Tuesday, January 22, 2008

It's All About Ranges

Jordan made a mess of the hand description in his latest post.

Here is how it really played out along with my thinking.

The Scene: Last night's MATH, blinds are T150/300/25a, 6-handed

Seat 2: HighOnPoker (T14,258 = 48BB)
Seat 6: Fuel55 (T11,322 = 38BB)

*** HOLE CARDS ***
Fuel55 raises to 1,175 from CO with [Jc Jd]
HighOnPoker calls 1,025 from SB

*** FLOP *** [Qc 3h 7c] (pot is T2800)
HighOnPoker checks
Fuel55 checks (with 2nd pair there really is no point building a monster pot so I check behind)

I will take less information as a means of pot control in the spot most of the time.

*** TURN *** [Qc 3h 7c] [8d] (pot is T2800)
HighOnPoker bets 1,800 (Jordan bets another low card which he may or may not have hit)
Fuel55 calls 1,800 (good reason to believe I am ahead)

*** RIVER *** [Qc 3h 7c 8d] [9h] (pot is T6400)
HighOnPoker bets 2,700 (Jordan makes another stab?)
Fuel55 calls 2,700 (pot is laying me 3.4:1 so I need to be right 23% of the time to be profitable)

So on the turn I put Jordan on any two clubs, most pairs JJ-22, reasonable queens AQo, KQo, QTo+, and T9. This is a reasonable range given that he didn't reraise preflop and he checked the flop out of position.


Against this range I am a 58:42 favorite on turn. When the river is a non-club blank and the pot is laying me 3.4:1 I must call.

*** SHOW DOWN ***
HighOnPoker shows [Qh Kh] a pair of Queens
Fuel55 mucks
HighOnPoker wins the pot (11,775) with a pair of Queens

I rationalized that I am ahead on the flop and ergo the turn about 85% of the time and that his range has about 25% "catch up" equity. Since no reasonable catch up card (other than if he holds 77) came on the river I rationalized that I only have to beat a small percentage of his range to make calling T2700 into T9100 profitable in the long run.


I was wrong since Jordan made a brilliant top-pair check on the flop. Still I play the hand the same way the next time.

That's my perspective ...

6 comments:

BWoP said...

I <3 your Enron math.

I wish my people could be that creative with math.

4dbirds said...

My comment was strictly a compliment. I know I'm in trouble if we end up at the same table.

Jordan said...

Wow! I really got the hand history wrong. My bad. I have no problem with your play or the logic behind it. I would do the same in your situation. I merely meant from my perspective, that hand was all about the preflop cointoss. From there, I knew I was ahead. So I saw it as a 50/50 situation. For you, it came down to defining a range of hands and based on that range, coming up with the 15/85 split. We are both right. The difference in our perceived odds stemmed from perspective.

smokkee said...

he was looking to c/r on the flop and you got hung up on the hand the way he bet 4th and 5th st.

Eric a.k.a. Bone Daddy said...

you are getting soft in your old age. No jamming with second pair? No name calling afterwards.

Pussy.

Hammer Player a.k.a Hoyazo said...

You played this hand fine IMO, I don't see why it's worth getting worked up about at all. You didn't raise on any street, and you called down a player with a known aggro attitude with a hand that was ahead of most but not all of the cards he could have had.

Now the 85% comment? That one I will have to go with bwop on. But I liked your play here and I doubtless would have played this hand 100% the same way as you did.