StudioGlyphic

All in with the best draw?

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glyphic

in

I’ve been doing most of my online play at Full Tilt Poker for the last week and have had a pretty good go at it. Out of five days of play (small sample, I know!), I’ve been in the black on four of them. I’m not sure how many hands that represents, but I’ve cleared $44.54 of the bonus, which should give you some indication of how much I’ve played.

While I’ve generally done well, you do often see the same players at the table night after night, and a fair number of them seem tight-weak. This has forced me to do a bit more bluffing and slow-playing. It’s rare that a true live one enters the waters, but tonight a fish sat down at our table and suddenly one third to one half of the players sprang to life, playing weaker cards and raising to get heads-up against this guy. I had the good fortune of being in two pots against this guy that padded my account by about half a buy-in.

So here comes the hand we all wish we had played:

FullTilt .25/.50 NL $50 max full ring

BB has about $30, Fishy Guy has about $25, I’ve got them both covered with $60. BB is a semi-aggressive, somewhat solid player.

I’m on the button with [9c Qc].

SB posts the small blind of $0.25
BB posts the big blind of $0.50
EP posts $0.50
UTG folds
EP checks
MP calls $0.50
MP2 folds
Fishy Guy calls $0.50
CO folds
glyphic calls $0.50
SB calls $0.25
BB checks

The flop is [7s Tc Jc]
SB checks
BB bets $3
EP folds
MP folds
Fishy Guy raises to $10
glyphic has 15 seconds left to act

Damn. I really really want to play my open-ended straight flush draw.

There’s $3.50 + $3 + $10 = $16.50 in the pot. The pot is laying me 1.65:1 and I have 15 outs against top pair/overpair/straight draw/flush draw/two pair/set/made straight.

Hmm… Hmm… If only I had Kc instead of 9c.

If I call and the BB goes all in, that’ll be another $18.80, so I’m potentially going to lose half my stack here. (I forget how much SB had, but he might have been able to do some damage, too)

But I can count on Fishy Guy to call and basically lay me almost 2:1 for my half-stack, right?

Argh.

And I’ve got position.

Oh, but with the pot this big and our relative stack sizes, position isn’t going to help.

glyphic folds
SB folds
BB raises to $28.80, and is all in
Fishy Guy folds
Uncalled bet of $18.80 returned to BB
BB doesn’t show
BB wins the pot ($21.85)

The commentary, by the way, consists of all the things I was thinking, but not necessarily in the order I was thinking them.

I’m pretty sure Fishy Guy had crap. He tended to play bad hands and bet with top pair, no pair, poor draws, etc.

BB, on the other hand, probably didn’t have the nut flush draw or a flopped straight. I’d say two pair or a set is most likely.

So. Good fold? Worth risking half the stack?

Comments

9 responses to “All in with the best draw?”

  1. Bob

    Good fold.

    While analyzing the hand with my usual high level of understanding, I came to the conclusion that I don’t really know how to analyze hands with a high level of understanding.

    I like pie!

    Reply
  2. Mourn

    I think you have to fold there. Take this with a grain of salt considering my recent run at no limit. With two people moving at the pot, the likely combinations of hands you’re up against probably put your pot equity somewhere in the neighborhood of 20%-25% by my estimation.

    If the BB has identified the fish as well, it makes it more likely that he’d actually lead at the pot with a made hand, also with two of you in he has to protect a hand like trips against the flush draw. I put him on three sevens or tens and the fish probably has AJ or a baby flush draw or something like 99.

    All of that being said, I’d have pushed, stupidly.

    Reply
  3. PokerNerd

    I don’t know. I think you were better off than you gave yourself credit for. Unless the BB is very good (far better than average), he’s not betting his set here. More likely is JT, AJ, maybe even KQ or a nut flush draw.

    Fishy Guy could be as weak as any top pair, flush draw, straight draw, who knows…the fact that he folded after the re-raise should tell you all you need to know about him if you didn’t already.

    Throwing these into Poker Stove, you have about 49% equity which is more than enough. If you add the set possibility for the BB, it’s still 47%. Heck, if BB shows you the set, you have 42%.

    Gamble it up and put someone on tilt, baby!

    Reply
  4. Drizztdj

    You have about a 50% chance to win that hand (unless he’s on a nut flush draw, then you lose some outs). If this was a tourney… all-in, ring game… maybe not the best time to put your money in.

    Reply
  5. StudioGlyphic

    Thanks for the thoughts. I think this was a situation that required re-raising the fish.

    The best the fish could possibly have was top pair, which would make my queen overcard live. Given his fold to the BB’s re-raise, that doesn’t sound likely.

    Re-raising here would have given me a shot at winning the pot uncontested or at the very least narrowing it down to two players, making it a race with my 15-18 outs twice.

    This is something that I often forget. 15-18 outs requires certain pot odds when drawing to a single card, but those requirements are significantly diminished when the money’s all in on the flop.

    Basically I had a momentary lapse into weakness and tried to find reasons to fold.

    I think the most important thing to take away from this situation has less to do with math than the people I was playing.

    My primary goal in every hand should have been to get myself heads-up against the fish. The implied odds of playing this guy throughout the session were enormous. Even if I lost this particular hand, he would learn to stay in against me and then hand over his stack at a later time. He did this anyway, but by folding I left many bets on the table, which equates to a mortal sin.

    Reply
  6. StudioGlyphic

    Incidentally, you’d think that I would have learned my lesson from a hand I played successfully on a different table earlier.

    I was holding AT clubs on the button with a Kc Qc Xx flop, giving me the gutshot straight flush draw, the nut flush draw, etc. I called a pot-sized bet (~$5) and made my straight on the turn. I min-raised the pot-sized bet on the turn (from $10 to $20) and the aggressor went all in for a few dollars more. He left after I dragged the pot, disgusted that his two pair (KQ) didn’t hold up.

    So for my $5 loose call drawing to two nut hands (12 outs = 2.8:1), I got $30 (pot + flop bet + turn bet + raise all-in), giving me 6:1 in implied pot odds at a relatively cheap price (1/12 my stack), with little risk to my stack (if I hadn’t made my hand on the turn, I would have folded).

    Calling standard bets/raises with pocket pairs hoping to flop a set/boat/quads is accepted practice; we take the 7.5:1 odds with an eye toward the implied odds. Against a big ace or medium pocket pair that misses the flop, those implied odds diminish, but we still make these calls.

    There are some things that I think are worth thinking about:

    If you’re playing on implied odds, he’d better have a stack! If you suck out on a short-stack, you don’t get paid.

    More importantly, he should not be someone whose Spidey sense flies off the charts when he’s smooth-called.

    Finally, flushes are fairly obvious. Would he have called my turn-raise if the turn had been a club? With two pair and a short stack, yes. With top pair, a big stack, and some good sense, probably not. In which case the implied odds would have to be downgraded to something like 4:1. Still good.

    Reply
  7. StudioGlyphic

    Everyone feel free to tear me a new one if you disagree with anything.

    Reply
  8. Doubleas

    With your read that there will be 3 players calling along in this hand, I think I’d have to call/raise here. I would like to call to get the 3rd player to come along, but I might have to raise here since I think you outflopped both of them.

    You are the favorite over the nuts believe it or not. You are 51% to beat 98 with no clubs.

    I think you’re worst case is 42% against bottom set. Well, if they have Ac8c, then you’re in real trouble, but I push here and then chat about how loose I am afterwards because it’ll help your image to be pushing on a draw and you actually are the favorite against most hands, but they won’t know that.

    Putting the hands that you considered (removing overpairs because I don’t think they limp with over pairs) into PokerStove, you have 54% equity against 77, AJ, JT, 98 of all suits).

    Reply
  9. SirFWALGMan

    It is tough because we train ourselves not to be the chasing losers. Situations where you have that great of a draw do not come up all that often either. You could have made a ton! heh. You might have lost alot too. But thats Gambling.

    Reply

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