Joe The Pro

Response to my Aha moment

I'm going to post Azn_cutie's comment because it was very detailed and interesting (btw I showed my friend your blog and he wished you posted more). I am going to try to respond to the points. Azn will be in blue and I will be in black.

Azn_Cutie has left a new comment on your post "Aha moment":

Hey Joe,
It's nice to see you thinking so much about the game. Just a few points:

-9 out draws like flush draws are going to get there 1 in 5 times, not 1 in 6 (~20% to hit on the river), 8 out draws like OESD draws are going to hit about 18% of the time, or 1 in 5.5 times.

Then this makes drawing even more profitable than I had calculated. It's getting me even more excited.

-This point you make:

Cost of Misses: 5 x 4.7 = 23.5

His "cost" of missing is actually significantly higher than 4.7BB. He is probably going to incur cost calling a sizeable bet on the turn if he opts to call 4.7BB on the flop. Thus, the call of 4.7BB is actually implicity higher because it prices him into larger bets later when he is a bigger dog.

Going to be hard for me to try to explain my point I think.

Two things:

It is exactly 4.7 if he folds when he misses. If he always folds when misses and bets only when he hits it then itcosts him 4.7x5 (or 4.7x4 with the FD as you pointed out) and if he hits he has 2 streets of value that doesn't cost very much to make that back at all!

Then it can be seen exactly as calculated.

But even if he doesn't fold, I think the calculation still stands. This is not a hand like Top Pair that has reverse implied odds and getting priced in now and then facing ballooning turn and river bets (trying again to price you in) will hurt you terribly.

The cost of the expanding pot size street by street does not affect strong drawing hands as it would small pot hands like TP. That's why I believe you can look at the costs without mitigating in the expanding pot size factor (it's fine with this type of hand).

One factor I did not include was when you hit your draw but lose out to a higher flush draw, or FH etc... this would lower your implied odds. I would of course be more careful drawing on paired boards.

This is kind of a weird concept and Barry Greenstein describes it well. The point is you cannot look at bets at individual streets in relation to pot odds strictly unless all the money is going in because there is always a higher implicit cost associated with calling. By getting a good price on earlier streets, you are just forcing yourself into being priced in for bigger bets in later streets.

but i think this is fine as long as you still have deep enough stacks to get the implied odds you need.

when short, it's all about pot odds, but when deep, its a lot more about implied odds. thats why you can have such great successful lags, they understand that preflop and actually even the flop they can fool around a bit in position with deep stacks.


This is the thread that BG talks about it in:

http://www.pokerroad.com/forums/showthread.php?t=621&page=3

Will read right after this post.

If you are having trouble with paying off draws that get there, one thing to consider might be checking the turn more often, which sounds counterintuitive at first.

If you're really deep, that doesn't sound so crazy.

I don't know about the players you're up against, but full ring plays generally tighter than 6max and the hand ranges are a lot more polarized. It's tough to get value on all 3 streets when you flop a big hand. Checking turn controls pot size for your 1pair type hands and gets you an extra street of value on the river from mediocre hands and busted draws. The added benefit too is when the draws do get there, you can pay off smaller bets that don't hurt you quite as much. Once again, this may not quite be applicable to your 6max games since the bluff frequency is probably a lot higher and you can get value more easily from strong hands.

You're probably refering to in and out of position, but, yes, when out of position it's so tough, so I like the idea of checking for pot control. when would you advise checking flop vs turn for pot control. check dry flops?

Interesting post though, I like the way you're thinking. I feel like I explained this in a really convoluted way, sorry.

i think i did understand your points and i hope my points make sense too and i'd like to hear your thoughts on if i'm wrong.

it still seems to me that flop drawing is very cheap because of the implied odds and ballooning pots (and not really even ballooning, just calling his flop bet), is not a factor when deep and you have a strong draw. you need to be paid so little for it to be profitable. He just needs to honestly have something.

there are times when he gives up too and you can take it, or maybe you win with high card.

it just seems that when in position with draws i've been folding way too much and it looks very profitable (perhaps not as much in FR games where people don't pay off as much).

posted by joe | permalink | 1 comments