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Thursday, June 16, 2011

Poker Quiz Question #9

Q#9: You're in a 6-handed $5/$10 NL cash game. Everyone has about $2000. A passive middle position player raises to $40. The button re-raises to $70. You are in the big blind with 8s8c. What should you do?

  1. Fold
  2. Call and semi-bluff all-in on low flop
  3. Call
  4. Raise to $180 half the time, call the other 50% of time
  5. Raise to $225 25% of time, call 75% of time.

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A#9: At first glance, folding doesn't seem like a crazy option. You're in danger of being 4bet if you call or RR, and you will be OOP throughout the hand. You get partial credit for answering (1) Fold.

The correct answer, however, is (3) Call. Yes, you have to be wary of being 4bet by the original raiser. But, we've said he was a passive player. As a result, much of the time he's just going to call the BTN reraise and your cold-call. If he doesn't (i.e., if he does 4bet) you can dump your snowmen preflop and move on. If he doesn't 4bet, however, you will end getting great implied odds to see a flop and set-mine. Remember that this is a 200BB deep stack game, so you're nearly getting ~2000/60 = 33:1 implied odds to see a flop. Heck, the direct pot odds alone, assuming the passive player comes along, are 155/60, or 2.6:1, and your eights may actually be the best hand at this point. Call, see a flop, and reevaluate at that point. Implied odds warrant a call.

All-in for now...
-Bug

1 comment:

  1. Personally, I normally call here. But, what did you think of answers #4 and #5? I thought it was an interesting line that a more aggressive player(than me) would take. The button may not have much of a hand in today's games, and you put a lot of pressure on MP to define his hand. By mixing in some raises, you enable 88 to play for more than set value. Stacks are deep enough that this seems better than 100% call. Between the two, I prefer #5 which should end the hand more often and avoid sticky OOP spots, although I could see an argument for #4 too.

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