by Felonius_Monk » Sat Aug 12, 2006 2:53 am
I'm not sure what you mean - if you're saying "when you have a set and the board puts out a straight and you put in the rest of your money in the hope that you either catch a boat or your opponent hasn't caught the straight" then I can answer that.
1) Depends what you mean by profitable. If villain has very clearly caught the straight or flush and is presumably checking to get you to commit or for a CR, then it's usually better to just take the free card on offer. If you're up against a good player on a K67r board and a 5 shows up on the turn, it's a pretty good bet he's made a straight 90% of the time, though I would often still push with <1 bet on the table if he check.
2) Depends on how much money is left. If the stacks are deep, sometimes it's best not to push a hand that could just've been broken, especially against a very tricky player who likes laying traps. Once there's a bet and a RAISE in there, the strong pot odds of the set go out of the window as the stake increases - it's still marginally -EV to call down with a set on the turn vs a known straight/flush in pure pot odds terms, so the less implied odds there is, and the bigger the bet is, it becomes more of a costly error.
3) And of course it depends on the texture of the board - some boards have so many possible draws that not every one can hit the oppo. In this hand above I thought he probably had the high wrap, given his flop play, or perhaps the second set or third set with a bit of a draw. His bet on the turn looked more like the latter. If a draw (especially one of the less strong or connecting drawing cards) falls on the turn and your oppo checks to you in position, of course it becomes more likely he's STILL on a draw.
The less money there is to bet, in general the more correct it is to push also.
Hypothetical:
Flop K[s] J[d] 7[h]
I hold K[d] K[c] 4[c] 4[h]. I check, opponent bets, I raise, opponent calls.
Turn 9[h]
There is now approximately one full pot bet left, and action is on me first up. It's probably correct to push here. Reasoning:
1) Although QT is a likely holding for him, if he does have that hand he's liable to push himself. If he does push (or you do it for him) you're putting 33% of the money into the final pot, with an equity of 25% (assuming he has no cards that pair the board, possibly a leap of logic). So if it was a $400 PLO game and both started on full stacks, final pot is $800, you pushed in about $260 and have an EV on the hand of around $200, which is no great shakes. If the stacks were lower on the turn, and you both only have half a pot bet left (or so, as I did in the hand above), you're putting in about $200 and getting around $200 back, making it pretty much neutral in EV terms,so you can't "lose" even if he has a straight. Of course if you're 100% CERTAIN he MUST have a straight, you'd be better to check and see if he gives a free card but a) he probably wont 99% of the time and b) on a board like this you can never be sure.
So we know that when he has the straight we lose something like $60 on the move in a $400 game. Bear in mind we also lose that $60 if we check-call the turn (which we should do, as you can't let people push you off top set for 1 bet in PLO when any sort of drawing card hits or you'll be mincemeat to decent players).
2) When he hasn't made the straight he will now, in all likelihood, continue to pay you off. He may have a hand like JT97, which the turn hasn't helped, or a lower set, something like AAT with two backdoor flush draws etc. If he's bad his range may be greater, any 2 pair, stuff like that. If he called a raise on the flop with those hands he'll probably continue to call a turn bet. Although the profit can't be really determined here, we'll assume that his range of non-straight hands that he'll call on the turn has something like 15% equity (probably a fairly generous figure, as the majority of that range is probably going to be low sets, which won't win that often as they'd need to have hit a backdoor flush draw to get up beyond that figure, or a gutshot to even get close).
If he calls your turn $260 with hands that make a winner 15% of the time, your profit on the play is about $180. If we note that he'll also fold a variety of hands of here that may have equity if you give a free card by checking (top two pair with a gutshot perhaps?) I'm pretty sure you can get that figure up beyond $200.
So in scenario 1 we lose 15BBs (which could be considered a "small error" in PLO, not usually a bad thing to happen, especially if you're taking the lead and playing aggressively, which is good for your image), in scenario 2 we make maybe 50+BBs (a pretty big coup, potentially) on our play as opposed to checking. HOWEVER, unless we're playing an ultra-tight and fairly unprofitable game, we really need to be making the call in scenario 1 if we check and it gets bet because we're giving up way too much on the off-chance we're still ahead, and giving the green light to the table to bluff us off more pots that we've played aggressively and then slowed down in in the future, which is almost certainly very bad for your image.
So unless you're sure he has the straight (not sure how you can be 100% here) and think he might give a free or cheap card, it's always going to be right to bet out in this hypothetical, even if the majority of the time you're going to be betting out knowing that you're likely to be behind.
The Monkman J[c]
"Informer, you no say daddy me snow me Ill go blame,
A licky boom boom down.
Detective mon said daddy me snow me stab someone down the lane,
A licky boom boom down." - Snow, 1993