but 600 is significent. And don't give me that crap about him trying to build up a side pot in case he hit his draw. Of course buck was going to get out of the way if he bet here, as he wasn't going to risk putting more money in the pot against one of the chip leaders with the kind of hand he had, with almost any kind of hand for that matter. And perhaps i'm being too 'results oriented' but JL did go on to finish second. And i think you all are being a tad results oriented as well, considering the allinking went on to win, so you assume he must have had a good reason. Well, i don't know if he'll respond, but I sent a PM to allinking17 inviting him to reply to this thread with his actual motivations for making this play. Personally i have a feeling he just wasn't paying attention, but let's see.

-n

JL has an M of 4 if he wins the pot. He still has a short stack, still has to play push/fold poker, and thus is far from being 'dangerous'.

The trying to build a side pot is really only a very, very minor point that has been made. Maybe try addressing the point regarding the bubble situation being potentially more profitable for bigger stacks with two/three very short stacks in play instead?

Yes you are. What you're saying is like saying "I had AA the other day and lost to KK, man I really should have folded AA preflop".

That makes absolutely no difference. He made some stupid plays in the tournament that I'd be more than happy to talk about if you like.

It just baffles me that some of you are unable to understand this, and are stuck on the simple level of thinking that is "LESS PLAYERS ARE GOOD".

Look at it this way. allinking has a comfortable stack, and there is another very short stack at the table. Unless something very bizarre happens, allinking is going to make the money regardless of what happens this hand. Therefore he gains an almost completely negligible personal advantage by checking it down, an advantage which is more than countered by the fact that he can use his big stack more effectively during the bubble situation.

I've already said I doubt that my thinking matches what he was thinking, so I don't understand what you're trying to prove here.

Alright well you all should of pm'ed me in the first place, but this developed into a great discussion that shows how great some of you are as poker players. I have not been playing poker as seriously as many of you have and i regret that, there are so many things about poker that i have not even looked into. Im not one to spend a lot of time on this post and get into a detailed discussion of my actions. As i look back at this , it was one of those plays that i have no clue why i committed. I might have been caught up in the situation and everything, became greedy, and did not really think about poker. I also really do not remember, sometimes i even multi task while playing poker, and that might have affected the play. I think it was a joy playing with you guys ( even though you might not have the same feelings because a new guy won). I also would like to thank you for starting this thread, because a lot of times people do not realize these mistakes, and this will make me be more cautious. Thanks again for the tournament, and i am sorry for all the confusion.

i'd address your comments individually Dorkus (as you for some reason felt the need to do), but there's really no point, as we're clearly speaking a different language here. None of what you said made any sense to me, and i still think you're trying to justify an silly play that you yourself admit that you wouldn't make. What your obcession is with defending this play i'll never know. I hope allinking's responce to this thread marks the end of this discussion, because as far as i'm concerned, his responce clearly indicates the only reason why anyone would ever make such a play.

-n

I`m glad you agree Nate, First of all he couldnt Draw to anything, all the cards were out, i checked the river and He bet, i wasnt worried about the 600, its the Dangerous player that you try to get out and we had that chance, with 4 OVER CARDS on the board i would have folded, on the flop or turn if he bet, i would have folded, and now i know he was playing multiple games, as he said above, so i guess he wasnt paying attention, Any Pro will tell you at that point, when your getting close to the money or about to eliminate someone and go up in the money, you should check it down. The $ 600 wasnt dangerous, but JL is, hes a good player. Ive seen Pros fold pocket KK rather than take a chance when theres an allin and somebody has called, before it got to him, just to move up in the money. >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> buck

And Allinking won if you want to push that argument to its obvious conclusion.

The play turned out one way, but could have ended up another. Buck knows he had pair of 4's, Allinking didn't know that. Buck knew he wasn't going to bet, Allinking didn't know that. Buck knew he was going to fold to a bet, Allinking didn't know that. Picking over the bones in hindsight the play may look like an odd one, but that's because you have more info now than was available then. What's indisputible is that Allinking's stack was fifteen times greater than JL's but equal tio Bucks - he's admitted he may have played hand wrong, but worst play ever? I'd like to think if i was playing Buck's hand i may have won it - i'd be more worried about that than knocking JL out, because to be honest, finishing 5th or 6th isn't really of interest when i've got 2 and a half times the chips of the 3rd place player.

And Buck, Chris has posted the hand history on page 1. Read it again, and you will see you aren't recollecting the hand accurately. The bet was after the turn, not the river, and that alters matters significantly.

Please tell me what part of the following "makes no sense", and I'll be more than happy to clarify.

Where did I say this? The main reason I may not make this play is in the heat of the moment it can be difficult to apply proper theory to some situations, and the "check it down" (play safe) mentality may take over. This is a leak in my game, and I'm working on fixing it, but I think the best remedy is just plain ol' experience.

Whether I would make the play or not is irrelevant anyway. I invariably wouldn't limp AA in MP even with a couple of aggressive players still to act, for example, but I'm not going to call it a terrible play if someone does do it, because it's perfectly understandable. My reasons for raising instead are also perfectly understandable, though.

There is often no completely 'right' or 'wrong' answer in poker. The sooner you start looking beyond the 'right' and the 'wrong', the better for you.

Once again, I already stated I doubt he was thinking the same way as I am thinking now when he made that move.

May I ask who you've seen do this? Because it's a terrible play. Any 'pro' worth their salt will tell you that you play to win, not just to cash or merely move up in the money, and folding KK preflop is an incredibly weak move. Harrington says that KK should never be folded preflop, and I agree (except in those rare satellite situations when it would also be correct to fold AA).

Regards,

right there

-n

the part about M of 4 for one thing.

plus in my opinion Jesus is dangerous regardless of how many chips he has.

but please, don't bother explaining your opinion to me. I disagree with it, and we are both stuborn people who, apparently, can not be convinced of any possition contrary to our own.

I am not saying that one should always check down as a matter of principle, only when it makes sense to do so, and i have yet to see any logical explination as to why it made sense in this case. I'm sorry Dorkus, play the game any way you want. I don't see why you have to get so defensive. Forgive me for offering my opinion.

-n

I am talking about the general 'principle' behind checking down here, and arguing that checking down isn't as necessary as you and others claim. I said I may bet the flop or reraise preflop, so I don't see the contradiction.

Read Harringtom on Holdem. 'M' = 'number of orbits you have before you're totally blinded out'.

Put Phil Ivey in our Friday game with a tiny stack compared to (a) the blinds, and (b) everyone else's stack, and he'll lose a lot more often than he wins. When you get short, you're playing push/fold poker (if you're playing correctly), and by its very nature push/fold poker is very reliant on luck. Maybe with an M of 4 there will be a slight difference between Captain Donkalot and Sir Shark, but it's not nearly as much as you seem to think it is.

Yes, JL came second. Just like KK beats AA sometimes. It's not likely given his still-small stack, but it happens sometimes. In poker though, we should look at the long run as a gauge of whether a play is ultimately justifiable or not.

Besides, do you think allinking cared where JL finished, as long as he won? (ok, that was a little results-oriented and i'm making the false assumption that he was thinking as I am thinking when he made the play, but nevermind... )

Even if you're not listening to what I say, I hope others are, so I shall continue.

All I'm asking is for you to explain to me (a) what personal advantage allinking gains from checking this down as opposed to betting considering that he is near-certain to make the money whatever happens, and (b) if and why you think this advantage negates the advantage gained by being an aggressive deep stack in a bubble situation. Then perhaps I'll be able to understand more why you are thinking the way you are.

Err, thanks. >_>

Don't apologise for having an opinion! If we all agreed on everything, this forum would be pretty boring.

However, I just feel like you're 'pulling a Twizzy' and either ignoring most of my comments or just throwing pretty meaningless one liners back at them, whereas I (and I hope others) would really like to discuss this further in depth because I find it quite interesting.

Regards,

i wasn't going to post on this again, but it's funny, as i was about to accuse you of doing the same thing, 'pulling a Twizzy' by disecting my posts and holding firm to a predetermined idea (sorry twizzy, i didn't bring it up). and what 'one liners' are u refering to?

if i was playing with phil, i would have checked it down, to get him the heck out of there, especially if all i had was a flush draw on the turn

but please, tell me what he had to benefit from betting there? yeah, if the situation was such that buck had AK or something, maybe he would have stayed in the hand, but otherwise all he was doing was giving a better player, better odds on winning the pot. if with his stack, he was almost guarenteed to make the money as you said, why risk it by betting his draw? i still think checking down was the right play there, as he had very little to gain by not doing so

-n

I've already explained what he had to gain, but like Four Dogs before you you're only looking at 'the pot' and 'his draw', and not the bigger picture.

1) He could win the pot if he hit his draw. Not really important (as he would invariably win if he checked down and hit), but still, it's a consequence, and it's somewhat important that he's not betting without any outs if called.

More importantly,

2) He's more likely to win the pot if he doesn't hit his draw by forcing the third player (Buck) out.

3) JL is more likely to win the pot also. if this happens, the bubble situation is preserved with two very shortstacks and he (big stack) can keep on merrily stealing chips.

Therefore by betting he is drastically lessening the chances of the only truly negative outcome from his point of view happening (Buck winning the pot and taking over the CL).

Also bear in mind that this is a guy who's barely visited the forums, and during the entire time he's been at the table JL has been shortstacked and unable to really play his natural game, so if you're going to look at this specifically from the perspective of the wiseness or otherwise of villain's play, I'd say that you can't use the "JL is a good player" argument anyway, as allinking has no idea of how good or bad JL is.

As for "Why risk it by betting his draw?", it's essential knowledge that (even if you ignore the whole situation with regards to checking down here) aggressive bubble play (within reason) is the way to ultimately end up winning more tournaments. Sure you may bubble more (not so much on cases like this when you're CL with 2 v short stacks though), but you'll win more too, which has a positive effect on your ROI (return on investment).


(I'm aware I used "he is doing x to acheive y" and stuff a lot here, but I just use it for ease - don't pick up on me saying I think he was thinking what I'm thinking now again because I'm not )

yes buck, i agree with you. i don't care wether it was on the flop, turn, or river, unless he had all five of those spades, it was a dumb play

and i'm sorry Dorkus, but you still haven't convinced me. If it wasn't significant for him to tripple up JL, i just can't see how it was significant wether he or buck won that pot, as they still would have been 1-2 in chips (approximatly) either way. It just seems to me that betting there, you'd have to know you probably need to catch to win the pot. And even if Jesus was the biggest donk in the world, i'd still rather have him out of the tournament, rather then risk trippleing him up because i felt the need to get maximium value out of my hand. I'm really not just looking at this in terms of this one hand. I'd just as soon have 8000 chips with seven players left, as 10000 with eight. That's just me. And I'm sorry for bringing allinking in on this, but i just thought his opinion might be relevent. Regardless of who made the play, i'm not saying it's right or wrong, i'm just saying it was dumb IMO. Let's just agree to disagree, okay? but please keep discussing it if you feel the need, as that's what we're here for

and btw, i wonder why JL hasn't chimed in on this himself........

-n

Offense taking.. but not going to say anything. Become the better person by letting the fruedeon slip(yes sp) come out and say no offense.

Thought about it , but thought diffrently.

Ya i did reread the hand and recollect it wrong, he did bet on the turn, but i still believe 2 players against an allin is more powerfull and i would have checked it down no matter what i had, Unless i had the Nuts. Well anyway this post created a good discussion, so maybe i learned somethine here, Call with pocket 4`s, Ya Rite,lol, but thanks for the feed back everybody, I guess this case is closed.>>>>>>>>>>>>>>.buck

Sorry for jumping into this thread so late folks but I have read it with some degree of interest. In fairness the correct play 99% of the time is to check it down, but dont dismiss what Chris has said so lightly. OK, I understand the logic of bubbling JL at this stage of a game, Chris's theory is an advanced strategy that you wont use or need that often.

Keeping the bubble running to your advantage depends an awful lot on the conditions at your table, and withir all of these conditions existed at the time is debatable, i wasnt on the table so im unsure, but here goes.

i~ Bubble conditions must exist.

Remember not every tournament comes across bubble conditions per-say. If the table tightens up and the small stacks start to attempt to back into the $$ THEN we have "Bubble conditions". We all have seen tournies where there seems to be no change in play, and infact occasionaly the opposite. Some players can go manicial on the bubble.

ii~ You must be deep stacked.

We all probably know this already, but the more chips you have the less value each chip has. Think about losing 1.5K chips when your stack is 3k, totally crippling, where as losing 1.5K chips when your stack is 10k is a blow but esentially not going to change your outlook to the game all that much.

iii~ The bubble is in your immediate control

There is no point of attempting to extend a bubble in a large MTT, it is simply chip wasting, if the bubble exists on one table (the final table) then its in your immediate control.

iv) You are currently winning over 1 pot per orbit.

Really to keep the bubble running you need to be winning lots of pots, reallistically over 2 pots per orbit, in order to pad your stack to when the bubble is over. Otherwise why do it ? If your dominating at this point of the game and picking up lots of pots, you will want it to continue, if not, check down.

v) The small stack will still be dominated.

So you double up the small stack on purpose, not if it gives him 1/3 of you stack, it makes him too dangerous. You want to give him enough chips to back into the $$, a position that he was not in before. If you feel that hes gonna starting open pushing every hand then your gonna have to call at some stage, make sure that you dont let him have enough chips to make this effective.

So if all of the above factors are happening at your table, which will be a fairly rare occurence, let the small guy double up. If your unsure, check it down, and the vast majority of the time these table conditions wont occur.

Just dismissing Chris idea without trying to grasp the concept is slighty weak, add another snippet of information to your poker arsenl and move on.

On a side note, this concept has further reaching applications than what was described above. Here is an example of one play that happened in our poker league final table a few months back.

3 handed, deep in the $$, super tight player on my left, and ultra aggressive player on my right. I wanted to get heads up with the tight player, but he was getting blinded away, i was picking up some nice pots off Mr Aggressive, so i simply folded my BB into him in order to pad his stack for several rounds, eventually he picked off Mr Aggressive, and i happly set to blinding him off in the heads up stage.

So letting someone stay in the game sometimes is the correct play, the majority of the time its the wrong play though, but picking the times when it is correct is the key.

Great concept Dorkus, i hope ive correctly grasped it.

Just thought I would add a situation that happened to me a little while ago. First of I will almost always check down when someon is all in. I am more concerned about the all in person being eliminated then the possibility of me getting a few more chips.

Anyway, was in a tourney a while ago and I called an all-in and the person to me left also called. I hit a flush on the turn (not the nuts but a J or Q high I think) but still checked. Also checked the river just to make sure if my hand was not the best that their was a better chance of the all-in getting toasted. Well after I check the river the other guy makes a large bet to try and steal the pot or whatever his reasoning was. This made me angry that he would do this when IMO anyway implicit collusion was the way to go. So I re-raised the son of a .... for all his chips and it felt dam good to knock him out.


I don't know, I could have raised when I hit the flush but I think it is better in most circimstances to check down.