Alright, you caught me, there's no message from Margot Kidder. I'm just experimenting with subject headings that will make it impossible for anyone browsing not to read this . . . Onto the hand . . .

I'm about 18 hours into my session. Feel free to chastise me for the long session, but I'm well acquainted with them and feel comfortable doing it . . . Anyway . . .

I'm sitting on about $2000, holding steady for about the last six hours. New players have moved to my game, including a seemingly tight older gentleman who just rebought for $250 after being stacked by someone who caught a flush on the river. Also is another older gentleman who has built his stack up to $600 by going all in into $20 dollar pots whenever he catches anything approaching TPTK. Add in the usual suspect, and it's a pretty lively table when I'm dealt in the BB. As is usually, the case, almost the entire table limps, and eight people see a flop of:

($24)

So, I have a flush draw and a gutshot. About as good as I can hope for with that hand. I'm looking to build a pot, so I throw out a $20 bet. Older gentleman number one smoothcalls, and overaggressive older gentleman number two gets frisky and raises to $100. Not really thinking that the first older gentleman was probably moving in if he was calling, I thought for about five seconds and called. The first older gentleman moved in, of course, as I realized he would as soon as I made my bet. The second older gentleman moved in as well. So, my tiny little pot building raise had accomplished it's goal, turning a $24 pot into $975 dollar pot, with $500 left for me to call. Any thoughts on what both of them have? Anybody on Earth call here?

I have a prediction about what every response will say . . . Let's see if I'm right . . .

Thanks in advance,

Eric

Well I'd hate to dissapoint you so I say fold! I don't think you are 50% to win and you aren't even quite getting 2-1 on your money. There ya go. Told ya to fold like you thought I would.

Edit: I don't know why I was thinking you needed to be 50% to call 2-1 on your money. Obviously it is lower as was pointed out.

Bob --

Not sure I understand your point . . . you point out I'm not 50% to win but then also note that I'm getting 2 to 1 on my money, essentially. Wouldn't I need to be around 33% to win to make a call correct here? About the only thing to worry about here (in terms of having a dominated hand) is the higher flush draw, but it's difficult to put either of these guys on that hand as neither of them would have played a draw like that, at least from my read . . . Any thoughts on what they had? What would you have to put them on to call? What would you have to put them on to fold? Anyone?

Eric

Someone smoothcalling an initial bettor and moving in to a reraise sets off alarm bells like nothing else. I believe the all-in caller to have a set here. The only other thing I consider is the initial all-in being from slowplayed AA. Your Jack outs are almost certainly dead and your 8's might be too. I think you have 4 Queens and 8 other hearts as clean outs and then have to dodge the board pairing and possibly a fourth heart falling. That puts you at about 30% to win here so I would certainly be jettisoning this hand.

Pot is laying 2-1. As you hold the Jh, the 3 non-heart 8s are certain to be clean outs (not sure how MindOverMatter has four queens as outs here - you only have a gutshot AFAICS!).

Now, consider the possible likely matchups of your opponents. I would say the most likely would be that one holds TPTK and the other has a set or two pair. With no preflop raise, overpairs to the board seem unlikely.

Up against a set, you win a little over 1/3 of the time if the two players have one heart between them. I would reckon this is the most likely scenario.

Up against TPTK and two pair, you win an impressive 44% of the time if they have one heart between them. This looks likely to be your best case scenario.

Up against two pair and a player with a flush draw (lets call it Ah9h) you win a fairly pitiful 14% of the time.

So, unless your opponents hold NEITHER a flush draw NOR a set, you don't really have odds to make the call. If we consider the set slightly more likely than the flush draw, we can guesstimate that when your opponents hold EITHER a flush draw, or a set OR both, your gross equity in the final showdown will be somewhere in the region of 25%, perhaps give or take a few %. If your opponents hold NEITHER a flush draw nor a set then you can estimate your equity fairly accurately in the 45% region, tops. These might be fairly forgiving percentages.

You need to be winning over 35% of the equity to make this a decent call. Personally I like to avoid marginal situations, and so I'd set my "cut off" figure for such a nebulous decision as being fairly sure I hold around 40% of the equity or better, before committing my chips.

Given the 25% win figure vs any set or flush draw holdings, and the 45% win figure for "any others", to be winning 35% of the chips you need to be around 50% certain that NEITHER player has a set or a flush draw.

If you want to be winning about 40% of the chips you need to be around 70-75% certain that NEITHER player has a set or flush draw.

So, I would say, for this to be a +ve EV move you need, at the VERY BARE MINIMUM, to be 50% sure you are facing two hands of quality equal to or worse than two pair. In this situation I don't see how you can make that assumption, so I think it is probably correct to fold here, in most situations. The call is marginal and depends largely on the chance of a higher flush draw being out.

Looking at it another way: Because you're only break even to call when there's a set out, and a big loser when there's a flush draw out, and you're ONLY making money on the call when there is no set OR flush draw out, AND because you're far more -ve EV against a higher flush draw, than you are +ve EV against two pair and TPTK, you need to be pretty sure there is no higher flush draw out. Given the marginality of the other situations, I would suggest that if there's more than maybe a 10-15% chance of someone holding a higher flush draw, you should fold. In this spot I don't see how you can rule out a flush draw to such an extent, so I don't see how calling can be correct.

Of course, this sort of analysis is not possible at the table, so you have to have some idea of marginality and how close you are to the brink in terms of expected value. I think in this spot that the call is close but conventional wisdom, without delving too deep into the mathematics of the situation, would suggest a fold is in order, but that the situation is clearly quite marginal. Without being able to prove to yourself that a call is +ve EV in the time given to make your decision, I would err on the side of caution and pass the hand. In calling, I would suggest that you are essentially guessing that you had odds to do so, unless you were party to a read on these opponents that you have not divulged.

Thoughts?

Monk
xxxxx

wow, great analysis Monk! My gut feeling (which, btw, includes what I know about stats off the top of my head) was that it was a close decision, leaning toward a fold. I just don't see enough information to convince me that one of these two doesn't have a better flush draw.

Despite the looseness of the $600 gentleman there seems to be far too many hands that beat you here. Did you see the $600 gentleman play anything other than TPTK? In other words, do you have reason to suspect he wouldn't play a strong draw the same way?

I don't like calling off so many chips with such marginal draws, a gutshot and non-nut flush draw doesn't seem like the best hand to attack the looser gentleman with (lets not forget that an 8 would put 89T on the board meaning even if it comes it's not that far out of the realm of possibility that you're beat by a better str8). I'd fold and wait for a less marginal hand to take him down.

Sorry, I made a mistake with those Q's, it's obviously a gutshot draw. Good analysis by Monk and a great read.

Personally I think you should have folded when you bet $20 and were raised to $100. At this point you know that the other player will either fold or go all-in if you call. That leaves you with two bad situations.

I certainly wouldn't call the full all-in with what MIGHT be a slightly positive EV, but might also be varying degrees of -EV. I prefer to play big pots when I feel I have a pretty good advantage.