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An Online Poker Quiz, Without An Answer
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Author: Marc Weinberg
The point of this column is to persuade you that bad things can happen to good poker players, and that when they do happen you're still a good poker player, and that sometimes there is no apparent right answer or solution that would avoid an online poker calamity.
There is a good moment in Speed, a movie that has as much to do with poker as it does acting (zing), but it's a cultural reference point of some familiarity so I'm going with it. It's the moment when Dennis Hopper pointedly asks Keanu what he would do in a tricky situation, and emphasises the trickiness by repeating the words, "What do you do?" Keanu would shoot the hostage, but that really is beside the point. I was faced with a what do you do? moment in an large online poker tournament.
The game was no-limit hold'em, the buy in was a whopping $1500, and the number of entrants was in the plenty range. The blinds were teeny-tiny, and the tournament was but a pup. It was probably the sixth hand of the entire tournament so I had no idea of anyone's style of play at this point. I was second to act and found myself looking at AQ unsuited. I put in a cautious but significant raise, bumping it up to 100 chips. The big blind was 15 so I wasn't fooling around, but it was early and I wanted players. I got two of them, including the blig blind who didn't scare me for a second.
The flop was very interesting: Jh-Qh-Qs. I did not have a heart in my hand, and many have told me I lack one in general, but people can be so cruel. Now, I'm not going to slowplay this hand, but it is early on and I also wanted to extract chips. I don't really want some fool with TK and one heart to get frisky and call my all-in, because there is a very real chance that he could suck out and end my event. But, I am sure I have the best hand, and it has legitimate monster potential. So I bet 250 chips. Starting stacks are 1500 by the way. The guy in middle position cold-calls the bet so quickly that there is only one hand I can put him on. Can you do it to, boys and girls? It has to be a draw, and my guess is it is a very nice flush draw, to either the K or the A. The big blind folds.
At this point I have a 70% chance of winning this hand and drawing out most of his chips as he chases. He could make his flush with the Ah and still lose - my best result, or he could make his flush with any other card only to see the board pair and still lose. Or he might be a complete idiot and just have a J. It makes my mouth water. The turn is the 6h, which stops most of my daydreams. What do you do here? What do you do?
I bet 350 chips, and he very calmly raised all-in. This would put me all-in as well. Now, here is the online poker quiz. When someone raises you all-in with a flush and a pair on the board, and you have a set but not a full-house, can you lay this hand down? Should you lay it down?
The man to talk to on this subject would be "Action" Dan Harrington, a sublime no limit tournament player, and a very studious writer when it comes down to percentages, pot odds, and fine life or death decisions such as these. But he isn't here. He would break it down in the following way: You should reason that you are behind in the hand to a made flush 80% of the time. 15% of the time your opponent is bluffing, semi-bluffing because he holds the Ah in his hand (a worthy play in my book, especially here where it is both ballsy and slightly foolish, the very hallmarks of a good semi-bluff all-in raise), or misguided. He could of course hold JJ or 66 or the case Q with QJ or Q6 and have a full-house of his own. That must account for 5% at most, and only in very good company.
The other 75% of the time he has a flush, but you do have outs to beat that hand. You in fact even have outs to beat his made full-house, if that is what he holds. An Ace on the river, my nod to Barry Greenstein, will get you out of this mess and give you the nuts. There you have 3 outs that no-one can take away from you. I think you also have to credit a second J or 6 as a great card for your hand, and I'd count those cards as 6 more outs. Finally you should assume that the 4th Q is still in the deck, so you have 10 outs in total to win this hand. That's a 20% chance, which we can then add to the 15% possibility that he does not have the flush. So, you have a 35% chance to win, but must risk all your chips.
Here is the moment of truth, the shoot the hostage response that only Keanu and other innovative thinkers can make. When it is for all the marbles and early on in an event, and when you have shelled out $1500 bucks to play, still have most of your chips, and haven't played a hand yet....you should lay down your set of Queens with an Ace kicker.
If you think that you couldn't do it you're in good company because I couldn't do it. I had to lose the $1500 to see him turn over Kh8h and wonder all night long why someone would see my initial 200 chip raise with such a horrible little hand, and then pay another 350 chips for the draw that wasn't even to the nut flush, which itself was by no means certain of being or remaining the nut hand even if it did arrive. These subtleties are lost on a lot of players, but fortunately they have good luck on their side and don't need to encumber their play with any thought. My goodness, I sound like a more eloquent version of Phil Hellmuth, Jr. - only turning my sour grapes into the wine of fine prose.
The river was no help, my own working title for a book about poker pros who are not Barry Greenstein. I need to lay these hands down in the heat of battle. As Jim Meehan would say, loudly and with good reason, "Well, what else could he have had?" Indeed. He must have had the flush to make that bet, or at least position to make me think he had that hand. That cold-call bet on the flop is the tell-tale sign of danger ahead, and if the turn doesn't show improvement for your hand you should be willing to reconsider its strength.
This column has evolved while I wrote it. I started out thinking there was no answer to the problem that I faced, but I now realize there was an answer, but I couldn't get to it in the moment, and certainly not in time to salvage my tournament. The solution is that unlucky breaks befall you all the time. You do not deserve to lose a hand where you bet with the best starting hand, flop the best hand, only to lose to a turn card that hurts you badly. But deserve is not a useful word in poker. It is a word that prevents you from winning or succeeding and you need to forget about justice and fairness, and focus on ways to avoid injustice or at the very least be the cause of it for others.
Related Poker Articles And News Items:
> Poker Odds And Assessing Your Outs
> Harrington On Hold'em Rules!
> Guaranteed Poker Tournaments - Providing An Edge
> The Fallacy Of Saying You Are Pot Committed
> Online Poker Tournament For Bloggers
> Playing Online Poker Is A Lot Like Driving A Car
> An Online Poker Hand Offline
> Poker Terms - The Origin Of The Nuts
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