How to avoid major mistakes part 3

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How to avoid major Mistakes part 3

from firsttsunami

The saying that all good things come in threes also applies to the article series about "how to avoid major mistakes" (part 1, part 2).
Today the third and last part of this column series is presented that promises to show the most serious mistakes in order help to improve the game of those who read it. It would be very
arrogant to claim that every substantial mistake could be covered in
only three columns because it simply isn't possible and that wasn't what was intended anyway. One
could claim, though, that the readers are now aware of the existence of these numerous mistakes and will be on the lookout for them in one's game.

Quite often one can observe sample hands in the
forums where players take weak hands to the showdown and invest 2,5BB,
which actually aren't strong enough to see the showdown, just because
they are scared of being bluffed out of the hand.

I am talking about situations where we are playing against a maniac
with stats of (60/37/2.5/44). I don't want to deny the fact that you
have to see more showdowns against such a player as the likelihood of
him bluffing is much higher than, for example, against a reasonable TAG.

However, even against maniacs, there are situations in which we have a
very weak hand, a small pot and a draw heavy board
(many outs against us). We have to be able to find the fold button in
these situations to stay true to the motto of "winning by folding". You shouldn't
try to take every hand to the showdown just because you are
playing against a maniac. You should look for spots where folding is
the best option even though you might fold the best hand once in a
while.

In order to make these folds, we have to keep the following facts in mind:

• A maniac can hit the board just as well as we can.
• Even maniacs don't bluff on every single board.

Example 1:

Preflop: Hero is BB with 3, 3
MP2 folds, MP3 raises, 3 folds, Hero calls.

Flop: (4.50 SB) Q, J, 9 (2 players)
Hero checks, MP3 bets, Hero folds.

Final Pot: 2.75 BB

The maniac (60/37/2.5/44) raised from MP3 in this
situation. We defended the big blind with 33. The board is not good at
all. Many hands will have hit or have many outs against us. You
shouldn't down call in this spot but rather play check/fold on the
flop. Lets look at our equity against his 37% open raising-range.

37%:
44+,A2s+,K3s+,Q5s+,J7s+,T7s+,97s+,87s,A4o+,K7o+,Q9o+,J9o+,T9o

The current article Heads-up on the flop OOP: C/C without initiative with showdown value from OnkelHotte
and Korn says that you need 37% equity in an unraised pot to call down.
They used a bet robot which bets the streets randomly. We need 34%
equity against this robot, but we should add at least 2%, because a
maniac would be able to think a little bit in some situations and won't
bet every street not matter what. 26% is a good value for our
calculations.

equity win tie pots won pots tied
Hand
0: 70.312% 69.30% 01.01% 279914 4091.50 { 44+, A2s+, K3s+, Q5s+, J7s+,
T7s+, 97s+, 87s, A4o+, K7o+, Q9o+, J9o+, T9o }
Hand 1: 29.688% 28.67% 01.01% 115823 4091.50 { 3c3d }

As you can see, we only have 29% equity. This is
definitely not enough for calling down. You should fold your
hand because there are hardly any cards that are good for you.
Furthermore, you'll have a harder time folding the hand once you have
played one or two streets and you may make costly mistakes. We simply
check/fold the flop.

Example 2:

Preflop: Hero is SB with A, 4
4 folds, Hero raises, BB calls.

Flop: (4.00 SB) T, 9, 8 (2 players)
Hero bets, BB raises, Hero folds.

Final Pot: 3.50 BB

This situation is similar to the one above. We
raise with A4o from the SB against the maniac in the big blind. He
defends passively by calling and we miss the board completely. We make
our continuation bet and the maniac raises. It is very hard to
determine a range for villain, but you should definitely find the fold
button in this hand since you have a hand with very poor playability
and the pot is still small.

But we are ahead against many draws with ace high right?

This is correct, however:

• The pot is only 3.5BB.
• A draw usually has 10 or more outs against which we would only be
  a slight favourite. We are a definite underdog against his made hands
  because we only have 3 outs for our ace.
• We are out of position.
• Hardly any turn cards would be good for us, which would enable us to continue playing.
• We always consider paying another 2.5BB until the showdown because he would hardly ever check behind on the river.
• We don't have any implied odds, but only reverse implied odds. We
  have 1BB implied odds for our ace at max. He is going to value bet with
  all the other hands and if the 4 hits the board, we can't raise and usually have the second best hand.

Conclusion: You shouldn't down call a maniac as a matter of
principle or protest because you don't want to be bluffed. You should give up hands with questionable showdown value in small pots in order to
wait for better spots. Even if you fold the best hand once in a
while, the variance is lower if you give small pots to the maniac and
wait for situations where you have a good hand to really milk him by
playing aggressively.

The maniacs style, which is characterised by its over-aggressive play,
is only profitable when we start to call down too loosely so that he
can extract every single bit of value from his hands. You should
underplay very marginal hands and overplay medium strength (for example
mid pair) and strong hands (top pair+).

In threads, for example in the strategy forums,
where players like to get his stats checked, one value stands out.
I am talking about the river AF. An optimal river AF is between
1.8-2.0. You'll often see a river AF of 1.5 or even lower. This is an
indicator that the player tends to miss value bets on the river because
he makes the wrong assumptions about his hand strength and the opponent's
calling range.

Especially on the lower limits with many poor players,
you can observe this phenomenon quite a lot. You have top
pair with good kicker until the river. The river brings an overcard. You then check/call/check behind because you are scared that
the opponent could have hit the ace and will raise you.

Example 1)

Preflop: Hero is CO with K, Q
MP2 folds, MP3 calls, Hero raises, 3 folds, MP3 calls.

Flop: (5.50 SB) Q, 9, 8 (2 players)
MP3 checks, Hero bets, MP3 calls.

Turn: (3.75 BB) 3 (2 players)
MP3 checks, Hero bets, MP3 calls.

River: (5.75 BB) A (2 players)
MP3 checks, Hero checks.

Final Pot: 5.75 BB

We are in the CO and raised KQs preflop. MP3
limped. We have top pair and second best kicker. We bet the flop and
the turn and the ace hits on the river. Hero checks behind, even though
we have a clear value bet on the river.

It is important to get rid of your fear of being
raised. We would have to call a check raise against an unknown
opponent, but many people donk if an ace hits on the river and you'll
miss a lot of value if you don't bet in these situations.

The opponent is going to call down with weaker hands most of the time
and won't have hit the ace on the river. Sometimes you pay 1BB extra if
someone raises. This obviously isn't nice but it is much worse to miss
value bets against x8, x9 or small pocket pairs which might even call
the river as well, depending on the WTS of the opponent.

Here is an example calculation using plausible ranges for the opponent:

We assume that our opponent isn't completely
brain dead so that he would check/call with hands like A2-A7. We also
assume that he would have checkraised any queen.

The only reasonable hands he could be holding are A8 A9 AT AJ with a
gutshot or combinations of aces which had a heart flush draw.

We are behind against hands like: A9, AT, AJ, A2-A7 on the river.

However we are ahead against hands like the
following which would call us quite often:
77-22,J9s-J8s,T8s+,97s+,K9o-K8o,J9o-J8o,T8o+,98o

If we have more than 50% equity on the river, we
have a clear value bet. Let's summarise the ranges of the better and
worse hands and see what equity we have on the river.

equity win tie pots won pots tied

Hand
0: 38.961% 38.96% 00.00% 60 0.00 { 77-22, AJs-A8s, Ah7h, Ah6h, Ah5h,
Ah4h, Ah3h, Ah2h, J9s-J8s, T8s+, 97s+, AJo-A8o, K9o-K8o, J9o-J8o, T8o+,
98o }
Hand 1: 61.039% 61.04% 00.00% 94 0.00 { KsQs }

We have 61% equity on the river and
therefore a clear value bet. Our opponent is likely to check/call
rather than check/raise with most aces anyway. If we had exactly 50%,
our bet would be neutral because everyone gets half. We are 11% above
average in this case though and we'd loose -0.11BB if we check. You
have to learn to value bet in spots where you only have a low pair or
something similar on the river as well, especially against seemingly
passive opponents with a rather high WTS.

Example 2) 

Preflop: Hero is SB with A, T
4 folds, Hero raises, BB calls.

Flop: (4.00 SB) T, 8, 6 (2 players)
Hero bets, BB calls.

Turn: (3.00 BB) J (2 players)
Hero bets, BB calls.

River: (5.00 BB) K (2 players)
Hero bets, BB calls.

Final Pot: 7.00 BB

This is a situation where we only have third pair
on the river with two seemingly dangerous scare cards. This situation is
definitely not as clear as the other one but I want to show you that
you even have to value bet a low pair in a heads up because your
opponents will call you with hands that are even worse than a third pair on the river.

We only have low pair on the river but it is still
better to bet the river rather than to check. Our hand is too strong to
play check/fold because several draws didn't complete and our opponent
could bet even with a weaker pair. If we decide to check/call, we invest
1BB which is the same as betting. However, all better hands would bet if
we checked and any worse hands, which we want to call, would check
behind.

The disadvantage is that someone could raise. A couple of draws have
now completed on the river. On the lower limits, where people hardly
ever bluff raise, we can be sure to be behind and fold to a raise. We
invest the same amount of money as when we would be betting: 1BB. A
jack would have raised on the turn. We can therefore eliminate the
jack. The king only completes hands like KQ KT K6 K8 K9.

Hands he would mostly call but not raise with are:
55-22,A8s,A6s,KTs-K6s,QTs-Q8s,Q6s,T9s,T7s,98s,87s,85s,76s,65s,A8o,A6o,KQo,KTo-K6o,QTo-Q8o,T9o,98o,87o

equity win tie pots won pots tied
Hand 0: 40.331% 40.33% 00.00% 73 0.00 { 55-22, A8s, A6s, KTs-K6s,
QTs-Q8s, Q6s, T9s, T7s, 98s, 87s, 85s, 76s, 65s, A8o, A6o, KQo,
KTo-K6o, QTo-Q8o, T9o, 98o, 87o }
Hand 1: 59.669% 59.67% 00.00% 108 0.00 { AsTh
}

This is a range which includes many low pairs with
the 8, 6 or the T. Hands which improved with the king on the river are
also included. Maybe he has Q9 and waited to raise until the river.
Most of the hands are much worse though but still call because we
could bet a high card on the river as well if the board had developed
like this.

We have around 60% equity again and therefore have a clear value bet.

Conclusion: You have to learn to evaluate your hand strength on the river
properly and also make very thin value bets because there
are very bad opponents out there who'd call with king or ace high. One
high card shouldn't give you any reason to be scared. You also
shouldn't think that you are beat if one overcard hits the board. You
should get rid of this fear because a good low or mid pair is mostly
still good after your opponent called on the turn or the river since
they will call you with much worse hands as well.

MISTAKE 3: ISOLATING YOURSELF WITH DRAWS WITHOUT SHOWDOWN VALUE AND FOLD EQUITY

Most articles teach you that you should play
strong draws like flush draws or open-ended straight draws
aggressively. Poker wouldn't be poker if there weren't any exceptions
though. It is very good to play your draw aggressively in some
situations. However, in some situations it is right to stay passive. Everything depends on the answer to this question:

Can I win the pot unimproved through sufficient fold equity?

This is a spot where every argument is in favour of playing aggressively:

Preflop: Hero is BB with 8, 7
2 folds, CO raises, 2 folds, Hero calls.

Flop: (4.50 SB) K, 9, 4 (2 players)
Hero checks, CO bets, Hero raises.

Final Pot: 3.75 BB

We defended 87s in the BB and hit our flush
draw. We definitely have to checkraise the flop because our opponent
could be folding offsuited aces or even suited aces, ten, jack and
queen high hands on the flop, the turn or the river at the latest.

This is a spot where passive play is recommended:

Preflop: Hero is SB with J, T

2 folds, CO calls, BU folds, Hero raises, BB calls, CO calls.

Flop: (6.00 SB) K, Q, 7 (3 players)
Hero bets, BB calls, CO raises.

Final Pot: 5.00 BB

We raised JT
from the SB in order to isolate the CO who limped. The BB is
unknown and calls. We hit an OESD and make a continuation bet. BB calls
and the limper suddenly raises.

This is a situation where you should be playing passively. Usually
hands with a queen or a king raise making our outs for a jack or a ten are
worthless. We wouldn't be able to get the CO off his hand by three
betting if he has a king or a queen. We only have outs for our
straight. We therefore only have 34% equity. This
would be even less if we subtracted rake. We therefore aren't the favourite in the hand
any more.

CO is going to have the highest equity in this hand. If we 3bet, BB
might fold. We would have protected the hand from the CO with jack
high. Our equity is going to get larger if we do this, but what is the
point if most of the equity from the BB is handed over to the CO, who is
the favourite anyway. We would also risk being raised on the turn
because he could just call with KQ and bet the turn again in order to
raise. There is no chance to win this pot unimproved. The right play
would be to call the flop and call the turn to fold the river if we are
unimproved. We would check/raise if we improve on the turn or the river.

Example 2:

Preflop: Hero is SB with 9, 8
2 folds, CO calls, BU folds, Hero calls, BB checks.

Flop: (3.00 SB) K, J, 5 (3 players)
Hero bets, BB calls, CO raises, Hero calls, BB calls.

Turn: (4.50 BB) @KK@

We completed with 98
for 1:5 from the big blind after the CO limped. We hit a flush draw on
the flop. Since the pot is unraised and since we are up against three
players, we should bet the flop because there is a good chance of winning the pot unimproved by making better hands like ten, queen or ace
high fold.

We therefore bet, BB calls and CO raises in late position. We should definitely not 3-bet in this case because:

• The raise from the CO shows more strength since the pot is small
  and because his investment is very large in relation to the pot.
• We would isolate ourselves against better hands by 3-betting. It is
  no use to us if the BB folds. His fold only reduces our implied odds.
• You
  cannot play for value if you subtract rake because the likelihood of
  someone having a higher flush draw and the fact that we are below the
  average equity if the BB folds and CO might even cap.
• We provoked a raise by taking the initiative because the CO
  could call our 3-bet with hands like KJ just to raise the turn again.
• We won't be able to make any made hands fold on any of the streets and because our additional investment in % is much larger than our fold equity.