How is playing a 40% hand plus EV?

teepack

teepack

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I had a long conversation with a guy on Bovada the other night. This was a .02/05 cash game. I had just sat down with $5 and on one of my first hands I got AK in the BB. The guy under the gun bumped it up to $1.70. Everybody folded to me, so I decided to shove with my AK. He had a J-9 suited and called me and ended up winning the hand when he hit a straight on the river.

I told him I didn't think that was a bright call, considering he only had a 40% chance of winning the hand. He insisted he made the correct call. I'm just not sure how you say that playing a hand you will only 2 of 5 times is the correct long-term strategy. It worked out for him that hand, but in the long run, that would seem to be a failing strategy. What am I missing?
 
IPlay

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Considering he had 34 BBs in the pot already and only had to call about 70 more into a huge pot, it probably was the right call

His raise was horrible though.
 
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Well, okay, it doesn't seem like a bright idea at first, but he has a point there.

He's invested $1.70 in the pot and as soon as you shove your $5, there is $6.72 in the pot (including the small blind). He needs $3.30 to call to win $6.72 (which is 2 to 1 or he needs to win a third of the time to make this call profitable). This is also known as pot odds.

If he thinks that you're shoving light (as people do in 5NL), than in this case, he's going to be right a lot of the time and this is a correct call. If you're shoving a range of only TT+, AJs+ AQo+, then this is a losing call and with all the weird things that people do in 5NL, then it would be break even or maybe slightly better (that is, if bluffs are included in this range). You also shoved in the big blind, so it looks a bit more bluffy.

Either way, even if you're shoving aces or kings every single time then a suited one gapper is a great hand to take down these hands with.
 
n3rv

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He is justifying that it made sense for him to put in $3.30 on a 40% chance of winning $6.72, as in theory he only needs around a 33% chance to break even in the long run.

He is right that this isolated scenario is a +EV call for him.

However, he isn't counting the previous bad decision of the $1.70 that he put in the pot already which is -EV in my opinion.

He also isn't counting that AKo could be in the lower end of your 3betting range which would also be -EV in the long run in my opinion.
 
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LuckyChippy

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The more hands you play the more chances to win. Can't win if you fold.
 
tazer

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First off, you just sat down at the table. Hard to tell ranges. He may have AA and your pushing with AK. Maybe before you push give it a few more hands to try and figure out the ranges and give him the $0.07 for his -EV move.

I could be way wrong in my thinking though.
 
Karozi615

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yeah..obviously he WAS getting immediate calling odds based on his absurdly strange raise
i might have actually considered folding and made a note of the strange raise - if it came up again then I would probably snap shove.

strange plays by unknowns at the micros are always concerning
 
Thinker_145

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First off, you just sat down at the table. Hard to tell ranges. He may have AA and your pushing with AK. Maybe before you push give it a few more hands to try and figure out the ranges and give him the $0.07 for his -EV move.

I could be way wrong in my thinking though.
If you start folding AK pre in 5NL you might as well not play. This hand is the exact scenario which makes a lot of money in the long run. I assure you if the villain had an Ax hand he would play the same way which is even more profitable for the OP.
 
John A

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It was the correct call, but he open raised that big? :)

Don't argue or try and teach fish. Just say NH, reload and move on.
 
WVHillbilly

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Don't argue or try and teach fish. Just say NH, reload and move on.
If you get nothing else from this thread, remember this bit. It's the most important thing anyone said here.
 
tazer

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If you start folding AK pre in 5NL you might as well not play. This hand is the exact scenario which makes a lot of money in the long run. I assure you if the villain had an Ax hand he would play the same way which is even more profitable for the OP.

Still think this case is the one exception to folding it. I've seen AK vs AA lots of times. Not out of the question for someone to blatantly overbet AA trying to get someone to call to where they can get more than a small profit off of it. I think in this case you fold and see a few more hands to find out what kind of player they are. By no means am I saying fold everytime you have AK with a huge overbet though.
 
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DunningKruger

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So you were debating poker strategy with a player who open raised 34% of a full buy in holding J9?
 
LD1977

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... and he calls shoves with it 100% of the time :D
 
Arjonius

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Don't argue or try and teach fish.
Don't try to teach at the table, period. It's a no-win.

If you don't know what you're talking about, you show anyone who knows better that you have a hole in your understanding of the game, one they may be able to exploit.

If you do know, then why do you want to help correct the hole in the other player's game?
 
IntenseHeat

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A lot of good stuff that I agree with here in this thread. It does seem like he got out of line, raising that much with 9-J. But once he's made the raise, the subsequent call, although I would not make it, isn't so god awful.

Although it does seem a bit off the original point of the thread, I must admit that the first line of the OP, "I had a long conversation with a guy on Bovada the other night", caused me to pause and think for a second before continuing. The thought that I had was what were you doing having long conversations with players on Bovada? This is where we have our poker discussions, on CardsChat, not on Bovada, or on any other site, or at any other table. On that point, I must agree with the previously stated sentiment, that you should let bad players continue to play bad. The poker table is not the place for you to be conducting tutorials. Or to put it another way, think about how much your poker knowledge has cost you. So now in addition to the pot this guy just won off you, you're tossing a bonus of some of your hard earned knowledge on top of it.
 
IPlay

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True story, my first week of online poker, I had a monster hand TPGK!!!! I bet 1/3rd pot all the way down so I didnt lose my opponent and I was surprised when he raised me on the river and I snap called with my monster only to see a riverrd flush! I was angry and said "what the hell idiot, why didnt you fold?!?!"

He kindly told me I gave him the correct pot odds to draw and I wss intrigued and Googled these "pot odds" and it is safe to say I found many articles about that and more! Which sped up my learning ten fold thanks to that table coach. Now when I face him Id be damned if I ever give him odds again!

Morale of the story, dont help fish learn faster!
 
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