Pot the flop obviously.
On the turn, I don't like the raise here TOO much unless UTG is liable to lay down his hand (which is obviously very opponent specific) but getting both players to fold seems highly unlikely so you'd be risking a lot of chips on a hand you're no better than 30-35% to win, on the off chance they both might fold. I don't like that play much. Clearly, you have ample odds to call his first bet, however. Also, your pot odds are improved by letting the SB in so I have no qualms about letting him plump up the pot for you after you've acted.
Someone must presumably have at least two pair or perhaps a set, once the SB gets all in, unless you had a specific read on these opponents (i.e. over-pushing draws) to suggest otherwise. KK or perhaps two pair with draws seems likely for the SB, he might even be on 88 and waiting for a safe turn to check-raise all in (not such a bad play on this flop as a change of pace, which is always good for deception value in the bigger money games). So you have 13 clean nut outs, perhaps call it 14 on the chance there's two pair out and thus one of the board-pairing flush outs will be good. There's, by my calculations at least, about 1400 in the pot and it's a bit under 700 to you to call, so you're getting paid a bit more than 2:1 on the call. With your hand you beat a naked set about 1/3 of the time, so you're getting decent odds to call. If the SB has some of your outs covered, however, then you're not getting pot odds to call.
Basically, the call at the end seems to me to be somewhere close to neutral EV. Unless there's any chance the SB is pushing a hand less than 2 pair (which seems unlikely), the call is probably neutral or a tiny bit negative, value wise. So, if you don't have a huge BR to absorb variance, it's probably a fold. HOWEVER, there's often several big stacks (4 or 5 buyins) sat at the 1000 games, and it is very advantageous to build a deep stack in able to make a massive score against one of these players, especially if any of them are excessively loose or poor. So there COULD be a good reason to make the call, if there is a future advantage to you of building a large stack. If everyone is around 1 buyin, then there's no specific advantage to you to take a slightly -ve EV proposition in order to build a stack, so folding is perhaps marginally the best. However, there's no harm to a) showing that you're prepared to gamble with a draw and b) showing that you're prepared to play for your stack and give action. Against decent players that's not a bad advertising play, and so makes it more worthwhile.
So, in summary, it's perhaps a tiny bit -ve EV to call, but I can see certain non-mathematical reasons for doing so on this particular table. Most people call here (I think I do, in all honesty) with such a big pot and an (apparently) big draw in your hand, and in truth against the likely SB holdings you're not massively -ve anyhow, so really I don't see a problem with calling at all. I think you played it pretty well, the only thing I do different is bump it up preflop.
My take on it anyhow, thoughts?Statistics: Posted by Felonius_Monk — Wed Apr 13, 2005 12:15 pm
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