What do you make of this curious situation at the poker table?

What do you make of this curious situation at the poker table? … I was playing 1-2nl today and I was in an interesting predicament where I could apply sound math to the game that was absolutely predictable. I thought it was very unique and likely wont happen very often in the way that it did. so I want to share it and see what I can learn.

Pre flop, bets were raised, and then re-raised up to 27 dollars which was called by 5 people putting about 130 in the pot after the rake, quite a bit of money Preflop which is part of what makes the situation so uncommon to be possible.

Flop was 4,5,7 of varying suits that I had none of. And I sat on A,6 being suited was the only reason I elected to stay in the hand.

First player to act shoved all in at $107 everybody else folded and I was last to act, I acknowledged the fact that I had an open Straight draw but also realized the only player in the game was all in and it was effectively a game of chance being played now that relied solely on the cards to be dealt and the amount of money in the pot, no strategy or anything.

I come from the world of blackjack so analyzing it was no problem to me on the fly at the table.

I looked at it like this, of 47 unknown cards 8 of them would give me the straight, which would have a very high probability of being the winning hand 8/47 is slightly above 1/6 so i used the rough value of >1/6. I also assumed the all in player had a good pocket pair because the board was low, which gave a possibility that any Ace drawn may give me the winning hand as well, but i did not directly factor this in, I only used it as a "greater than" value meaning whatever my average ROI was it was actually greater than that because I held an ACE.

taking >1/6 on two cards I figured I had >1/3 chance to make the straight by putting up 107 dollars…..in short by calling 107
2 ways to return -107
1 ways to return +237
for an EV of (-107 -107 +237)/3
for an average of ~ >+8$ for every time i hypothetically made the same action.

I also considered that the ace had additional value to the ROI for the action of calling but did not assign it a value

So figuring the value of calling was more than 8 dollars, and the value of folding was 0 dollars, i confidently shoved out 107 dollars and everybody at the table was extremely shocked as to how nonchalantly i did it. then they gave me funny looks when they realized I was chasing a straight.

I think the nature of the large amount of money in the pot and the fact that the only other player was all in had created a unique scenario where calling and chasing the straight was in fact the correct move but only because of the amount of money involved and the fact that there could be no changes to the pot after the call was made.

What do you think? How would you have chosen to act and how do you think most players would approach this situation.

It's not just a math problem which makes the math a little off. The action preflop isn't depicted very well which hurts the ease to analyze the problem. We don't really know what the initial preflop raise was or where the 3bet was from. If we assume that you cold called a raise from probably late position and one of the blinds re-raised got 3 callers(1 preflop raiser + 3 callers + your call = 135 so I'm assuming its raked about $5) and it got back around to you and you closed the action seeing a flop I don't think its terribly bad as someone else has said. If you cold called two raises with this hand with action left to act behind you which included a preflop raiser this is probably a serious error.

In the first scenario I'm always calling here. If it's the 3bet'er who put in the all in shove over pairs represent a large amount of his range and we will have an overcard in addition to our straight outs a large majority of the time. Like vs AA,KK,JJ & TT our equity is about: 40.7%(giving us +$33 on a call); even if he's tight with his preflop 3bets vs AA(I think its reasonable to assume almost everyone is 3bet'ing at least AA or KK here) our equity is 31.88%(giving us +$2.50ish on a call). Additionally someone was asking what flops we're happy to get it in with I think this consists of any open ended, any two diamond board, three diamond board(obviously), any A6x, 66x, or possibly AAx(this one is more tricky to play than the others). Not a ton of boards but we can hit profitable spots some of the time.

In the second scenario where the 3bet'er isn't the player who is shoving all in but its a cold caller or the additional raiser I really hate the way we've played it entirely. Our preflop play didn't close action and some of the time we won't see the flop. I think sets represent a large portion of a cold callers shove range. There's so much in the pot this hand is unlikely to slow play as there are a few bad scare cards that can hit somebody's range if they don't bet like a 3,6 or 8. Against a set our hand no longer does very good and is about 24.65% equity(giving us -$22.20 on a call)

So, it's mainly what PDQ said except I don't think you can call the initial preflop raiser or any respectable tight cold caller. But everyone else, including the 3bet'er or a player who is willing to shove on the lighter side you should be calling.

Good answer from JackAce. I'd just like to add 2 minor points.

First – I might be stating the obvious, but some folks might not think about this. The fact that you were last to act played a BIG part of this decision. Had you acted first after the bettor, I think the decision would have been to fold. There would be too great a chance that someone behind you had flopped a set or something else that would have taken the Aces out of your possible outs. (Perhaps A-7 suited.)

Second – I don't necessarily believe the Aces left in the deck should automatically be assumed as "outs". What we never got to hear in your scenario is WHO was the person that re-raised it to $27 pre-flop. If the person who shoved all-in was that person who made it $27, then it's most likely he has an over-pair, and you can therefore count the Aces as outs. If instead he limped in, called the first raise, then tentatively called the $27, there is a much better chance he probably flopped a set. Again – that would mean you can't count the Aces as outs.

In my opinion, if he were the pre-flop raiser to $27, I would have called. If he limp-called the $27, I may fold in this situation.

Have you never bothered to read up on pot odds? I'm not insulting you, just curious. This is pretty much on page 1.

The rule of 4 and 2 that JackAce presented is an easy method to calculate approximate odds at the table, although in this particular case I would not necessarily assume the Aces were live outs (it depends on the opponent and situation). The percentages will come to you pretty easily for common situations before too long though.

But yeah, it's often mathematically correct to call on a draw. It's especially common in tournaments and short stack situations, which is what this became when all that money got into the center pre-flop. You can pretty much lock it into your brain that it's mathematically correct to call an all-in of less than the pot whenever you have a open ended straight draw or a flush draw.

I wonder why the people at your table freaked out. Was it that fishy, or were there just not that many big pots? This is practically an insta-call for most competent players.

I agree with your assessment that it isn't the outcome that matters, but the approach.

That being said …

At a 1-2nl game you called $27 with an A6suited?! What were you thinking?!

Your hand had virtually no potential. Pairing the board on either card is a loser; either you're bottom pair or AA with a dead kicker and with 4 other players, the odds that you had the only Ace are virtually nonexistant. Shy of the flopped nut flush (which probably gets you ZERO action, since it's so obvious to the board what they have to beat) the ONLY playable flop you could hope for is … what? … a 4,5,7 maybe?

You played post-flop correctly. You played pre-flop horribly.

You have four 3s, four 8s, and three Aces that will win the hand for you. That's a total of 11 outs.

The "Rule of 4 and 2" says that you can multiply your outs by 4 if there are two cards to come and multiply by 2 if there is one card to come. This will give you an approximation of your winning percentage.

The Rule of 4 dictates that you have approximately a 4×11 = 44% chance of winning (in reality, it's about 40%).

Those are 5:4 odds. Since the ratio of the pot ($237) to the bet ($107) is greater than 5:4, you are correct in calling. That's what pot odds are all about.

Take up tiddlywinks Seriously though… If I read this right Hero is sitting on three Aces. Unfortunately you have not listed what suits the rest are. I mean, if they were all Spades,then Hero would also have a small straight. In which case if I were hero, I would call the bluff and re-raise BTN – or better yet go all in. I would be almost tempted to do this even with three Aces, as chances are reasonably high that BTN doesn't have much! Either way, it is worth the risk to see BTN's hand – I'd at least call!

I'd say that you also need to consider the history of your "all-in" opponent. Is he an "all-in" noob that typically goes all-in on every hand hoping to chase off opponents then turns over a 8-3 off suit and laughs at the folders? Or is he an extremely tight player that always folds unless he has a monster hand.

What was your read on this guy? Was he a weak fish or a worthy opponent that had gained your respect. That should be one of the factors to consider. If you know nothing about your opponent then pot odds rule.

Seems like a big drawn out thing you are writing here. Yes, you had the pot odds to chase the straight, especially with the Aces being possible outs as well. Simple.

What kind of jerk doesn't say the outcome first of all? And there are many factors involved. You have to think that because he put in 107 hes either bluffing aggressively or over playing a higher pair than the board. You had already committed some money to the pot, so he probably assumed you had some decent cards. This might make his assume you didn't have 4,5 or 7 and it would be safe for him to bluff. You have to watch him in other hands to see if he aggressively approaches pots with bluffs. Many people will bet high when they bluff and bet moderately when they have something. I would say your decision overall was somewhat risky. Realistically at that moment you had to hope for your ace to have him completely beat.

There is a book Called poker odds and probabilities. It helps a lot with figuring out situations like this.

So you lost…lame.

Do not ever over analyze a hand of poker…

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