Bug's Poker Tip #41

Don't Draw to an Inside Straight-- Unless You Should

You might have heard the admonition on an old TV western, or perhaps it was spoken by your Aunt Mildred at a kitchen table penny-ante game: Don't draw to an inside straight, sonny-boy. It's a bad call. It's a damn sucker's play.

So, why do they say this? Because the odds of making your hand are pretty low, that's why. If you flop an inside straight draw on the flop, you'll only get there about 16% of the time by the river. This in turn means you need very good pot odds to make the call-- or least some damn good implied odds. In other words, this is usually a bad draw.

Except when it isn't.

Said simply: if you're getting the correct odds to chase a 4-outer like an inside straight gutter-ball draw, you should make the call. The math don't lie, friendo. Poker is all about getting your money in good, which means if you're on the right side of the pot odds, you're doing your job correctly. You're playing profitable poker. Hell, if a villain offers you the right odds to chase a razor thin 1-outer, you should make that call, too. Sure, you will miss a 1-outer something like 96% of the time, but if you're getting pot odds that are better than this, it's a good call. In fact, it's a necessary call. Not calling is a mistake.

Poker is a game of math and odds and equities. Plus EV is plus EV, even if it's a  damn inside straight draw, sonny-boy

All-in for now...

-Bug

Give and Receive: The Other Side of Implied Odds

When most books and experts explain implied odds (IO), they focus on what odds you are receiving with speculative hands, and whether you should proceed in the hand or not. You're dealt 5-5 in LP and a nitty EP player opens for a standard raise UTG. You go through REDi, and put the opp on a big hand that could pay you off if you hit a set. Effective stacks are relatively deep, you're getting greater than 10:1 implied odds, the villain is the type that has trouble letting go of TPTK-type hands, etc. So you make the call, with the intention of folding if you miss the flop...yada, yada, yada. Every modern poker book discusses this exact IO scenario. If you don't understand this--or aren't implementing it in your game--you need to go back to school. This is Poker 101, folks. Basic set-mining is a bread-and-butter play for winning cash game players...

...okay, fine. I now want to talk about Poker 202. What if you're on the other side of the implied odds equation? I.e., let's imagine that you're the one holding A-A or K-K preflop, and you believe your opponent has a hand like  pocket fives and is set mining. What are you to do?

Answer: Give them the wrong implied odds to proceed, that's what.

For example, let's say we're playing in a live $1/$2 game. We're in the big blind with A-A. Effective stacks are 100BB and the table is filled with so-so and beginning-level ABC players who know the rudimentary basics of immediate pot odds, position, and so on. They also know the Negreanu adage that small pairs and other speculative hands are "bust'em" hands that can stack-off big hands like Aces. They've seen Kid Poker play like this on TV, taking raises with 2-2 and 8-7o, hitting the flop, and then getting paid off. These players are also smart enough to know that their post-flop skills aren't as good as Negreanu's, so they don't continue in the hand if they don't hit the flop; they're playing fit-or-fold poker. They'll gladly call a raise (or even reraise) preflop with a small pocket pairs because they believe they'll stack you if they hit their set. Said another way, they're focused on hitting their hand, and not really paying attention to the exact IOs they're being offered.

Okay, back to our example. The first few players fold, and then a mid-position player open limps. The rest of the table folds, and the action is on us in the big blind. Our rockets are well disguised, so we momentarily think of slow playing them. Ah, but we know better than this, right? We put this ABC player on a hand exactly like a weak pair, and we don't want to give them the right odds to set mine. Said another way, we know we should raise, but how much?

Well, basic poker probability tells us that the villain will hit his set one out of eight times (i.e., 7:1 against). This means that if you give your opponent worse odds than this and he calls, you have made money.

Let's repeat that for clarity: If you give your opponent the wrong odds to continue in the hand, and he or she does so anyway, you have made money. Period. 

This is the very definition of what a +EV play is. Make the right decision, let your opponent make the wrong one, and you win. Poker is a long-term EV (i.e, Decision) game, and if you give a set mining opponent the wrong odds to set mine and they call--regardless of whether they hit their set and win this particular hand or not--you will make money in the long run.

We know that one out of eight times our opponent will hit. Let's ignore the small amount of existing money already in the pot (i.e., the blinds and the villain's limp) as it just makes the math a little messier, and only has a small effect. If we know our opponent will call a preflop bet that is at least 12.5% of the effective stack (i.e., 1/8), and then we shove all-in on any flop, we profit. This is true even if we tell our opponent what hand we have so that he can fold on the flop when he misses.

Yes, this is true. Seriously. Yes, I really mean it! You could actually tell your opponent that you have Aces, shove, and profit. Hell, you could literally show them your cards and you would still make money.*

For example, let's say we bet an amount well over 12.5% of the effective stack size. Call it 25%, or $25, for argument sake. Our opponent calls, hoping to hit a set. He's obviously made a mistake by doing this, but to illustrate let's make this example really absurd; i.e., we're going to shove any flop, knowing full well that our opp will fold if he misses and only continue if he hits.** This is still profitable for us; they'll hit the flop one out of eight times, or 12.5%, and we'll still be ahead 87.5% of the time on any flop. In other words, when we're considering this preflop action, 87.5% of the time we're going to win the $25 our opponent puts in the pot, and 12.5% of the time we're going to lose our entire stack ($25 preflop + $75 shove on the flop). Here's our expected value of this play:

EV = (87.5% x $25) - (12.5% x ($75+$25))

EV = +$9.38

Said another way, we're making well over nine dollars every single time we make this play, and our opponent is losing this same amount. That's called printing money.

Now, is this the best way to play poker? No, of course not (because it doesn't maximize our EV; e.g., we want our opponent to continue in the hand, making further mistakes when he misses and therefore shoveling more money into the pot). That said, this example does illustrate pretty clearly the concept of profiting in poker purely by giving your opponent the wrong odds to continue in a hand when you know he's drawing. Slow playing big hands is generally a terrible idea in hold'em, and this example illustrates why. When you're ahead in poker, you should bet for value (which is also known in this particular situation as "betting for protection.") 

The bottom line is you need to bet an amount that is more than the equivalent odds your opponent needs to make his or her hand. The more you can bet the better, but you also want your opponent to call, so you have to be judicious. Obviously, if you can just shove preflop and get called, you're maximizing your EV. But even truly bad players usually won't call off their entire stack preflop with 5-5. A good rule of thumb is to bet at least 20% of the effective stack preflop when you know your opponent is drawing; this way you're giving the opp the wrong odds to call, but you're still realizing an immediate EV profit.

All-in for now...

-Bug

*Of course it would be dumb to do this, as you're helping your opponent make a better decision, but the point still holds-- you've already profited preflop in an EV sense, which is what matters in this example.

**Again, this isn't optimal poker by any stretch of the imagination, but it's still profitable.

The 15/25/35 Rule, Part 1: What is it?

The 15/25/35 rule is a tool that helps you determine whether you should cold-call a raise preflop with a speculative hand. It's based solely on effective stack sizes (and therefore implied odds (IO)). The 3-part rule states:

1. You need at least 15x the bet size in implied odds to call with a small/medium pocket pair
2. You need at least 25x in IOs to call with a suited connector
3. You need at least 35x in IOs to call with a non-suited connector or a suited gapper

For example, let's say you have a 4♣4♥ on the button in a $1/$2 and an UTG player opens for $6. Both you and he have $200 stacks. Your theoretical implied odds are therefore $200 / $6 = 33, which is greater than 15. Therefore, by the rule, you have enough IO to call and try to hit your set.

If your opponent had had a full $200 stack, but you only had $50 in your stack, your implied odds would have been $50 / $6 = 8.3, which is less than 15. Therefore you're not getting enough IOs to set mine.

Caveat: The 15/25/35 rule is just a guideline. The R-is-for-Reads step in REDi is vitally important to making this actually work correctly. For example, even if you're getting enough theoretical IOs, your actual IO's may be significantly less because your opponent isn't the type to pay off, or perhaps isn't holding the type of hand that he'll pay off with, etc.

All-in for now...
-Bug

Poker Quiz Question #48

Q#48: You're in a 9-handed $5/10 NL cash game. Everyone has $1500 stacks. A TAg MP player open-raises to $40. Another TAg player on the button RR's to $140. You're in the big blind with Ah-Kc. Your image is TAg, but you were recently caught bluffing. What should you do?

1. Fold
2. Call
3. Re-raise
4. Shove all-in

---


A#48: And now back to Q#48, in which you're in a 9-handed $5/10 NL cash game. Everyone has $1500 stacks. A TAg MP player open-raises to $40. Another TAg player on the button RR's to $140. You're in the big blind with A♥-K♣. Your image is TAg, but you were recently caught bluffing. What should you do? Fold, Call, Re-raise, or Shove all-in?

Interesting hand. My gut reaction is to re-raise (either 2.5x or all-in), but I'm also leaning toward a fold. Sounds weird doesn't it? RR seems reasonable.... but fold? With an offsuit big slick? It's the 4th or 5th strongest starting hand? Really? Yeah, really.

Anyway, I don't think calling is smart, as the best that can happen is that TAg #1 calls behind and I see a multiway pot OOP with a hand that plays best heads-up. This leaves either RRing or Folding. Hmmm.... Let's see what REDi tells us.

Reads: 

• TAg #1: Without any other info, a TAg open raising in MP in a 9-handed game generally means a PFR of around 15% or so. I'm thinking essentially all pocket pairs and nearly all broadways (with the exception of some of the weaker unsuited broadway cards). Call it: 22+,ATs+,KTs+,QTs+,JTs,ATo+,KJo+,QJo
• TAg #2: The second TAg repops to $140. We will assume he has put the first TAg on the same range as us. He's reraising, so he's either trying to isolate and/or trying to build value. With only the blinds left to act, I'm going to lean toward the latter. Typically 3bet ranges for TAgs run around 6-7%, but that number is an average against all opponents. Against another TAg, I'm going to drop TAg#2's PFR down to 4% or so. Call it: 99+,AQs+,AKo

Estimate:

• Hand Equity: Hot-and-cold against these two ranges, our AKo has a tad over 30% equity. TAg #1's equity is close to ours at 27.3%, and TAg#2's equity is 42.3%. In other words, our equity is just so-so if we're multiway. Heads-up against TAg#1 (an unlikely scenario), we're a 57:43 favorite. Heads-up against TAg#2, however, the tables are turned and we're the 44:56 dog. 
• Fold Equity: Normally, I'd say we have decent FE against TAg#1 (because of his range, and the strength we'd project by 4betting here) but we've been caught bluffing recently, so our image isn't very good. Our FE against TAg #2 is not great either, simply given his hand range.
• SPR: If we call or reraise to anything but all-in, we have to consider whether we get ourselves pot committed or not. The standard way to estimate this is via our stack-to-pot (SPR) ratio, which is just our assumed effective stack size on the flop, divided by the pot size on the flop. 
• Reraise. If we RR to, say, 2.5x and (miraculously) just get called by the other two players, the pot would be around (2.5 x $140) x 3 = $1050. The effective stack size would then be $1500 - (2.5 x $140) = $1150. Therefore the SPR would be 1150/1050 = 1.1.
• Call. If we call (and TAg #1 doesn't 4bet), the pot will be (3 x $140) = 420, and the effective stack size will be $1500 - $140 = $1360. Our SPR would then be 1360/420 = 3.2.

Decide: 

• Our RR SPR reads total commitment, so RRs to anything less than all-in is silly. 
• If we RR all-in, and get called by both players, our equity is less than the 33% needed to break even. If we RR all-in and get called only by TAg#2, we're a dog in the hand. In other words, if only one of these guys call, they're probably going to do so with only big pairs and maybe AKs that have us beaten pretty squarely.
• Calling is even worse, as we'll be OOP with an SPR that also says we're committed. Unless we hit the flop really hard we won't know where we're at, but the SPR says we should get it in. 
• I think this all implies pretty strongly that we're on a fold line.

Implement: Muck, and then pay attention to what kinds of hands either player turns over if it goes to showdown.

Answer: Fold

All-in for now...
-Bug