Getting crippled with top pair

From a hand history discussed on rgp.

After this hand I was questioned about it. I have put in my thoughts in
from when I was playing the hand. Help me understand where I can improve.
Bet preflop? can you fold to the flop bet?

Grant (Morphy?) and Fell both jumped on me about it

> PokerStars Game #22603082268: Tournament #124719100, $5.00+$0.50 Hold'em No
Limit - Level III > (25/50) - 2008/12/03 22:37:10 ET
> Table '124719100 1' 9-max Seat #6 is the button
> Seat 1: jimpic79 (3390 in chips)
> Seat 2: charrison100 (4145 in chips)
> Seat 3: bgadams (2250 in chips)
> Seat 4: brewcam (1405 in chips)
> Seat 5: Grant1525 (1690 in chips)
> Seat 6: jpawloski (1530 in chips)
> Seat 7: k1d_qu1ck (960 in chips)
> Seat 8: Porsche_Dan (2855 in chips)
> Seat 9: aakringle (2775 in chips)
> k1d_qu1ck: posts small blind 25
> Porsche_Dan: posts big blind 50
> *** HOLE CARDS ***
> Dealt to charrison100 [Kh Qs]
> aakringle: folds
> jimpic79: folds
> charrison100: calls 50

MP limp to see if I hit

> bgadams: folds
> brewcam: folds
> Grant1525: calls 50
> jpawloski: calls 50
> k1d_qu1ck: calls 25
> Porsche_Dan: checks
> *** FLOP *** [Qd 9d 8s]

pot 250
TP 2K

> k1d_qu1ck: bets 910 and is all-in

Against 3 players I saw this as a steal. I called with my hand given it
was 1/3 my stack and a chance to knock him out. I was thinking A9 A8 two
diamonds or gut shot. No bet preflop from him in the blind made me
discount any pair or A face.

> Porsche_Dan: folds
> charrison100: calls 910

Thought the bet and the call was enough to isolate and that Grant and
Jason would fold.

> Grant1525: raises 730 to 1640 and is all-in

Ummm
Flush draw or straight draw or top pair

> jpawloski: calls 1480 and is all-in

Damn it
Flush draw or straight draw or top pair
One of these 2 has me beat.

> charrison100: calls 730

There was too much in the pot to not call and I was still going to have
1/2 my stack if I lost and that was a chance for a triple elimination.

> *** TURN *** [Qd 9d 8s] [Ad]
> *** RIVER *** [Qd 9d 8s Ad] [7d]

Made his flush. Grant and Jason both having the straight was a shock I
figured one had it and the other had AdXd but like I said with the pot
size and the amount of a call I felt it was justified.

> *** SHOW DOWN ***
> charrison100: shows [Kh Qs] (a pair of Queens)
> Grant1525: shows [Jh Th] (a straight, Eight to Queen)
> Grant1525 collected 320 from side pot-2
> jpawloski: shows [Ts Jc] (a straight, Eight to Queen)
> Grant1525 collected 855 from side pot-1
> jpawloski collected 855 from side pot-1
> k1d_qu1ck: shows [8d 6d] (a flush, Ace high)
> k1d_qu1ck collected 3890 from main pot
> *** SUMMARY ***
> Total pot 5920 Main pot 3890. Side pot-1 1710. Side pot-2 320. | Rake 0
> Board [Qd 9d 8s Ad 7d]
> Seat 1: jimpic79 folded before Flop (didn't bet)
> Seat 2: charrison100 showed [Kh Qs] and lost with a pair of Queens
> Seat 3: bgadams folded before Flop (didn't bet)
> Seat 4: brewcam folded before Flop (didn't bet)
> Seat 5: Grant1525 showed [Jh Th] and won (1175) with a straight, Eight to
Queen
> Seat 6: jpawloski (button) showed [Ts Jc] and won (855) with a straight,
Eight to Queen
> Seat 7: k1d_qu1ck (small blind) showed [8d 6d] and won (3890) with a flush,
Ace high
> Seat 8: Porsche_Dan (big blind) folded on the Flop
> Seat 9: aakringle folded before Flop (didn't bet)

>

From above

> Made his flush. Grant and Jason both having the straight was a shock I
> figured one had it and the other had AdXd but like I said with the pot
> size and the amount of a call I felt it was justified.

Do you understand what you just said?

You thought you were drawing dead but called because the pot was big?

Do you know what zero times a big number is?

You need to pay more attention to position and think of third to act in a nine handed game as third to act in a nine handed game rather than as middle position.

Given the situation (position and stack sizes) a KQo should probably have never been played in the first place.

Top pair with that coordinated flop is not what is meant by "hitting the flop"

So I guess that's three pretty big mistakes.

Counting your outs

Before the river (and the showdown) hand evaluation isn't based on the poker hand rankings of one pair, two pair, three of a kind, straight, flush, etc. Hand evaluations and rankings are based on the distribution of possible outcomes.

An out is a card that will improve your hand to a winning hand on the river based on the traditional poker hand rankings. A hand with a lot of outs before the river is often a very good hand even though it hasn't yet achieved anything in terms of the traditional hand rankings.

For example, a no-pair hand on the flop that has a flush draw, a straight draw, and two overcards is a much better hand than top pair on the flop even though one pair beats no pair. That's because that hand with all the draws is the probable winner at a showdown on the river, after two more cards have come. It's a hand with a lot of outs.

The breakeven point between a pair and a draw is 14 outs on the flop. A hand that has 14 outs on the flop is a slight favorite over a hand with one pair and no redraws on the flop.

That would mean hands like:

bottom pair and a flush draw (14 outs)
a flush draw with two overcards (15 outs)
a flush draw with a straight draw (15 outs)
a straight draw and two overcards on a rainbow flop (14 outs)

are pretty good hands to have on the flop.

Note that when I counted a straight draw I specified a rainbow flop. That's because a hand like 8c7c on a flop of 2d 5d 6s doesn't have 8 clean outs to make a straight. Two of the cards that will make it a straight will put three diamonds on the board, possibly killing the straight by giving someone else a flush. You can't really count those 8 outs as an improvement to a winning hand. I count the straight draw on a two suited flop as 6 outs, 7 outs if you have a backdoor flush draw (such as a 6c instead of 6s in the above example).

Counting outs for straight draws can sometimes be problematic. Not only might your straight draw give someone a flush, it might give someone a higher straight. So it's best to be very conservative when counting outs on a straight draw. That's the case in both limit and nolimit forms of hold'em, but it's especially true in nolimit becazuse of the potential cost of making your hand and losing anyway.

Dawn, of I had Outs, recently described a hand she plays which serves as an example of what I'm talking about.

On the button I get 9c8c, I raise to fifteen. Now, I haven’t raised in hours, no one has seen me do anything but listen to my ipod and drink Grey Goose with pineapple. And yet, six people call me.
The flop is a lovely TcJcAs I bet out $40, I get two callers. Qh comes on the turn. I bet $50 and the guy in the one seat raises all-in. I have like $92 left.

Although she's right that a flush draw with a straight draw is a god flop for her, it's not as good a flop as she thinks it is. She effectively has something like 11 outs, not enough to make her a favorite against even bottom pair. A queen will make her a straight, but it's a very dangerous straight. Anybody with a single King will make a bigger straight with that card (which, of course, is the card the guy in seat one has).

She should have at least thought about checking that flop, keeping the pot small so that should a queen fall it probably won't cost her all her chips to draw for that flush. I'm not saying she should have checked, I'm saying should have given it some serious thought.

When your top pair is beat

Some players seem to think the only real poker tactic is deception. Their whole game is built around that one tactical ploy. You can save yourself a lot of money by early identification of players whose entire arsenal of poker tactics is built on that singular idea of deception.

I was playing some 1/2 blind no limit last night. The game had a capped buy in of $200.

I'm on the big blind with a Kd 8d, there are 3 limpers and the small blind in the pot and I check preflop.

The flop is a 346, with 2 hearts and a diamond.

Everybody checks.

The turn is 8c. The small blind checks.

I bet $10. One caller. Then the mid-position limper makes it $30. The late position limper folds, as does the small blind.

It's my turn.

What does he have? Is my hand any good? If I'm not best how many outs do I have.

I thought I was drawing dead. What hand could he possibly have that he would've played from mid-position, checked that flop, then raised the turn?

In answering those questions we need to start with what I know about the player. I didn't really know much. I'd just recently arrived at the table and hadn't seen anything noticeable occur in any of the hands I'd watched so far. But this is a live game. I could look at the guy. Stereotypes can be helpful, and this guy fit one poker player stereotype that you don't often see discussed. He looked like a farmer.

He was in his 50's or 60's, wearing a feed store ball cap, tanned, weathered face, and large, rough hands. Casual clothes, neat but not pressed. I've seen that type in cardrooms around Oklahoma, Louisiana, Mississippi, and even Reno. They generally fall into one of two categories, a wild gambler type or a steady but loose and tricky type.

The first type often gets out of line and overvalues his hand and situation. The second type seldom overvalues his hand and seldom gets out of line for more than a minimum bet.

I'm not able to tell which type of farmer I'm looking at by just looking, but the way this hand played out gave a strong clue as to what kind of player he is. If he'd have hit any part of that flop at all you would not have checked the flop, with something like an 86 or even 84 or just a flush draw he'd have bet the flop, pushing the boundaries of his marginal hand. Neither type is likely to raise me on the turn unless they can beat top pair or have a strong draw to beat it.

With a player left behind him the steady but tricky type of farmer would be very likely to have checked that flop with a 75 however.

That's what I put him on. Exactly a 75. I thought I was drawing dead with my top pair. I folded. That early position limper called his raise then called another $40 when a blank face card hit the river. The farmer had flopped the nuts, just as I'd concluded after his turn raise.

I don't think my laydown was particularly special, it's almost never a good idea to call a turn raise with just a pair, but I decided to blog about it because I think my read of that player is a good example of how to combine thoughts about stereotypes and the particular beating pattern of a hand.

This sort of thing is one way that poker math relates to poker psychology. There are separate things but the complementary aspect of the two is more important than either individual view. Poker math and poker psychology serve each other, and you can't really meaningfully apply either of the two approaches without incorporation of the other. The psychology comes in when identifying the stereotype. The mathematics comes in when comparing the betting pattern two the two different possible interpretation of player stereotype of the middle-aged, tractor driving, farmer.

Update: I corrected a minor typo

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.

Overpair

This isn't really a heavily read blog, partly my own fault becuase I don't post as often as I should.

I just wanted to call attention to the comment thread on a previous post on overplaying an overpair.

I think an overpair on a drawy flop is an interesting decision point.

More on overplaying a pair

I fell in love with JJ yesterday in a 1/2 game and lost about $90 that I should not have lost.

I raised pre-flop, I think I made it $7 first in. One caller, he was in front of me, in one of the blinds.

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

This is where I made my first mistake. I raised, making it $40. That was a huge mistake.

Why would I raise here? Yes, I think I probably have the best hand, but even if I do he's going to have outs. He probably doesn't have a 7, with a 7 he'd fear a bigger pair from me and check/call. He is more likely to have a flush draw or even a 35 for a straight draw. Should I raise to "charge him" for his draw. Well, if I know for sure that's what he has, then yes. But, what if he doesn't have a draw. Well, if he has a set of 7's or 4's or some such thing then I'm really in bad shape.

A much, much smarter way to play this hand is just call and see what happens on the turn.

What happened was a Qc falls, putting 3 clubs on the board and he fires right out with $30. Did I fold? Not me. Once I make one mistake I dig in my heels and try to make as many mistakes as I can. I call. I call again when a blank falls on the river and he bets another $30.

What I should have done was call the flop and fold the turn. He had 4c5c.

Probably ahead isn't good enough. Even if you're sure enough that you're ahead to make a raise an action with positive expected value it's not enough. You need to think you're probably ahead plus have some kind of extra protection in case you aren't. Even something as little as having the Jc in my hand might have been enough to feel a little more comfortable with the hand.

Whenever I make that kind of rookie mistake I just cash out and go take a nap. Which is what I did after this hand.

Going broke with top pair

Here's a hand where I went broke with top pair and I think it was a reasonable risk, contrary to the adage against it.

It was a 1/2 blind NL HE game with a $200 cap on the buyin. I don't usually by in for the max until I've been at the table a while. I bought in for $100 and lost a little. I had a little over $70 when this hand arose.

Six players at the table, a limp in front of me, I limp in the cutoff with QcJc, button calls, the big blind makes it $12. I don't really want to go up againswt a raise with this hand, but the player in front of me calls, so I go ahead and call, the button calls.

Flop is Qs 8c 3c. Top pair and a flush draw. Even a back door straight gut-shot.

Check-Check. I'm surprised at the check from the raiser. Doesn't seem normal. I'm suspecting a big hand of some sort. I'm thinking maybe AQ or AA. But maybe not. If he has me beat I have a flush draw. If he has a better draw then I have the best hand. Maybe he's got neither, maybe I have the best hand and he doesn't have a draw.

Anyway, the pot is almost $50 and I have a little over $60, so I just go allin. Button folds. He quickly moves allin for a total of about $100, the guy between us folds. Now I think I'm beat.

I turn over my hand. He doesn't. He's mister slowroll. But I'm still okay with my hand. I think he has an over-pair so I probably have about 15 outs, so I'm actually not beat.

Turn is a queen, river makes me a flush, he had flopped a set of 8's, his fullhouse wins.

Even against the worst case scenario I had 9 outs, after considering his redraw I had about 6 effective outs against a set. That's not great but it's only about a 3 to 1 dog at worst.

That's a key for considering whether a top pair is worth going broke with. Do you know you aren't drawing dead and at least have a few (more than 2 or 3) live outs? If so you have a lot more than top pair.

Top pair revisited

The other day I made a post titled Don't fall in love with top pair. More recently Ed Miller has a post about Going Broke with One Pair. The two ideas are related, although not exactly the same. Falling in love with top pair often leads to going broke needlessly, but the converse is not so often true. There are plenty of circumstances besides inappropriately falling in love with top pair which might lead to going busted with top pair. Ed's post uses one of those other situations as an example to illustrate his thesis.

His thesis appears to be

Going broke with just a pair brings on a bevy of emotions, from guilt (for ignoring such a simple rule), to embarrassment (for losing so much with such a modest hand), to despair (as in, “Why the hell can’t I figure this game out?”).

The thing is, all that angst is often thoroughly misplaced. Sometimes it’s not only ok to go broke with one pair, but it’s the right thing to do.

I'm not sure that I'd say going broke is ever the right thing to do, although it might sometimes be a common result from doing the right thing.

Ed didn't mention my prior post in his, but making a reference to somebody elses blog isn't the sort of thing I expect from Ed anyway. He's just not that kind of guy.

Some of Ed's post is based on some misconceptions he has about poker history and the source of the phrase "Don't go broke with top pair" as an adage that is heavily adopted by many players. He doesn't seem to understand the motivation for the original adage.

I think the main thing that trips people up is a common poker fallacy. It goes like this: “I see bad players do that a lot, so it must be a bad thing to do.”

It’s similar for going broke with one pair. Bad players do it a lot. It’s part of what makes them bad. But that doesn’t mean that’s it’s always a thing to avoid.

That's not really the source of the adage. The source of the adage is that it's a solid truth in the context of the games that gave rise to the adage. Those games tended to be deep money cash games. In deep money games it's important to keep pots small with vulnerable hands. To relate it to some comments I've made on my mathandpoker blog, (I'm having some database errors on that blog, so that link might not work) what becomes important in deep money no limit games isn't EV, it's risk-adjusted EV. Risk-adjusted EV is a concept from mathematical finance that's based on mean/variance efficient frontiers.

The way to control risk in deep money no limit games is to keep the pot small enough so that you can easily get away from vulnerable hands if things go badly for you.

Ed gives an example of a short money game where the hero got all-in on a red flop of 566 with a pair of black queens. Flush draws, straight draws, three sixes, overcards, all kind of draws that put his hand at risk and at best he has a 2-card redraw if he's beat.

As a prelude to the hand history he says,

Sometimes one pair is more than enough to get all-in with, and if you go broke, you go broke. An example of this is today’s Q&A.

That's nuts.

It turns out that the villain had a black AJ and the QQ was far ahead. But with that flop, there's no way to put a typical villian on a black AJ unless you've shown a history of being willing to lay down pairs on drawy looking flops and he's shown an ability to overplay weak draws. Without that information (which I didn't see anywhere) this is not at all an example of when an ovepair is more than enough to get all-in with. Not even close.

While it turns out I actually agree with Ed that in the situation as given it probably is right for the hero to call a check-raise on the flop with all his chips (which is how he got all-in), the reason it's probably the right thing to do isn't because his hand is worth it, it's because he didn't have many chips.

There was $3.30 in the pot preflop, hero bet $2 and the villain goes all-in for $2.50 more. Sure call an extra $2.50 once the pot is over $7. But not because you have a hand to go busted with, becuase the money is short and you're getting a price.

The didn't go busted anyway when the villain rivered an Ace, he had the villain covered.

Ed seems to have completely missed the point. About the only time top pair (or an overpair) is a hand to go busted with is when you're short stacked and the pot has gotten big relative to what chips you have left. Or, as is the actual case in his example, when you're not really going broke.

Don't fall in love with top pair

I ran across this hand on the internet.

Our hero is in a 50c/$1 game (I think) with slightly over $100 and brings it in for $3 with JTh. Button makes it $6. He calls, everyone else folds. Flop is jack high with 1 heart and two diamonds, he checks, button bets $3, our hero makes it $10.

I don't like the check/raise for so many reasons I'm not sure where to start. A bet would have been fine. A check/call would have been fine. But his hand just isn't strong enough for the check/raise. A mediocre top pair with a mediocre kicker with a player behind who had re-raised preflop is not a strong hand.

But that's what he did, I think setting himself up for big trouble. The turn is a 7h, putting a pair on the board. He bets $15, the button goes all in, raising about $70 more.

Now he just has to give it up. He's shown much more strength than his had warrents, and the other guy doesn't seem to care how strong he thinks he is. He's already lost more money than he should, there's no need to go broke here.