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Should I be folding pre?
PlayerActionCardsAmountPotBalancePlayer 1Small blind £0.02£0.02£5.35Player 2Big blind £0.04£0.06£4.04 Your hole cards66 Player 3Fold Player 4Call £0.04£0.10£4.63Player 5Call £0.04£0.14£2.31ItzJoshRaise £0.20£0.34£3.90Player 1Raise £0.42£0.76£4.93Player 2Call £0.40£1.16£3.64Player 4Fold Player 5Fold ItzJoshCall £0.24£1.40£3.66
My raise to 20p seemed pretty standard following 2 limp calls with a pocket pair. I was calling P1s raise to 42p up until P2 called it. The thought was that more often than not at this stage, I'm going to be behind with a mid pocket pair - was this right and should I have folded?
Flop 46J Player 1Bet £0.70£2.10£4.23Player 2Call £0.70£2.80£2.94ItzJoshCall £0.70£3.50£2.96
I hit the 6, thought about raising but instead went for the call. Unless someone had pocket Js or was to hit a flush later on, I was always going to be ahead. Standard play again I think?
Turn 2 Player 1Bet £2.63£6.13£1.60Player 2All-in £2.94£9.07£0.00ItzJoshAll-in £2.96£12.03£0.00Player 1All-in £1.60£13.63£0.00Player 1Unmatched bet £1.27£12.36£1.27
And now, of course - everyone goes crazy! I'm only beaten if someone has 35 to make a straight (highly unlikely at this stage), if someone has pocket Js or if someone is looking to hit a flush on the river. Before going all in, I had one of the two on a high pocket pair - the other, I didn't really think about (something I need to improve).
I only thought about someone hitting the flush after I went all in. Looking back, it was very likely that they were looking for it. How often will the card they're looking for come out? I'm guessing I was right to do what I did, it seemed pretty simple at the time.
Player 1ShowAA Player 2Show10J ItzJoshShow66
I was right to have someone on a high pocket pair, that's not really worrying me unless another A comes out. The real worry and the point at which I realized was P2 being able to hit the flush.
River 7 ItzJoshWinThree 6s£11.43 £11.43
Luckily, a blank came out - seeing as nobody is really going to go this far with pocket 7s, 58 or 35.
It's great to have won the hand but just because I did so, doesn't mean I played it as I should have. The main question is should I have folded pre-flop after the raise to 42p and the call following it? I've not been playing poker 'seriously' (as in real money) for that long so there may be some other places where I should have done something different.
I'm going to make a habit of looking back at my hands whether I win or lose so I'll probably be posting a lot more for you to look at. I also have 4/5 weeks to pass before I start uni so I might be starting a diary for you all to read. If you've got one yourself, just shout as I'd love to have a look through it!
Cheers, Josh!
Comments
So I like that you're raising, in position, with the pair against two limpers. This will let you win the pot a lot of the time with what will likely become a marginal hand post-flop by just making a standard continuation bet on good flops. Also, on the occasions that you do hit your set (not trips, btw) the pot will be bigger and it will be easier to win more monies. Also, you might just get them all to fold pre-flop, which would be good. Happy with that, then.
The question of whether you should fold to the 3-bet is one we need to look at. You're getting direct odds of nearly 5:1 and our implied odds are very good with so much money in everyone's stacks. Our odds of flopping the set are 7.5:1, so we need to be able to win at least 7.5 times more than the value of the call to make the call viable. In reality we want this number to be no lower than about 12 times the value of the call because we need to account for the times we don't get all the money in the middle and the times when our set is not the best hand.
Bear in mind that set-mining is more profitable against players with strong ranges and in this situation we're facing a player who has 3-bet, out of position and his raise size does not indicate that he wants us to fold. This means his range is likely to be very strong. We hope he has something like AA or KK because he's more likely to pay us off with those hands if we hit our set.
In this situation, we have implied odds of well over 12:1 against the effective stack, and we're looking at someone with a very strong range. The other player in the pot makes this an even better spot to set-mine because of the additional money he's putting in the pot and because we're more likely to get paid post-flop when we have two opponents than when we have only one. Even better than that, we're in position so we'll get to act last on every street. That makes getting value from our hand so, so much easier. This is the perfect set-mining situation, so the call is good.
On the flop it's a relatively small bet and a call on a reasonably dry flop, so I wouldn't like to raise. There's a good chance that at least one of our opponents is playing an overpair but we don't want to push anyone out of the hand when we're holding the effective nuts. Taking the chance that a spade might hit on the turn to cost us our customer or mean that we're going to go behind, is a reasonable chance to take. A spade will only hit roughly one time in five. If we call this flop bet it will leave the pot as bigger than the effective stacks, meaning that a single bet on the turn will let us get it all-in. Since we're in position we'll get to see what our opponents do before we act and, depending on the suit of the turn, we'll be able to easily get the lot in the middle or not, as we so choose.
So I like the flat call on the flop and on this blank turn we should be delighted to get it all-in with what will be the best hand a huge majority of the time.
Don't worry about the flush draws. You want to get it all-in against those hands if you can because they're only going to hit that flush about 20% of the time on the river.
Pre, personally I dont see a profit long term going for the raise to 20p with low/mid pps stick to 12p max imo. Even if you make your set with the smaller pot (due to betting 12p rather than 20p) you can still make this up with an overbet continutation, and most draws/top pair hands will still call you down. Players are lolbad here for the mostpart.
Now, when they have reraised your 20p bet you are pretty much always behind. Should you be calling when you know you are behind for the times you make a set? imo no.
Flop, call is ok, I would tend to the raise though. Why? well, they have re raised your 20p bet pre, this pretty much puts them on (speaking from a lot of experience) QQ/KK/AA possibly maybe (but rarely) AKs/TT/JJ. You have a great chance to get it in here before a scare card slowws them down.
Turn, fine obv
1) You suggest making it 12p over the two limpers with small pairs. Is this the same amount you'd make it with your entire raising range?
2) Can you explain why you wouldn't set-mine against the 3-bet?
2) Depends how much they have raised it. Call here might be ok as 2 players are in the hand thus was can win £8 maximum from a 40p risk.
Hey Mate, you know player one has Aces or Kings maybe queen, when he put's in this min raise, it is always kings or aces amongst so many players that play this level.
You get to spot them some min raise (when they have not been active at all) other people that have Aces or kings would go to about 70-80.
On the flop we have the second nuts, there has been a raise and a call, we can slow play it here as played.
But with 2 customers i would be looking at getting this in on the flop, and if we don't manage to get in on the flop then definatly a non spade turn card.
1) We have lots of action, we know we are most likely getting called in 1 spot
2) We want to charge people for their flush draws.
With the preflop action, i am confident player 1 has a monster and is not folding. Seldome are people going to fold an overpair.
I can#t see your stack but raise it by about 80p, hoping some1 shoves. If they just call, then ship the turn (if they havnt bet again)
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Re pre flop raise, love the raise, punish the limpers, when we are min raised, have to call to set mine, but as HH said fold most boards when we dont improve.
Imo, we should be trying to get this in on the flop. But no biggy, both lines are fine/ call or raise.
Raise the flop for me. unless 3tone.
just because you say the villain shouldnt be concerned, doesnt mean that they arent.
This is 4nl, people dont use many levels of thinking.
If you have a chance to get it in and likely be paid off. Pull the trigger!
Thanks for the detailed responses folks! Sorry I haven't responded sooner, I've been keeping myself busy to keep my mind off A-levels results day - which is tomorrow... so I also apologize for if parts of this post don't make sense!
I think that without being able to see what the others have on the flop, maybe just a call is the right move - or maybe a min raise as calcafold has said would be best. At the time, I obviously will have wanted to keep both customers so saw the call as the right move - which is what I think hhyftrftdr is getting at. In fact, after reading over Larson's post again I now think a raise would be the right move.
I guess that's one of the brilliant things about poker, there's never a 100% perfect way to play a hand! Also, thanks for the tip regarding P2's min raise pre, Larson. I'll keep a look out for that on the 4NL tables.
BorinLoner, thanks for the time put in to your post! I understand odds and implied odds when they're explained but at the table, I have no idea. I obviously play by odds, but only through a gut feeling (if that makes sense) - there's no maths involved in my decisions. Should I be looking to learn this sort of stuff or does it not make that much of a difference? Obviously it's good to know and understand, but is it something I should be looking into now, rather than later?
Wow, my mind really must be a mess ahead of tomorrow! That could simply have been put as is it noticeably going to change my game?
Anyway, thanks for all your responses - it's great to have your help! As I said in my OP, I'm going to be starting a diary so hopefully you'll find that when I start it. I'll also have a better shot at replying to you all again tomorrow when results are over and done with. If I'm nowhere to be seen, you know I've done terrible!
Wish me luck, night!
In Response to Re: Should I be folding pre?:
1) Okay, you're probably right that most players at NL4 won't notice that your raise size is dependent on the strength of your hand, and we should be adapting to our opponents' weaknesses. However;A) At all levels we should be thinking about the characteristics of our particular opponents. Not coming up with plans to "beat the level" but rather coming up with ways to exploit the individual.
So in a vacuum, as this hand is, we should be trying to keep our range balanced because our opponents are unknown to us (Maybe not to the OP but we haven't been given any information on them). In other words, we shouldn't assume that our opponent is definitely a calling station when we don't know that he is. We also shouldn't assume that he and other players at the table are not watching and are unable to adapt. If we make it 12p over two limpers with 66 and 20p over two limpers with AA, eventually someone is going to notice. There's a decent chance they won't adapt to it very well but all of them are trying to learn and we don't want to offer even the newest of players any information that we don't need to.
The reasons I'd prefer to raise to 20p are simple:
i) When we raise to 12p over two players who've limped for 4p, we know there is virtually no possibility of winning the pot pre-flop. We want to give ourselves some chance of taking it down pre-flop because our hand is very likely to be a marginal one after the flop. We also make it more likely that we'll go short-handed to the flop and our chances of winning the pot with a c-bet are much better facing fewer opponents.
ii) We actually don't mind being called to go two or three-handed to a flop if we're in position and can take it down with a c-bet even when we miss. Obviously if we make it 20p pre-flop the pot is bigger post-flop and we win more with our c-bet. The pot being bigger post-flop, when we know we'll take it down a large proportion of the time in position, is a good thing for us.
Obviously we can still hit our set but it's easier to take the pot down when we miss if we increase our raise pre-flop. When we see a flop against weak ranges, such as those of two limp-callers, it's less likely that we'll get paid big when we hit our set. So taking lots of pots down with c-bets in these situations is likely to be more profitable in the long-run than just hoping to flop a set against weak ranges.
Besides all that, it's a terrible habit to get into to regularly have an unbalanced range. It means that when we want to move up, we have to re-learn the game because our opponents won't be as predictable and they will find our play to be very predictable. As a rule, just doing what the "most successful" players at NL4 are doing isn't a great idea. Most (not all) of these players would like to move up but haven't developed the skills they need.
2) The relevant amount we're talking about calling to set-mine is 24p, not the full 44p. Our odds of flopping a set are 7.5:1 (12%) so we need to have combined odds somewhat greater than that value. We can't really assume that our implied odds are for the full amount of the two opposing stacks, because most of the time the two players won't both put the lot in. Even if they do, our equity is going to be reduced in comparison to getting it in against just one opponent.
The most important opponent is the 3-better. His range is much stronger than the other villain's so he's the one we're most likely to get it in against post-flop. We're also likely to be in a stronger equity position versus him because his range is going to include lots of overpairs, whereas the other villain's range for getting it in on the flop contains quite a few drawing hands. The 3-better's stack has us covered, so ours is the effective stack.
Our combined odds are roughly:
5:1 pot odds + 15:1 implied odds = 20:1
To break even from a set-mine we know we need to have combined odds of 7.5:1. In reality, this number needs to be higher because we won't always win when we flop our set and we can't be sure that we'll get all of the money. So, generally speaking, I would never set-mine with combined odds of less than 12:1. The closer we get to this lower limit, the more certain we have to be that we will get paid - We need our opponent's range to be particularly narrow. The wider our opponent's range, the higher our combined odds need to be.
Here, we believe the 3-better's range to be very narrow and we have combined odds of 20:1 against his stack. Add in the third player (even though we'd expect him to only get it in with better equity than the 3-better) and we believe it's very likely that we'll get it in if we hit our set. I think this an archetypal situation for a set-mine.
So the biggest problem with a spade potentially hitting the turn is that it might scare our opponents out of paying us off. However, we know the turn is going to be something other than a spade nearly four times out of five. I think it's better to take that chance here, especially because we know we only need one more bet to get it all-in, because the stacks are smaller than the size of the pot.
The biggest problem with raising this flop is that it is so dry, with the only high card being a Jack, and we don't actually know that either of our opponents is strong here. If we just call, the pre-flop raiser could continue bluffing the turn or, if he's holding AK, he could hit that Ace or King. If we raise, we'll force him to fold those types of hands and we may force the other villain to fold too. After all, we've only seen a half-pot bet and a call on this flop. We can't be sure that either of them has anything to get it in with on this flop.
The difference between raising this flop and calling is probably only small, but I think it's definitely better to flat and give our opponents a chance to bet again on the turn.
Regarding working the numbers out at the table: It's not that important to be precise. If you learn the odds, the chances of making your hand and have a rough idea when you're on the table, that's all that matters. So if you're thinking of set-mining at the table, you don't need to work out "I'm getting combined odds of precisely 14.445639:1" or anything like that. The best thing to do is just work out if your combined odds are significantly greater than 10x the amount of your call.
So if you need to call 20p and you can win £3.50 total, you know you're fine to do it. If you need to call 20p and your combined odds are £1.50, you know you're not fine to do it.
As long as you don't assume that the only thing to do with small pairs is to try to see a flop and hit a set, you'll be fine. That's a big mistake relative novice players tend to make. You don't want to see a cheap flop, you want to win the hand.
EDIT: Ignore all the times I've said "just over one time in five" about the spade hitting the turn. Of course it's a little under one time in four. I lazily thought about the odds as though we knew someone was on the draw. The logic of the argument remains the same, however.
Good luck with the A-Level results.