PLO8 DYM question?

VespaPX

Should have i gone to war with this hand?

Player	Action	Cards	Amount	Pot	Balance
tikay1	Small blind		50.00	50.00	1870.00
chrstina	Big blind		100.00	150.00	1791.25
	Your hole cards	K A 2 2
Whizzewky	Fold
HMS_Amazon	Fold
pompeynic	Raise		350.00	500.00	1750.00
VespaPX	Raise		1200.00	1700.00	893.75
tikay1	Fold
chrstina	Fold
pompeynic	All-in		1750.00	3450.00	0.00
VespaPX	All-in		893.75	4343.75	0.00
pompeynic	Unmatched bet		6.25	4337.50	6.25
pompeynic	Show	K Q A A
VespaPX	Show	K A 2 2
Flop
		7 4 Q
Turn
		9
River
		7
pompeynic	Win high	Two Pairs, Aces and 7s	4337.50		4343.75
	No qualifying low hand

Talon

  Simple answer is no.

   More complex answer. Lets first divide your hand into Hi drawing and Lo drawing.  For the Hi AKs only. 22 is not a realistic option for winning the Hi. For the Lo A2. 

 So you have 1 hand drawing for the Hi and 1 drawing for the Lo. In a raised pot when somebody has shown a large amount of interest (Pot sized raise here which is the max) you can be pretty sure that you will not be in a great position against the range they could have for the Hi. Which just leaves you hoping to get lucky and the Lo come in to get your chips back.

  With nothing invested in the pot this is the easiest pre flop fold you can have. Though this hand looks pretty it is mainly a Lo drawing hand with not a lot going for it for the Hi. 

  This is a hand you should be thinking about raising with but only in an unopened pot. Once there is action before you it should be in the muck as fast as a very fast thing.

  Only my opinion and others may well disagree. But there are so many better spots you can find than this. Especially still 6 handed and you with slightly above average stack.

VespaPX

Thanks Talon
Good answer as always
Cheers

F_Ivanovic

Of course 22 should be counted for the high - a pair of 22's might not win often but a set of 2's could. And we can win with a flush as well. 

In situations like this, all we need is some http://www.propokertools.com/simulations?g=oh to calculate our equity. Because that is all we need to consider in these situations. From doing some equity calculations for our hand against 60%, 30%, 10% and 5% one thing is clear: Our equity is never that good but at the same time it is never that bad either. If opponent is opening 30% of hands then we have 52.90% against that range and if they are opening 10% we have 49.69%. It's only when they are opening 5% of hands are equity drops a bit to 45.21%. And if they are opening as wide as 60% we still only have 53.83%.

Based on this we can determine one thing: Shoving can rarely be that bad. However, the greater our fold equity, the better shoving becomes. If we know opponent is opening v wide but will fold to aggression then this is a great spot to "3-bet bluff" in a sense. We have blockers to potential strong hands they might be opening and we are never in bad shape vs their opening range. If they're opening really tight then they're probably not folding to a shove and we'll be less than 50% making it a bad shove. 

I don't know villains opening % but I do know that usually a pot sized raise from your average villain at these blind levels mean they don't intend to fold. Which means we're basically putting our stack at risk on a coin flip. Basic ICM states that we don't want to be flipping for our SNG life when we only need to cash. It benefits everyone else at the table but us. 

This is somewhat similar to getting AK in holdem and it being a DYM. If someone opens pot and we put their range on AQ/AK and pairs that won't fold, then we are just making a mistake by shoving - we will never be in bad shape but we know we are getting called in a 50/50 spot for our SNG life.

Tikay10

For once, I think I disagree with the Learned Talon.

I'd raise pre every time with that hand if the pot were unopened.
 
If it had been opened already, no, though that's player dependent. Mostly I fold, but if the guy opens light a lot, I would re-pot it. I'd never repot it against the villain here, if he raises pre, he usually has the Aces. 

The talk of what we are beating, & Ivan's "equities", is fair & correct, but that ASSUMES we get called. If we get 50% of these bets through un-called, the odds our opponent has effectively halve.*
 
* I'm not explaining that very well. In NLH, we all say that A-K is (roughly) 50-50 v any pair from Q-Q down. But that's only true if we get called every time we jam, & we don't. If we force folds 50% of the time, our long-term odds are actially much better, say, 75%-25%. 

I think Vespa was a tad unlucky here. We don't walk into Aces every hand, & most of the time, we win pre, as played. Though once the guy had opened in front of us, the position becomes a lot more marginal.  

 

Tikay10

I would MUCH rather see Vespa keep raising pre, than doing the limpy-wimpy thing which so many do.

We win in PLO8 by pressurising others, by forcing marginals to fold. OK, we over-step sometimes, but I'd still rather him raise too often, than not often enough.  

F_Ivanovic

* I'm not explaining that very well. In NLH, we all say that A-K is (roughly) 50-50 v any pair from Q-Q down. But that's only true if we get called every time we jam, & we don't. If we force folds 50% of the time, our long-term odds are actially much better, say, 75%-25%.

Don't worry tikay, I know what you mean!! 

I did make the same point in my post though. If villain is opening say 20% or more and is folding quite often to a re-raise then shoving here is a great play because we win every time it gets through and if we get called we usually have 50% equity on average. The way to work out the ev of this spot is quite simple. Firstly, we work out how often villain folds: Suppose it's 50% of the time.

Then, we work out our ev when villain folds which is +500. Then we work out our ev when villain calls: Since our equity is about 50%, then our ev is basically just half the blinds, so +75. So 50% of the time our ev is 500 and 50% of the time it is 75. Total ev is 500+75/2 = +277.5

This ignores ICM considerations though.

gerardirl

I think when we see nics hand its easy to say no you should not have went to war with that hand....however you didnt know nics hand.

I think I would base my decision on who was raising you, your stack and the level ....more so than just basing it on your hand. 

I'd most likely have called and made a decision after the flop.

Ger