UTG does not have the set (most likely) because he would normally check-raise with a set. So you're ahead of him, at least 8 times out of 10 (say).
If you re-raise him, it's very possible that he folds and the button folds too, and you win a pot, but not a very big one. So you flat call instead, looking for a bigger pot. Any time you make a smaller bet looking for a bigger pot, you're taking on additional risks.
Here, your additional risk is that the Button's all-in tells you nothing about what he has. So you're flying a little bit blind. If you had raised on the flop iinstead of just calling, then an all-in on an overpair is out of the question for the Button. The button only re-raises you again in that situation if he has a set (or is a complete moron). But you didn't re-raise; therefore, the Button can now reasonably re-raise all-in with a set OR with a lower overpair than your aces.
So although button might have the set, you can not be afraid of that possibility because you intentionally flat-called rather than raising in order to induce an overpair to come along for the ride. Your flat call is a lot like a check on the river -- it has a real chance of inducing a big bet. Once you got that bet, you had to call. You made the riskier play on the flop on purpose, and you knew you were taking that risk, so now you have to live with that risk and make the call.
The real question in the hand, then, isn't whether or not to call the all-in. The real question is whether it's a +EV play to only flat call the initial bet on the turn, knowing that it may well lead to this situation where you have to call a huge bet without knowing whether you are ahead or behind.
In my view, it probably is a +EV play (although somewhat terrifying), because most of the time they don't have a set. You're inducing a bluff, as it were, and you're getting more $$ in the middle when you will have the best hand most of the time.
If you make this play 10 times, you will probably see an all-in re-raise 5-6 times from the Button, but the Button will only have the set maybe 2-3 of those times. (Guessing only at those #s.) With the extra money from the UTG, it's an easy call and a +EV play in the long run.
OK, that was long and probably spelled out too much stuff at too much length. But am I more or less making sense?
Thanks for any replies. And thanks very much to MG for the post and analysis! A very interesting situation.Statistics: Posted by k3nt — Thu Jan 27, 2005 1:36 pm
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