Daily Hand Quiz

the tired sleepy lazy 3 am at work version of myself says blast him. bullying big stack sometimes needs to get its hand slapped. our raise easily looks like simple blind pressure. there’s almost no way he can call unless he’s got the goods, and if this is the one time a bully wakes up with a primo hand well then good for him. also, we have almost no post flop plan. unless we have a sick read, we cannot take multiple bets. also we’re going to get a bunch of over cards. raising turns our hand into a bluff, which if we’re going to do we may as well do it preflop and put it all in, and save the post flop trouble. hoping for a set is silly, because his image suggests he has no hand of worth that is going to pay us off anyway.

he’s asking if we’re sure we have the best hand, and i’m more than damn convinced we have the best hand right now, so let’s help him out and give him the message.

arrr-in. his image and stack-size say he cannot call this unless he has the pure goods, and that’s a chance i’m more than willing to take. folding is outrageous, we have zero reason to think we are behind. And if we fold right here, then that means next time we have a small pair on the button we may as well just be open folding it, which is beyond ridiculous. calling is going to be very expensive, insecure, and scary to continue. 4 betting gives him the chance to put us all in, which we don’t want at all. so arr-in makes the most sense. if he has ace high, thank you very much, if he has a higher pair, well thats a cold shot baby… yeah that’s a drag. but he’s not supposed to have a hand here, so proceed just like expected.

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Voted call, but the pirate poker logic won me over (whether I have 66 or AJs). Arrr-in!

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I fold. 4-betting is thin, calling is not an option. Yes, he could be restealing because we raised from the button, sure, but still the stack sizes are awkward and it’s really difficult to play small PPs postflop in bloated pots.

I have an issue with our raise size. 3X is too big with high blinds and antes. I prefer a smaller raise to around 6K. It has the same effect but we lose less when we raise/fold so it gives us a better price on our steals, and it keeps stacks a little bit deeper if we get flatted. In position we want a high stack-to-pot ratio, all things being equal.

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John Kugelman Reply:
December 3rd, 2010 at 7:14 am

I should expand upon “calling is not an option”. Flatting 3-bets is a bad habit lots of players have. You don’t want to fold, you don’t want to re-raise, so you flat.

Being in a 3-bet pot without the betting initiative is usually an unprofitable spot. There are few flops where we’re comfortable continuing with our hand, yet we’re not at all getting the right price to set mine. I like 4-betting much better than flatting the 3-bet. It’s not a bad idea to remove “calling 3-bets” from your poker vocabulary.

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don Reply:
December 3rd, 2010 at 9:21 am

I get your point but think that folding to min-raises (which this basically is) carries a useful principle to an extreme.

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_CityBorn_ Reply:
December 3rd, 2010 at 9:24 am

i think removing the option to call 3-bets from your arsenal is a silly idea. i stopped reading the quiz the minute i saw the 66/aj discrepency so i wont comment on the quiz itself, but i like to see the logic being presented by solid posters and use it as food for thought.

heres a forum post at twoplustwo about a 5/10 player crushing the live game. one of his strategies the OP picked up on was that he ALWAYS flat called when facing a 3-bet. Every strategy has pros and cons. my point here is that eliminating any option is a bad idea. using all options in appropriate spots or with a properly calculated strategy is a good idea.

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/170/live-low-stakes-nl/crushing-5-10-nl-915767/

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samo Reply:
December 3rd, 2010 at 10:47 am

I agree, but think this may be a case where calling is a viable option for a few reasons. First, the implied odds for set-mining exist (30K pot + EFS 105K). Secondly, we have position. Third, we have a made hand (assuming 66, not AJ).

If we call and the V has over-cards (example), they will hit the flop ~1/3 of the time. We can then let them lead and come over the top – EV+ yes?. On the other hand, a 4-bet PF folds-out this type of hand (overs) and we lose that extra flop bet. If we run into a bigger hand we are fried either way.

Not saying I would call, but think it should be a consideration in this scenario.

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don Reply:
December 3rd, 2010 at 12:15 pm

I prefer callling in position over folding to a min-raise (which this essentially is)

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Well at first I was with the General and all in sounded pretty good. Then I kinda changed my mind. We have a really nice stack here even if we fold, so I’d hate to risk it all and possibly go out this deep with pocket 6s preflop. And I have a question for everyone that thinks it would be a bad idea to flat his 3 bet. Don’t we have good pot odds to call? Theres about 30K in the pot and we have to put in about 10K to call. Isn’t that 3 to 1 on our money or am I calculating wrong? And even though we will most likely have tough decisions with any cards that come out except for a six, we will be in position. Thoughts?

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general johnson jameson Reply:
December 3rd, 2010 at 10:24 am

Pot Odds no longer matter when it becomes a bloated 3 bet pot. Position doesn’t matter a whole lot either, because we have a hand that cannot handle more bets if we do not take initiative of the hand. We have one of those hands that gets worse and worse with every single card that comes out.

Say we call. And we see a flop, lets say 2 overs an an under. The only way we can continue calling is if we believe he has only ace high, and this will require one hell of a soul read, because any and all overs will be scary because he easily could have raised with A7, A9, etc.

And also, if he bets the flop, it is way more likely he is betting with something on the flop than he is right now. So, since we are positive we are ahead now, but flop cards and a bet basically make us have to throw our hand away, the sensible thing to do would be apply the pressure back. Its just way more likely he’s betting with nothing now, than if he bets out on the flop. So shut it down. His image matches his action perfectly, and if this is the one time he actually has a hand, so be it, it happens. But if we’re going to open raise/fold 66 on the button to a predictable raise from a predictable image, then next time we had better be open folding everything that isn’t TT+, because that is pretty weak garbage poker.

Calling doesn’t apply pressure, and it doesn’t win pots. And why we would ever want to allow this hand to see a flop against a guy that can knock us out is a very poor idea, so either folding or all-in is the only real idea. Calling just lets our hand become worse and worse 1 more card and bet at a time, which is pointless.

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I HATE this quiz. Not because it’s bad, but because it reminds me of how much I hate playing small PPs. And it’s not that I don’t understand the theory behind the plays (which you guys have already done a pretty good job of detailing above).
It’s just that I seem to have some innate ability to pick the wrong play almost EVERY DAMN TIME. It doesn’t seem to matter if I limp, raise small, raise big, shove, etc… it always feels like I picked the move that would work every time except that one. And of course, if I fold them pre, I always flop a boat. I call it the curse of the small PP.

Okay, enough of my bad beat (or bad play) venting – in the above quiz, I think we made the right play by raising pre and I think we probably have the best hand right now. I see this as a fold/shove decision. I don’t want to be weak in a stare down with the big stack bully because we’ll be constantly 3-bet the rest of the way… but it’s also a bad idea to go to war with the two guys at the table that can stack us. I think I flip a coin here – heads we shove, tails we fold. At least then I can blame my bad beat on the fate of the coin flip rather than my own failings.

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I love small PP’s, I love to see a flop cheap with them.
A call is OK to me because of the implied odd’s. Its expensive but if you hit you might be able to break him especially if he hits a card.
If he doesn’t bet on the flop “all low cards” I’d be all in.
Then again all in pre-flop is OK too! I don’t like waiting for A’s and if he has them well more power too him. maybe your racing but you need to get lucky once in a while! if he has 9′s maybe he tosses them!

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shoving 66 with over 40 big blinds seems very spewy to me. While I do think we’re leading and should put in a 4 bet (especially given our image), it shouldnt be a push. A coin flip this late in a MTT when we don’t need to flip doesnt make sense to me. A raise to 35k will give us the same info as a push. If he has the goods, he will 5 bet us all in. If that occurs and we fold, we still have 70k (as trong enough stack to do damage with. If he 5bets all-in with trash, then kudos to him but given our image I don’t think he’s coming over the top unless he has the goods.

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