More on overplaying a pair revisited.

Someone on rgp made a comment about an old post from here about my overplaying JJ when it flopped 3 smaller cards.

In that post I raised after this

The flop is 742, all black, my jacks are red. My caller bets into me, bets $10.

and concluded afterwards that it was a mistake based on my read that the guy likely had either a flush draw or a set or two pair, with some possibilty he had a straight draw.

Here's the relevant part of the rgp comment (it's from one of the rgp posters who often misses the point)

> when you think it's a mistake to get a whole bunch of money in with the
> 2:1 best of it. I think you need to re-read theory of poker and
> understand what a mistake is, because that ain't it. You've got a
> ridiculous case of playing results rather than expectations if you think
> that was a bad play.

Of course the mistake he's making is exactly the estimation mistake I talked about earlier today at mathandpoker.com. I wrote that post a few hours before the rgp comment.

He's thinking of himself as a 2-1 favorite with the overpair when that's not his edge, that's the best edge he might have, not the expected edge. But he uses that as if it's an expected value.

Strippers do the same thing when they tell you they make $1,100 a night. That's not their average earnings, that's how much they made on the best night they ever had.

In the follow up on that rgp thread I suggested the commenter was being results oriented, because he made the 2-1 comment after learning what the guy actually had. But, even that's not right, because the evil opponent actually had a pair, a back door straight draw, and a flush draw. The way the cards actually lay I was a 48/52 dog, not a 2/1 favorite.

If the guy actually had the range of hands I put him on then I was ahead, but not as much as the commentator thinks. I'm not going to bother trying to compute my actual odds because they aren't important.

The point of that post is that in nolimit probably being ahead isn't good enough to raise. That's because when you make the pot bigger you're creating a situation where those times you're behind the pot is likely to get a lot bigger, something you don't really want.

In that hand in my previous post, if the guy had moved allin after my raise I'd have the worst of it, even though I was right to call on the flop even being behind because I wasn't so far behind that I wasn't getting pot odds for a call.

In no-limit, when you're probably ahead on the flop, but if you're not ahead you're in real bad shape, it's not a good idea to get too busy. I'll close with the observation that if I'd had Jc then with the cards he had I'm ahead 52/48 against his pair and flush draw rather than being behind 48/52. Having that club both takes away one of his outs plus gives me a re-draw, tipping the balance.

But I didn't have Jc and I overplayed that pocket pair, costing me more money than it should have.