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To check or not to check - Correct move or bad form?
While normally I'd conform to the check down to see if we can bust the short stack - in this case I chose to bet - considering the chip stack sizes and the fact it was a 6max I felt it was the right thing to do.
One of my opponents disagreed so I said I would post here for feedback.
I guess one valid criticism is I should have just shoved pre and isolated that way.
My thoughts on the flop bet were.
1. If checked down I will probably lose the hand and be very short
2. If I push the others out and isolate the short stack my A could be good against basically any 2 and I would get some chips back from covering the short stack
3. If I get called or shorty is strong the A and inside str8 may give me outs.
| Player | Action | Cards | Amount | Pot | Balance |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| shorty | Small blind | 50.00 | 50.00 | 180.00 | |
| complains | Big blind | 100.00 | 150.00 | 2715.00 | |
| Your hole cards |
| ||||
| X | Call | 100.00 | 250.00 | 4640.00 | |
| Phantom66 | Raise | 300.00 | 550.00 | 915.00 | |
| shorty | All-in | 180.00 | 730.00 | 0.00 | |
| complainer | Call | 200.00 | 930.00 | 2515.00 | |
| X | Call | 200.00 | 1130.00 | 4440.00 | |
| Flop | |||||
| |||||
| complainer | Check | ||||
| X | Check | ||||
| Phantom66 | All-in | 915.00 | 2045.00 | 0.00 | |
| complainer | Fold | ||||
| jlaurie110 | Fold | ||||
| X | Unmatched bet | 915.00 | 1130.00 | 915.00 | |
| shorty | Show |
| |||
| Phantom66 | Show |
| |||
| Turn | |||||
| |||||
| River | |||||
| |||||
| shorty | Win | Two Pairs, Kings and 10s | 920.00 | 920.00 | |
| Phantom66 | Win | Pair of Kings | 210.00 | 1125.00 | |
Comments
12bb stack with 250 dead chips out there - shove preflop and if called you at least have a half decent hand.
As played. No I don't like the shove. They checked to the raiser and could easy have had a better hand than you and called. You tripled up a short stack and gained very little to your own chip stack. Check it down and yes you may lose to one of the others, but the shorty hopefully goes out and you still have a shoveable stack even if y ou are pretty short and fairly desperate to pick up a hand you can shove with.
In short, you risked it all shoving into a draw heavy board against two players that is very likely to be right in their ranges. I see nothing much other than downsides to this play on the flop. Nothing wrong with taking the free card either for that matter when it's on offer and you have that type of hand.
The money in the middle isn't truly "dead" because we've got to assume there's a really, really good chance that the micro-stack is going to call with any two cards. That's not important, though, because AT is well ahead of ATC. We definitely want to fold out the equity of the other, deeper stacks, though, especially after the generous donation from the limper to the pot.
Post-flop, I must agree with Kam; by shoving we're putting ourselves in the position of only being called when we likely have less than 30% equity with our gut-shot and one over. Being multi-way, it's also unlikely that both of our deep opponents have missed a KJX flop, so we can expect to be called most of the time.
We have to remember that we're not even bluffing to win the full pot because we still need our hand to be good against the all-in player. We're bluffing 915 to win 210 while holding only Ace-high in a 920 pot.
I think shoving the flop is just following up one mistake with another. Having not shoved pre-flop, we need to accept that we've made a boo boo and retain fold equity in our stack by taking a free card and giving up if we miss. Otherwise we're putting our stack in the pot on a really bad flop for us and a good flop for our opponents' ranges.
Already agreed it should have been a preflop shove - with stack sizes and being dealt AT I had already decided to raise pf then hesitated over the UTG limp - It should have made the decision easier to shove. Cant really give a valid reason for not shoving pre.
As for post maybe it was a bit tilty compounding the mistake I already I knew I had made.
I felt I had a good chance of pushing off the two checkers - If they had a monster they would normally have bet out.
I think it is fair to assume I that I was ahead of shorty at that point - so don't agree that I was bluffing to win 210 chips - I was bluffing versus 2 players to win the 920 pot.
You suggest if they had a monster they would lead out. What the hell poker have you been playing? They would NEVER lead out if they had a monster. you were the preflop raiser and checking to teh raiser is far more standard than donk betting. They also aren't too likely to bet out a marginal hand on a draw heavy board that will be in everyones range. Anyway, donk bets are not standard so not sure why you think they would lead out against preflop raise.
Second wrong train of thought is you thinking you are bluffing to win 900 pot. You have someone all in, and currently you are ace high. If it was JUST the other two then yes you are bluffing to win a pot, but not when someone is all in already. This means you are bluffing to win the side-pot ONLY, and hoping you are ahead of shorty. Add in the boardd and it likely being in the other two players range you are making a horrible risk/reward shove in my opinion. I would not be surprised with this board and two others checking to teh raiser that 50% of the time your shove gets called.
You may well be ahead of shorty, but as you have no idea of his hand he could well be paired already. Even with ATC he is not that big a dog to your hand after all. You want him OUT, not tripled up at this point. So again the risk reward of bluffing is not really there for me. With a gutshot checking is far wiser being last to act. The others are less likely to bluff at you on turn if you are still missing because of the player all in. It would not make sense for the two larder stacks to do it.
Conventional tournament play (Bounty Hunters excepted maybe) is to check down to bust shorty. Betting out usually means - I have a monster so don't worry shorty is on way out and I am not prepared to check down and have someone else overtake me.
Why would anyone be checking to induce a CB in this situation when in your 2nd point you reiterate that I should be checking down to bust out shorty and not risk tripling them up?
As for what the hell type of poker have I been playing? Winning poker on this exact format and at his exact stake.
I am not defending this as a good move - it's just after not shoving and getting 3 callers I am not sure that shoving here is necessarily much worse than checking down.
The value in getting to 3 handed with a decent stack versus getting 3 handed as the big shorty makes it a risk with some merits.
@Ivanovic It's a 6max £1 STT. 4 players left. Winner gets £3.9, 2nd gets £2.1.
3rd and 4th get nowt.
I was playing to get a realistic shot at 1st or 2nd which I didn't think I would have if checked down and left with 915 chips 3 or 4 handed. Which kind of remakes the point I should have shoved pre.
Having made that mistake - I favoured the aggressive approach post flop.
Not in love with the move but I have been upping the aggression on my 6max play with positive results as per my diary thread.
In this case I won a few extra chips and the shorty was trebled up which made it a poor result.
Don't want it to be results oriented though, genuinely feel it's a close run thing checking vs shoving in that spot.
In fact results wise it worked out well. I won and shorty came 2nd. But to be fair I ran ridiculously well, getting it in bad on 3 occasions and winning when it became shove or fold poker at Level 7 4 handed.
Simple fact is this. Unless the player is nuts he won't donk bet if he hits a monster. Why would he? He already will believe he has the players chips who is all in, and will switch his thoughts to the other two players. He wants to win, and that means knocking you out and taking your chips as well. He will certainly lead out on the turn if it is checked round on the flop, but do NOT assume you will get a donk bet on the flop just because they have a hand to knock out the short-stack - that is crazy to do. They might lead out because the flop has draws and they are protecting their made hand, but that would be the reason, not because of the short-stack.
To put it into odds form, as you mentioned it in your other reply to me. Preflop we know you should have shoved and you would have likely only been up against the shorty with 60-40 equity against ATC. When you raise and get called by all your win chance drops to 33% preflop, and 28% equity on the flop vs 3 random hands. When the two fold when you shove you go back to 60-40 vs ATC, but notice that when the cards go over you have about 28% equity vs 1010.
The fact is that if you make this same play 100 times I will put money on you being called 50% or more of the time. You got yourself in a bit of a hole by not shoving preflop and then forgot to stop digging. Yes, it semi worked for you this time, but long run - which is what matters - this will likely be a leak for you.
Assuming that the villains will donk-bet with their made hands is a dangerous thing to do. Unless we have particular history with these two villains that gives us that confidence, it would be atypical of them to donk with two-pair or better.
That isn't to say that the villains will definitely not donk-bet a monster, but we certainly shouldn't rule those out because they haven't. The stack to pot ratio is very small for the effective stack, who has about twice the pot, and we have less than the value of the pot. So if either villain holds KJ, they don't need three streets of betting to get stacks in. They can check here and still get the lot.
Moreover, neither villain needs to be holding a monster to call us. They just need to hold a King. They're not folding top-pair to our stack if they're happy to go to a flop with it.
On the bolded portion: Again we shouldn't assume that we have a better hand than the short stack. We have no reason to believe that. Even if we did, the shorty is still going to have some equity against us.
So when our semi-bluff is successful in getting through the two deeper stacks, we only gain 100% equity in the small 210 side pot. We cannot gain 100% equity in the 920 main pot.
We're risking getting our remaining 900 chips in the middle as a 30% dog (at best) in order to claim 100% of 210 and an unknown portion of 920.
I don't see any point in posting hands when you know you are right and this is the sort of debate I enjoy.
To Borin yes I only have 28% on the 920 pot as played and its hard to calculate the odds post flop - but I would have to say I am probably still just />50% against any 2. Add the 100% on the 210 and the benefit of almost doubling up myself and busting a player to reach the bubble I would take that every day of the week.
So the real debate is as to whether Kam is right that I am getting called 50% by one of the other 2.
I am not saying the lack of a bet guarantees they don't have a hand, the chance of anyone having a monster is low in any case. My bluff shouldn't look a like a bluff. I was preflop raiser and there is a short stack - that should make my shove look super strong.
I would therefore question the 50% calls - maybe if they are strong mathematical players they will make a call based on equity but at these levels I am not so sure they will happen too often.
Would I do it again - of course not it was a clear preflop shove, unfortunately we don't always do the right thing every time do we.
I still think it's an interesting debate as to the postflop shove - I don't think its a clear cut check down and if I am going out making a mistake I would rather it was an aggressive mistake than a passive one.
Second part of bold: You are only 100% if you are not called. Shoving into three players when you hold about 28% equity is not my idea of wise, but hey they are your hands to play.
Third bold section: You are giving 2:1 pot odds on a call. You may have been preflop raiser but with those odds don't be surprised you get calls with nearly any king. Yes, it may look strong and look like you think you have a hand to bust out the shorty, but doesn't mean they will fold either. It's not like you are going to bust either of them if they call.
I agree about going out on an aggressive move, but not if that move is a mistake. Then it is just a mistake and a leak in your game. And to shrug shoulders over that would be an equal mistake.
Anyway, said my piece now, so I'll leave you to your choice on how to play it, as poker is about lots of choices, and if we all played the same it would be a little more borong of a game.
The shove is +EV, even if we assume we are only 50/50 v short stacks any 2 cards AND we assume we are getting called by someone who has us covered 50% of the time like Kam suggests.
That's not the end of it though, the check down is also +EV of course - assuming it is checked all the way. I have given myself a 25% chance of taking the post to keep it simple. EV is therefore +230.
For the shove option I have assumed 0 callers 50% of the time 1 caller 40% of the time and 2 callers 10% of the time with a 50% chance of winning the pot outright with 0 callers, a 30% chance against 1 caller and a 20% chance against 2 callers.
EV calculated at +231 !
So very marginal and on top of that I think 50% callers is pessimistic - I think larger stacks with a K would bet to protect hand.
Maybe not such an error after all?
I'll be honest, I've not sat down and worked out your EV for this, but given that you hold about 28% equity at the point you shoved and have a high chance of being called and losing everything I doubt I'd find this to be a +EV shove. If you want I'll work it out, but right now I question if you did the sums right? It doesn't look like it if I'm being honest. So if you work it out yourself again remember that if you are called by someone else 50% of the time they will have something and be ahead. Forgetting we know you lose the hand if called. You likely have about 20% equity vs a caller with a made hand of some kind plus the ATC shorty.
So that would be your base as a start. In that 50% of the time you will be just up against shorty with 57% chance of winning the pot. Obviously +ev because you lose nothing more by doing this. However, 50% of the time you will be called and have a 20% chance to win the pot versus losing your stack. If the other player called as well with similar range you'd be down to about 16% to win. And please note I've been optimistic with my figures, not pessimistic. Given your equity I would not be surprised if you were called as much as 50%% of the time by one of them. I was even kind giving both of them random hands, and that would not be likely most of the time either. Giving one a 40% hand range and the other 20% range you could look at calls more than even 60% of time possibly on that board.
Anyway, if you want me to work out the amount i will, just let me know.
@Kam
My calc is here - catered for all 3 possibilities 0 callers (me v allin shorty) 1 caller and 2 callers. We can argue about the probability of being called and maybe even the pwin depending on assumptions on ranges, but I would be most interested to know whether my calc is right or wrong in the first instance.