Roy West's Poker Insight-Post Flop Play

[Makwa]

What he said was "you don't want the chaser folding", And I disagree with that. You don't want someone in a hand that could out draw you. Unless you like posting in the bad beat and vent threads

If you dont want anyone in a hand that can outdraw you, you better quit playing poker, because almost every hand has possibilities for bad beats.
It is obvious you are not familiar with Sklansky and other expert writer/players, but you should at least be aware that most of the forum posters ARE aware of the reasoning behind winning poker play, which involves letting or making people make mistakes oddswise, while you dont make those same mistakes. Long run, that's what makes a winning player -- not having the top hand and then hoping everyone folds.

 

[Makwa]

Your argument is sound, just on the wrong side. If the pot has 500 in it, and you are sitting with AcAs and the board has 3d Qd 8s and the turn is 10d, you do not want to bet 100 and let him get those kind of odds to call. You bet the pot or more, make him pay or fold. you be 50, 100 or 150 he is going to call. and you are risking a 500 chip pot to try to get another 100? where are the odds in that?

Right, you bet enough so he is getting wrong odds to call, and if he does call, he has made a mistake. He may beat you, but again, oddswise in the long run, these situations will be profitable for you, call or fold.

 

[Cowboy8112]

Right, you bet enough so he is getting wrong odds to call, and if he does call, he has made a mistake. He may beat you, but again, oddswise in the long run, these situations will be profitable for you, call or fold.

And that is what the OP said

 

[ph_il]

I disagree, I suck out on the river has been the source of many an ulcer. You want the chaser to fold up shop and go home. A pot won on the turn is much better than one that has been lost on the river.

I apologize for the long post...

Zach is probably going to answer this much better than I will. I'm not too good at explaining math and calculations. I'm sure I have some errors that he will kindly fix (rite, Zach?), but hopefully the point gets across.

If you're opponent is chasing their draws with the improper odds, you do not want them to call because it'll be more profitable for you in the long term. Whats the point of getting them to fold on the turn if you can gain extra bets from an opponent by the river?

Let say there is $10 in the pot by the turn and you bet $6. Your opponent has to call $6 to win a pot of $16, which is giving him 2.7:1 odds to call but the odds of him hitting the flush on the river is 4.1:1 or 19.6%

You can win a $22 pot 80% of the time or a $10 pot 100% of the time. $22 x .80 = $17.6. $17.60-$10 = extra $7.6 you are losing.

So, lets say we do this situation 100 times. Assuming there is no betting on the river, you stand to either win an extra $6 from your opponent 80.4% of the time and you will lose $6 19.6% of the time. Your opponent will win a $6 bet by you 19.6% of the time, but will lose $6 80.4% of the time.

You:
$6 x 100 = $600 (total cost)
$6 x 20 = $120 (lose)

$600-$120 = $480 in profits from extra bets.

Lets look how much you can from the total pot of $22, assuming there is no more betting on the river.

You:
$22 x 100 = $2200
$22 x 20 = $440 (lose)
$2200-$440 = $1760 in profits

Now, you'd rather win the pot on the turn right now and not gain any extra best from your opponent. Lets look at this situation x 100

$10 x 100 = $1000 won. This is nice, but you are losing a lot of money by not betting out. In the above example of betting $6 into a $10 pot, you gain $480 in just extra bets alone from your opponent. Where as you gain $0 in extra bets by making your opponent fold. If we compare the total pot you can win after 100x. $1760 (in profits after $6 call) - $1000 (no extra bet) = $760 in potential money lost. Imagine if we ran the same situation 1000x or 10Kx. Think of how much money you are losing in the long run.

Sure, you can win a small pot now but you are losing so much money in the long run if that is your way of thinking. If you can get your opponent to call your bets with improper odds, you stand to make more money.

 

[cAPSLOCK]

I'll play a little devils advocate here.

Insofar as poker has become a game of coinflipping there is no argument against this question. But I don't see the game as being quite this black and white.

Causing a chasing player to fold his draw is +EV for smoothing out variance. (Why would the pros run the river more than once in a big cash pot?)

Causing a chasing player to fold his draw is +EV for setting good strong table image.

Causing a chasing player to fold his draw is good strategy for staying live in a tournament, when the river held a card that would kill you.

Betting in the way Roy West proposes at the beginning of this thread is a way to set yourself in a win/win situation.

Sure, over infinity our chaser is going to pay us off... but forcing him to fold is also a desirable outcome. One which wins us the pot.

One of Doyle's famous sayings is "This ain't solitaire boys". I would submit it isn't exactly flipping coins or just statistics either.

cAPS

 

[Makwa]

Wow this is a fun thread. Thanks Roy.
I vote for Sticky status...

 

[zachvac]

What he said was "you don't want the chaser folding", And I disagree with that. You don't want someone in a hand that could out draw you. Unless you like posting in the bad beat and vent threads

Stacks start at 100 BBs, say it's a cash game. I have AK, opponent raises 3 BBs and I make it 10 BBs to go, he calls. 20 BBs in the pot (let's just ignore the extra 1/2 or 1 BB from the blinds), and 90 behind. Flop comes K73 rainbow. We bet 18, he calls. Pot = 56 BBs, 72 behind. Turn comes 5d, putting 2 diamonds on the board. We bet 44 into the pot. We know he has a flush draw. You say you want a fold, correct? Let's break it down:

He calls: pot= 144 BBs, stacks=28. He has 9 outs and is ~20% to win.

When he wins say we pay him off every time, so he wins 100 BBs from us when he wins but we only win what's in the pot, 144 BBs, resulting in a +72 BBs when we win.

.8*72 - .2*100 = 37.6 BBs

He folds: we win a pot of 56 BBs, our profit is half of that, or 28 BBs.

So I'd rather be able to post the vents 20% of the time, knowing that in the long run I'm making an extra 9.6 BBs every time I make that play.

 

[zachvac]

heh Philthy beat me to it

 

[rileyl]

Caps, I understand what you are saying but the point of NL Holdem isn't to win pots, it's too make money.

Philthy, your right about what your trying to say I'm not sure about the math and of course your ignoring the future bets and therefore implied odds which are way more important the pot odds in NL. I don't feel like getting into equations right now so I'm just going to sum this up with one statement:

If your opponent has a hand that is 4:1 to hit and we are offering him 2:1 pot odds we want a call way more then a fold. The one thing you have to be careful of, though, is making sure that your not offering him too high of implied odds which can make his call correct.

 

[ph_il]

Philthy, your right about what your trying to say I'm not sure about the math and of course your ignoring the future bets and therefore implied odds which are way more important the pot odds in NL.

The only reason why I ignored future bets and implied odds is to simplify the point I was trying to make.

 

[Brann6]

I have no stats to back this up, only observation, but in online tournaments and SNGs it seems many, many players will chase their draws regardless of odds.

This is actually ideal in terms of BOTH sides of the discussion as these chasers, more often than not, fold to a river bet after having called almost pot-sized bets on the flop and turn. Even better is when they catch some part of the board on the river and call you down with third pair.

 

[Makwa]

Stacks start at 100 BBs, say it's a cash game. I have AK, opponent raises 3 BBs and I make it 10 BBs to go, he calls. 20 BBs in the pot (let's just ignore the extra 1/2 or 1 BB from the blinds), and 90 behind. Flop comes K73 rainbow. We bet 18, he calls. Pot = 56 BBs, 72 behind. Turn comes 5d, putting 2 diamonds on the board. We bet 44 into the pot. We know he has a flush draw. You say you want a fold, correct? Let's break it down:

He calls: pot= 144 BBs, stacks=28. He has 9 outs and is ~20% to win.

When he wins say we pay him off every time, so he wins 100 BBs from us when he wins but we only win what's in the pot, 144 BBs, resulting in a +72 BBs when we win.

.8*72 - .2*100 = 37.6 BBs

He folds: we win a pot of 56 BBs, our profit is half of that, or 28 BBs.

So I'd rather be able to post the vents 20% of the time, knowing that in the long run I'm making an extra 9.6 BBs every time I make that play.

It's a thing of beauty, zach...

Of course thats a situation where you are both stacked pretty much. If you had, say 280BBs behind, with implied odds, what would the equation look like?

 

[ph_il]

heh Philthy beat me to it

You explain it better, IMO.

...I gave the bootleg explanation.

 

[zachvac]

It's a thing of beauty, zach...

Of course thats a situation where you are both stacked pretty much. If you had, say 280BBs behind, with implied odds, what would the equation look like?

Implied odds get messy, because obviously we're not stacking off when the flush hits, so I'd have to make some arbitrary decisions on bet sizes we'd call/not call, and I was too lazy to do that .

I was just pointing out an example where they do not have implied odds to chase regardless, and where we obviously do NOT want a fold.

 

[Makwa]

Implied odds get messy, because obviously we're not stacking off when the flush hits, so I'd have to make some arbitrary decisions on bet sizes we'd call/not call, and I was too lazy to do that .

Well, sooner or later you should do a book of equations and summaries, built around problems found at CC and elsewhere, like HOH but with all the math behind (In big color fonts for dummies). Bet you would sell a whack of em.

 

[cAPSLOCK]

Caps, I understand what you are saying but the point of NL Holdem isn't to win pots, it's too make money.

Indeed. Of course I am familiar with this quote and idea. And I agree with it.

My point is that "making money" is more than odds over time. Strategy, image, variance tolerance (tilt), and psychology are all part too.

Also, I did say I was playing Devil's Advocate. You can't argue the idea that opponents who call their draws with the wrong odds are profitable in the end.

One other thing. online poker has changed the game profoundly.

Isolation, speed, ability to multitable, datamining, and live statistic collection have reduced poker to some extent to being more just statistics, coinflips and rolls of the dice.

But some things never change. Poker is still poker and it's played by people. As long as that is true it will always be more complicated than just the numbers.

 

[ButtonDog]

From my experience I can tell you that if they have just a 25% chance of hitting that flush they are going to hit it 100% of the time.

Now how can I avoid having my Full Houses beaten about 20 times in the month of September?

 

[Cowboy8112]

From my experience I can tell you that if they have just a 25% chance of hitting that flush they are going to hit it 100% of the time.

Now how can I avoid having my Full Houses beaten about 20 times in the month of September?

If you are getting your Boats beat by flushes, you may want to find a new site to play at

 

[jaymfc]

The flop comes XXX rainbow. Seventy Five percent of the time, the turn card will quite possible give the 'ol flush chasers the flush draw they've been looking for.

how did this ^^^^ turn into this vvvv

Sorry, but your opponent isn't going to pick up a flush draw 75% of the time on the turn

jane explained it but like roy everyone made her think she was wrong .
if three suits are on board then there's a 75% chance that one of the three suits will come on the turn , making a flush draw possible

Jane,

This is a bit of an extreme response, imo.

If RW can get a point across in a magazine he can surely get it across on a forum, even if it takes some effort and /or time due to technological concerns.

No one is going to get a pass here saying things that are that sloppy, especially a professional player known to be an articulate writer.

^^ this imo
but am I really to believe you're a professional poker player and your guide to people trying to learn the game is to bet to try to get people to fold a backdoor flush draw? No offense meant, but this seems kinda naive.

First of all, Roy, I wanna say I'm a big fan of your articles from Card Player Magazine. However, its pretty apparent that you spent a while longer preparing those articles than this one...

As some of my fellow posters have pointed out, your article seems a bit sloppy. I hope you'll stick around, but I also hope that you'll explain things a little better/accurately.

open forum discussion ? not in my opinion , more like condecending BS.
it makes me LMAO but it isn't funny. I agree with jane . jmo , no offense

 

[zachvac]

open forum discussion ? not in my opinion , more like condecending BS.
it makes me LMAO but it isn't funny. I agree with jane . jmo , no offense

How is it condescending? We both asked if he could explain it a bit better. I didn't believe that he meant what he wrote. I wasn't even trying to say he was wrong, I was asking for him to clarify. Neither response was condescending imo, they were asking for him to clarify, because neither of us believed that he meant what we thought he was saying.

 

[ChuckTs]

Mr. West made a very misleading point with the %75 remark. Betting pot every time a draw is possible is a very easy way to play incorrectly in tons of situations. Just look at ba/wb spots.

People weren't snide or condescending at all - they simply corrected him. Suck it up people, we're allowed to correct people who post incorrect information. Especially when they're introduced as pros and some more novice players may be accepting everything they spout as absolute truth.

 

[dufferdevon]

Does this situation really come up that often.

You have QQ
Villain has Jh 8h

flops comes 6h 3s Tc

Are we really worrying that a heart is coming on the turn? Are there people that stick around hoping to hit runner runner hearts? I am all for betting enough to give villain the wrong odds to call but if they are sticking around for that kind of draw, they aren't going to last very long anyway.

 

[dj11]

While I appreciate AG's concern for clarity, I think I would favor Roy's side of the discussion. As I read it, he is discussing a very specific situation, where you have a made hand and you feel that villain is drawing to the river. He states that you would want to put the screws to villain, and in essence AG says the same thing, make villain make a bad call, regardless of whether or not he sucks out.

 

[KMC1828]

How is it condescending? We both asked if he could explain it a bit better. I didn't believe that he meant what he wrote. I wasn't even trying to say he was wrong, I was asking for him to clarify. Neither response was condescending imo, they were asking for him to clarify, because neither of us believed that he meant what we thought he was saying.

The responses were condescending because of the manner in which you and AG responded. At least imo. When I first read the thread my first thought was "damn they're being harsh."

 

[twizzybop]

Wow! walked , well sort of into a (bleep) storm.

Roy's article is just fine. I remember a saying, probably not the exact quote but it is actually from one of the Poker Video Games that at times play. Talking with friends about hands or in this case cards or cards to come in general. Well there are times that there is more than 1 correct way to play certain hands.

I like the topic and paragraph because it is just general and lets us talk about this general thing called hold-em.

P.S about the harshness, that isn't harsh and if indeed it was, one just needs report it and mostly the post is pulled and/or taken care of by the moderators.