[binkley]

1/n

These multiway live spots are quite challenging to navigate.

Preflop: Hero LJ 8d6d ($350 stack)

$5 straddle, call, Hero call, call, call, BB 3bet $17, call, fold, call(Hero) call, fold.

Hero choses to play a small suited gapper knowing that BB and straddle will likely raise and it will often be multiway.

I prefer a fold. Playing this deep we want hands that can make the nuts. Calling from LJ, there’s a chance that someone behind could have a big hand and raise. Medium suited connector is marginal, and the one gapper is too weak.

As expected, BB raises to $17. At this point, pot was $27. $12 raise is extremely small. With these odds, call is fine

[binkley]

2/n

Flop: 8h6h2d

BB bets $25 into the ~$70 pot. Hero raises to $75, BN jams $221, BB folds.

Heros post his hand is ” a well hidden top-two.” Is it really that well disguised? Both Hero and BN called the straddle then called the small raise. This board smashes those ranges

“My range for the BB is overpairs and AK, maybe even AQ.”

I think an aggressive player would bet bigger preflop with strong hands like big pairs or AK. BB raised to only $17 when there was already $27 in the pot. Everyone only has to call $12 to continue.

With a draw heavy board vs 3 players, an overpair is likely sizing up to at least half pot. AK or AQ without a FD would often shutdown on this type of flop multiway.

[binkley]

3/n

BB bets $25 into the ~$70 pot. Hero raises to $75, BN jams $221, BB folds.

After Hero’s $75 bet, the pot is 170. Add in BN raise, and the total pot is $391. Hero has to put in an additional $146 to make the call.

Pot odds are 146/(146+391)= 0.272 or 27.2%

Now come the hard part… does Hero have 27% equity vs V range?

Possible V better value hands: 88,66,22

There are hands that I can see played this way.

Other possible V value hands: 86s, 82s, 62s

While Hero blocks these combination, there are still some combo available to V. 8c6c & 8s6s are possible. Let’s discount 62s but give V one combo of 82s.

Putting this into EquiLab, Hero has 22.4% equity. Not enough for a call.

But this assume that V has zero bluffs.

Start with the strongest combo draws, 9h7h and 7h5h. Add in pair plus the nut FD, Ah2h.

When we add these hands to V range, Hero now has 30.5% equity. This is a profitable call.

If V has any other bluffs in their range, the call becomes even clearer.

[binkley]

4/n

I would have called the jam on the flop as played. Seemed like a call even before the detailed analysis. What better flops are available to 8d6d? If we flop a flush, bet, and face a jam, are we folding in fears of someone having a better flush? Are we looking for exactly 975 rainbow or 9d7d5d flops to get it all in?

At deep stacks, we prefer hands that make the nuts. But if we chose to play other hands, we are choosing to accept that risk of getting stacked vs the nuts.

[7high11]

Thanks for the detailed analysis! After going through the analysis I could do at the table (which was along the same lines but clearly not as detailed) I called. He turned over Kh2h and said “Flush draw with a pair.” So for the moment I felt pretty good. At that point the adrenaline was flowing and I was hyper focused on the suit of the cards ignoring their ranking. A club came on the turn and there was an audible “Ooooh!”. A spade on the river. I was then able to focus on the rankings and saw that the turn was the 6 of clubs giving me a boat.

So yes, playing 68s did get me into an tough spot. It was an experiment based on earlier posts (and an upcoming Forums podcast) based on the average play at this particular casino. Based on the pot virtually always being multi-way no matter how much you open for, we discussed tightening my standard opening range, opening for more when I did open, and limping with suited connectors rather than opening with them. (I know this was technically not a limp, and 68s is technically not a suited connector!)

[fivebyfive]

I agree with Binkley here. We can’t fold this. I think the area to most focus on reflection here is your assessment that there is a 75% chance you’re up against a set and 25% against a flush draw. This might be monsters under the bed thinking starting to creep in. From a math perspective, the opposite is actually true even if we limit villain to only nut flush draws. I’m imagining that most villains would be even wider than that (this means we’re eliminating hands like KhQh and Kh2h (which they ended up holding)), but let’s just stick with your assumption to start. Even in this scenario where villain is only shoving with nut flush and sets, there are 5 combos of sets (since we block most of them) and 8-9 combos of nut flushes (depending on what BTN would do with AhQh preflop). Because of all that, and because I think most villains would include some KhXh in their shoving range, we can pretty comfortably call here.

[7high11]

Thanks for the response! Your math, is of course, right on the money. But without knowing the villain I feel I have to add for the fact that not everybody (at least where I play) is going to be shoving with a flush draw, even the nut flush draw. I know that for a fact because I, whether right or wrong, wouldn’t be doing it. This of course makes everything “villain dependent”, and when you don’t have a good read on the villain you have to just rely on the math. But I was factoring in for the average player in the player pool at this casino, not the poker population in general. As we’ve discussed before, the play is much more passive than what might be expected from the games that we study. I know from experience (often painful experience!) that the vast majority here is only shoving with the nuts or near nuts. I know this, because as I’ve said, the cultural norm here is for people to show their hands even when not called! And yes, people show both the nuts and their bluffs. (There was even a big argument that same night about one guy showing his hand and the other guy not returning the “courtesy” by showing his hand.) Nuts, I know!

Now clearly this villain was willing to do it without even having the nut flush draw. I’m also sure that the BB and UTG players would do it. But my guestimate is that half of the people in this room would not. So let’s just say that were true (even if you have a hard time believing it). Wouldn’t it be correct to discount the number of nut flush combos by roughly 50%

[fivebyfive]

All fair assessments. But there are two things to consider. First, if we know this population won’t shove as often with nut draws, are we equally as sure they will shove all their set value? Does 88 ever trap? Does 22 ever worry about set over set or wanted to see a clean turn? You know this population better, but we need to account for how they play strong value too. If we’re confident that this population will be very value heavy in these spots that should influence our play.

BUT, and this is the second point, it should also influence our decisions on earlier streets. When we call a preflop 3bet with the intent of going multiway with a speculative hand like 86, we need to cash in when we find value. If we know we will fold to a raise with top two in this spot (where value is quite thin and we block most of it), then I would rather fold pre to the 3 bet. Otherwise we’re mostly just throwing away our money on calls like this.

To be clear, I don’t mind the call in the game as described with lots of loose/passive preflop play, but if we’re going to make it, I can’t give up top two in this spot. And if this is more the kind of spots we find ourselves in, then I would move my calling and 4bet ranges to a tighter and linear (just top heavy) portion, and just drop these middling speculative hands into folds.

[7high11]

This is exactly the kind of feedback I love about this forum! So I did give a little thought to whether or not most players here would be shoving for value, but didn’t think it all the way through. Since it was heads up all-in I was actually verbalizing my thought process and remember saying “But which set?” 22 was statistically more likely than 66 and 88, and I was trying to figure out if he would be more likely to shove one and not another. I came to the conclusion he would shove all, but there definitely are people in this population that would slow play the 88, and I didn’t actual factor that in.

After the hand UTG said “Of course it is a call! He’s not going to play a set like that!” And the response from the villain (in an aside to me) was “That is exactly how I’d play a set of 2s”. So that does bring up the question if he wouldn’t have with 666 or 888.

And another point that both you and Binkley made .. if you are not calling here with this, what did you even play 68s for? I never though through the ramifications of a spot just like is (and many more that I might get myself into!) I guess I was just hoping for a straight or open ended straight draw. I absolutely would also have a problem if I flopped a middle flush and got played back at.

The good news is that this time I made the call instead of folding which 3 months ago without the help I’ve been getting in this Forum would have been what I would have done (remember my folding top set?). I would have folded and once again cursed the poker gods for my “bad luck”.

So maybe I’m being results oriented based on winning the hand, but it seems like progress!

[binkley]

Glad to hear that you called and the outcome was in your favor. I want to point out a couple of things.
First point, this is profitable call based on pot odds when we have more than 30% equity. This means that even if we lose the majority of the time, a bluffcatch can still be profitable in the long run.
Second point, if V did flip over 22, you would have won on this run out. Your hand would have been in bad shape vs the top of his range, but you’re rarely drawing completely dead.