Tuesday, 22 October 2013

A humorous fold

Hand played on Pokerstars
Seat 1: Hero (755 in chips)
Seat 2: Player 1 (1718 in chips)
Seat 4: Villain (3952 in chips)
Seat 5: Player 2 (740 in chips)
Seat 6: Player 3 (1835 in chips)
Hero: posts small blind 50
Player 1: posts big blind 100
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Hero [Qd As]
Villain: raises 200 to 300
Player 2: folds
Player 3: folds
Hero: raises 400 to 700
Player 1: folds
Villain: calls 400
*** FLOP *** [Th 3d 5c]
Hero: bets 55 and is all-in
Villain: folds
Uncalled bet (55) returned to Hero
Hero collected 1500 from pot
Hero: doesn't show hand

Two updates in one day, you guys are lucky!
Sometimes you see things in SNGs that never fail to amaze you and I had a hand come up earlier that was too good I had no option but to come on and share.

So, first things first, my opponent makes a promise-to-call 3x raise from middle position and dealt A-Qo in the SB with 7.6bbs I have a no brainer shove. Instead of shoving however, I misclick raised to 700 leaving just 55 chips behind. My opponent calls.
The flop falls 10-5-3 rainbow and oh well, nothing to do but shove those 55 chips into the pot which is sitting at exactly 1500 right now and hope my opponent has a worse A high or a hand like K-J/K-Q which we’re ahead of.

And then something incredible happens…My opponent folds!
WTF?!?! Really?…Are those pot odds of 28.27 to 1 not good enough?

Even my dead great Gran knows this is a bad fold. It’s worth thinking about just how bad exactly this might be, so let’s take a look at the relevant numbers.


The numbers

With pot odds of 28.27 to 1, my opponent only needs to have exactly 3% equity against my range to break-even and anything >3% will win money. Against my actual hand, even if he had 9d-2c (no backdoor flush draws) he still has 23.13% equity according to Pokerstove which makes folding seem truly horrendous since only anything above 3% is required. And infact, with these overwhelming pot odds there is no hand that would ever be a fold here regardless of my range pretty much: if my range was simply pocket As which it clearly isn’t, even that 9d-2c has 3.939% equity against that hand/range on the flop meaning mathematically there is no hand that would ever warrant a fold here unless my range was limited to a set/two pair on this board which we can safely say isn't.
Indeed, if he had 2-9o and I had A-A he would need to backdoor a running two pair/trips which obviously isn’t going to happen too often but the fact is it doesn’t need to happen too often to make calling profitable given what’s already in the pot and what he stands to lose/gain by committing those extra chips. The fact of the matter is, even if you had that 2-9o in Villains position and the Hero shoved all-in on the flop and flipped over pocket As for you to observe, you would still be calling off. Hopefully those are the sort of plays that players of this calibre are making on a regular basis and keeping poker profitable. At least we know there’s still money in SNGs…for now…

I guess I’m kind of glad now I misclicked pre-flop and manufactured that extra bit of fold equity post-flop!
Peace out

MikeyMcD45
 

4 comments:

  1. Maybe he had a betsizing tell, like you always bet 55 chips with top set? :o)

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  2. Most likely he correctly interpreted it as a suck bet and realised cause I was giving him such good odds I wanted a call correctly deducing that I had a monster and my range was limited to top set therefore it just wasn't worth his while committing those extra chips..

    Yeah...I think we hit the nail on the head with this one..

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  3. Haha this is really sick, but let me tell you this isn't just SNGs, I've seen hands like this at cash games :P

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  4. hey, thanks for dropping by.

    Yeah, tends not to happen often but when it does I'm always shocked! Show these kind of hands to people when they tell you there's no money in poker!

    All the best going pro!

    ReplyDelete