Poker Quiz Question #21

Q#21: You are in a $5/$10 no-limit cash game that is 7-handed. You are loose, passive, and you generally play badly. You and the tight player in the BB both have $3000 stacks. It is folded to you on the button, where you hold As-6s. You make a standard $40 raise and the BB calls. The flop is Ac-6d-Jh. The BB leads out for $80. You call. The turn is the 7s. The BB bets $200 and you raise to $400. The BB re-raises to $800. You call. The river is the 2s. The BB moves all-in for his last $1900. What should you do?

1. Fold
2. Call

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A#21:  Reads: Preflop: the villain is a tight player, and your image is loose, passive, and poor. You're deep stacked at 300BB, so the tight player has a lot of implied odds to call with a wide range here. He will be OOP, so this will tighten his range somewhat. I'd say something like 22-JJ, suited aces, and broadways from JTo to AJs. Smaller connectors (suited and othrwise) may be in his range, but probably not, as the pot is not multi-way when the action gets to him. Also, bigger cards than JJ will generally get a re-raise, especially from good players that know they will be OOP throughout the rest of the hand. Postflop: Villain donks out at you, knowing full well that you're passive and will call along relatively light, which you do*. The turn 7s being 3bet** by the villain indicates a pretty strong hand. If we narrow his range down, I'd say it would be somewhere as strong as sets (66, 77, JJ), two pair (AJ), or 1 pair hands like AQo. You called his 3bet, so he knows you're strong too, yet he still shoves for $1900 on the blank 2s river. In other words he knows you're strong and you can't be bluffed (i.e., you're a bad calling station) yet he still leads and gets in all his money. Said another way: he either wants to you to call.

Estimate: There's approximately $3750 in the pot, and it's going to cost you $1900 to call. This means you're getting 1.9:1 on your money, which means you have to be good better than 34% of the time to show a profit. Running poker stove on this board against his narrowed range, we're a 68:32 dog here.

Decide: We're almost but not quite pot committed, so we should go strictly on pot odds here. We're not quite getting enough on the overlay to call. Therefore this is a closer one than it might appear, but generally speaking, it's better in poker to err on the cautious side of a tough decision. Ergo, this is a fold line.

Implement: Muck

All-in for now...
-Bug
*Not raising the flop here with aces-up is a big mistake. By calling, you're giving the opp a chance to improve; for instance if he has a big ace and then the board pairs your six can easily be counterfeited. Also, RR'ing defines the villain's hand better based on how he reacts to your bet. Cold calling his raise is weak and accomplishes nothing. **I learned something about terminology the other day listening to a podcast. Preflop, if you open raise and I re-raise you, I have "3bet" you. This is standard nomenclature that I already knew; the "first bet" is considered to be the involuntary blind, and the opponent's initial voluntary open raise is the "second bet" and then my RR is the "3bet." Postflop I learned, however, the terminology shifts back to the first voluntary bet is indeed the "1bet", a raise is the "2bet" and the next raise is in fact the "3bet". If on the flop, turn, or river someone leads out with a bet, and then I raise them, I have not "3bet" them. If a third player reraises me, however, he has in fact "3bet." (note: nobody actually says "2-bet" when describing a postflop hand; they simply say "raise")