Tuesday, August 30, 2005
Laying Down Aces
Paul Phillips posts in his livejournal about a hand between him and Jennifer Harmon.
It is common wisdom in no limit Hold'em that you can call preflop with a small pair even if you are absolutely certain that your opponent has an overpair. However, since you are about 7.5:1 to flop a set, in order to make this a good call, you have to believe that you can get almost 10 times the preflop call from the betting after the flop. If you or your opponent don't have that much money left it is a bad call.
The converse of this would seem to be, if you raise with aces preflop, you really don't want to put more than 10 times that raise in the pot after the flop. There are a few ways to accomplish this. 1) You can do your best to put in at least 10% of your stack (or your opponent's stack) before the flop. 2) You can play Aces carefully after the flop. I think that both of these are a good idea. 3) You can fold if the amount of betting exceeds 10 times your pre-flop bet. That is pretty tricky. It is very tough to fold an overpair, especially with a non-threatening flop. I don't like that option at all.
But if you add it up, Jennifer raised to 4500 preflop, she reraised to 29000 on the flop and let it go when it got higher than that. Hmm, letting it go when the bet reaches 10 times your pre-flop bet. There might be something to that.
Update: The actual odds of flopping a set or better are 7.5:1 not 10:1 as I originally stated. Thanks to Burningyen for pointing this out. I think that you generally want to be getting 10:1 rather than 7.5:1 to account for the times that you wind up getting beaten anyway or are wrong about your read.
Jennifer Harman is constantly raising my blind from late position. She has about 130K, I have about 180K. Par at this point is maybe 60K so we both have large stacks. I call her 4500 raise in the big blind with TT. The flop comes T92. I bet 9000 and she raises to 29000, leaving her with 94K. I move it all-in and she finds a way to lay down aces. Looked at from one perspective this is an egregious waste of a 10-1 favorite, but instead I'll give her credit for a monster laydown... one she might easily not have made.Laying down aces is always a tough move, especially against a tricky aggressive player like Paul. But this situation is an example of something that I have been thinking about lately while trying to learn how to play no-limit hold'em.
It is common wisdom in no limit Hold'em that you can call preflop with a small pair even if you are absolutely certain that your opponent has an overpair. However, since you are about 7.5:1 to flop a set, in order to make this a good call, you have to believe that you can get almost 10 times the preflop call from the betting after the flop. If you or your opponent don't have that much money left it is a bad call.
The converse of this would seem to be, if you raise with aces preflop, you really don't want to put more than 10 times that raise in the pot after the flop. There are a few ways to accomplish this. 1) You can do your best to put in at least 10% of your stack (or your opponent's stack) before the flop. 2) You can play Aces carefully after the flop. I think that both of these are a good idea. 3) You can fold if the amount of betting exceeds 10 times your pre-flop bet. That is pretty tricky. It is very tough to fold an overpair, especially with a non-threatening flop. I don't like that option at all.
But if you add it up, Jennifer raised to 4500 preflop, she reraised to 29000 on the flop and let it go when it got higher than that. Hmm, letting it go when the bet reaches 10 times your pre-flop bet. There might be something to that.
Update: The actual odds of flopping a set or better are 7.5:1 not 10:1 as I originally stated. Thanks to Burningyen for pointing this out. I think that you generally want to be getting 10:1 rather than 7.5:1 to account for the times that you wind up getting beaten anyway or are wrong about your read.
