After my sessions I like to go thru some hands to see if I played them good or bad and sometimes use pokerstove to figure out what was the correct play at the moment. So these are two hands from today, nothing out of the ordinary, but is good to make these simple math problems to analyze some hands.
First hand I raise with KQo from the cutoff and get two callers. I make my standard continuation bet and got check/raised all in by the blind for $117.35 more. So our decision is, do we call his Allin or is folding the best option?
So I elected to fold. If he was a fullstack this decision is a lot easier, but because he is not we have to try and figure out if I did the right move by folding. This could be a set, a draw or even AQ.
The effective stack after the flop is $133.35 so when we fold we end up with $117.35 in our stack (133.35-16 of my bet). Our equity vs his range is roughly 33.71% so if we call the pot is $288.7 and we win 33.7% so that gives us (288.7 * 0.337 = $97.29) and $97.29 is less than $117.35 so we made a good fold or make more money by folding.
Even if we had 40% in equity we still ended up losing money if we call. We need him to have close to $75 after the flop to make this a call. Of course there are other ways to do this, but this method is fairly simple and can help in making easier decisions. Also notice that if we have AA or even AQ then our equity change and this turns into an easy call given his stack size.
Second hand is also very interesting. I raise A8s from UTG got two callers and a solid regular raised to $37. Calling is bad, so we either fold or raise. Folding is the safest path, we only have invested $7 and he is a good player that is representing strength. On the other hand its 5 handed and he is good enough to know that I don't need a premium hand to raise from UTG and now there is $60 on the pot that I may be able to steal if I raise. Lets see:
Perfect!! it worked. But was this a good move??
First is our stacksize we have $237 so villain needs to risk more than 100bb if he wants to fight for this pot (The deeper we are the worst of a play this is, but this stack size is perfect), this may cause him to fold stronger hands like AQ/AJ and pairs like 99-JJ so he is only calling with AA,KK,QQ,AK and sometimes JJ and vs this range we have 29.18% equity.
So when he folds we instantly win $60. When he calls the pot have $490 so we win $260 (29.18%) of the time (260 * 0.2918= $75.87) and loose $230(our stack) 70.82% of the time (-230 * 0.7082 = -162.87) that equals a net loss of $-87 when we get called.
How many times do we need him to fold to make this a good play??
The formula is: $won when folds "x"times + ($loss when call)(1-x)
$60x + (-87)(1-x)=0
60x - 87 + 87x = 0
147x = 87
x=59%
In other words we need him to fold close to 59% of the time or 3 in every 5 attempts to make this a good bluff. Given the dynamics at the moment (it was 5 handed, the squeeze situation with a regular, stack sizes, my UTG raise, that I had an Ace for blocker vs AA/AK) I'm confident it was a good play, just don't try it every time.
This week I played 2,500 hands (which are not that many), but I ended up +1k so thats always good news. I'm not that happy with some of my stats on 6max, but I can't complain too much so, Here are my stats for this week:
2 comments:
Hi Alex !
In the second hand, you believe that it's a profitable play to shove preflop?
The villain only calls with a dominating hand. If you ever get called with such a weak holding, then your image with change dramatically, and therefore a shove in future hands will need to be successful more often to be profitable. If you had 4bet to approximately $100 would this have had the same fold equity? He would realise that you're going all-in, regardless of the flop texture. Also, what if someone overcalled your all-in bet before the villain?
Good point Andy. A smaller 4bet may get the same result, but also gives them room to push over the top with hands like AQ and TT which is really tough for him to call my bet and has us in bad shape (not to mention the others involved). At the same time I will do this with QQ and AK to win the pot right there. And don't overestimate the importance of being the last aggressor.
I'm not advocating to do this every time, but sometimes this little plays makes the difference. This week I've done that move 3 times 2 as a bluff one with QQ, everyone folded.
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