$10/$20 Stud Hand

[xDiamond_CutteRx]

Any other Stud players interested in analyzing this hand are free to join in.


The 2 brings-in $3 for low.
5 folds.
J folds.
6 calls.
10 calls.
Q calls.
3 folds.
I call with [8 8 ] 7 .

Pot: $23

4th street:
Q 2 checks.
I check with [8 8 ] 7 10
2 3 checks.
6 J bets $10.
10 6 folds.
Q 2 folds.
I raise to $20.
2 3 folds.
6 J calls $10.
Pot: $63


5th Street:
He catches the J , showing 6 J J .
I catch the 7 , giving me [8 8 ] 7 10 7 .
Villain bets $20.
Hero: Fold, call, or raise? Pot: $83

Pending answer of call or raise, what are our contingency plans?

[flafishy]

I don't understand why you limped third and then raised fourth.

I fold fifth. You're behind and it will get pretty expensive to chase him. Pot odds to hit your boat are no better than break-even when it's entirely possible that you're drawing dead to it and would need to runner-runner quads.

[TxShadow]

I'm not a Stud player (not by choice, no one ever wants to play), but I fold here. I think he's got at the very least jacks up. As stated, you're not getting odds to chase your boat.

[kainARGH]

no one here considering villan has a flush draw whom happen to pick up a big pair on board. Appears to me he could have easily been going for the flush draw and picked up the biggest pair showing. Hero is playing rather strange in villans eyes - check raises with 710o showing. I think villan has to bet out with jacks showing.

Its also heads up now.

.02


Id like a raise and would expect a call. then would bet out the next street when he checks to us. check check the final street if he calls 6th street's bet.

contingency plan is tough as I wouldn't be very happy if I was 3 bet with his JJ showing - I would think he would start questioning his hand when we raise his JJ showing - but he could very easily 3 bet us.

/not a stud player, just a poker enthusiast giving a different perspective.

[flafishy]

Too many hearts already out to give serious consideration to a flush draw. Even so, it's not worth the money it's going to cost you to find out that you're wrong about that. Leave that to the donkeys.

[xDiamond_CutteRx]

For a non-Stud player, you sure nailed it on the head, Kain.

I don't understand why you limped third and then raised fourth.

Because on third street I was last to act and my raise would have accomplished nothing but to give future draws better odds. My hand is too good to fold, too weak to raise, and there are too many players to protect my hand, thus I called. Fourth street is a different matter. Now, I have the opporunity to shut out players behind me and take control of the hand with a raise. Notice the only way I can be first to bet om the next round is by improving me hand, so my raise also gives me the chance of a free card on fifth street if I don't improve. Personally, I think my play was pretty basic...

fold fifth. You're behind

How do you figure? With a pair, he more than likely would have raised for information at the very least on third street. A flush draw is by far a more likely hand. Also, with a Jack folded on third street, it is highly unlikely he has trip Jacks here. A fold here is very weak in my opinion. People limp in with pairs at the $3/$6 level and below, but they come in raising more often than not at the $10/$20 level, particularly if they are first into the pot.

no one here considering villan has a flush draw whom happen to pick up a big pair on board. Appears to me he could have easily been going for the flush draw and picked up the biggest pair showing. Hero is playing rather strange in villans eyes - check raises with 710o showing. I think villan has to bet out with jacks showing.

My thoughts exactly.

d like a raise and would expect a call. then would bet out the next street when he checks to us. check check the final street if he calls 6th street's bet.

Very astute.

Too many hearts already out to give serious consideration to a flush draw.

There are only two hearts besides his showing on board... I don't think that's too many at all.


I deduced that he had a heart draw and bet to see if Jacks were any good. Fishy and Shadow, what you also forgot was that we caught a huge scare card on fifth... we paired our door card. I raised to represent trips, which might even get a tight player to fold Jacks-up at the $10/$20 level. When he called me, he might as well have announced that he just had a pair plus a flush draw. He caught a baby on 6th street, and he check/called. We went check/check on the river, and it turned out I was correct (as was Kain).

[flafishy]

Because on third street I was last to act and my raise would have accomplished nothing but to give future draws better odds.

I guess you and I aren't going to see eye-to-eye on this, as we've had this discussion before. That is a spurious argument. At the very least, you're going to get the bringin to fold most of the time, and you're going to convince one or two more to fold fourth when you attack there.

Third and fourth streets are all about going on the attack, making it expensive for weaker hands to play and entering fifth street with command of the action. You're giving pot odds by letting people stay in the hand. You take away pot odds for draws by thinning the field as much as possible, not by letting people play on the cheap.

Doesn't matter how much is in the pot, if you enter fifth street with the lead heads up against someone chasing a flush or a straight, they are not going to have pot odds to draw, though most of them will anyway. That's where you turn your profits. Not by keeping it cheap for them in the early streets.

The early action isn't about pot odds at all -- it's about playing poker and setting up the action on the later streets, where you do start paying attention to pot odds.

Fishy and Shadow, what you also forgot was that we caught a huge scare card on fifth... we paired our door card. I raised to represent trips, which might even get a tight player to fold Jacks-up at the $10/$20 level.

Which would have been a much stronger sell had you raised way back on third street.

[xDiamond_CutteRx]

I guess I might as well tell you guys what happened.

I re-raised 5th and he just called. He caught low on 6th and I caught a Jack, proving he couldn't have 3 Jacks, that liar. He checked, I bet, and he called.

I caught a 2 or 3 on the river, it went check-check, and I won the hand with two pair, as he didn't improve.

Doesn't matter how much is in the pot, if you enter fifth street with the lead heads up against someone chasing a flush or a straight, they are not going to have pot odds to draw, though most of them will anyway.

Not necessarily. Sklansky talks about situations like this fairly frequently. If there's been a lot of betting on 3rd and 4th they MAY in fact have odds to call all the way down, especially if they have other outs. I'm trying to play close to Fundamental Theorem of Poker as possible.

[Phil14312]

I think your play was pretty basic too. Why raise 3rd street, everyone is going to call and on future streets, you are going against the fundamental theorem of poker, that is, your actions will make the future actions of your opponents more correct because you are bloating the pot with an OK, but certainly not monster hand. Keep the pot small so they are the ones making the mistakes on the later street. And if an opponent catches 4 to a flush on 4th street, they are rarely making a mistake to call to the end in all but the smallest pots.

[flafishy]

If there's been a lot of betting on 3rd and 4th they MAY in fact have odds to call all the way down, especially if they have other outs.

OK, yes, there are no absolutes in poker. They MAY. But aren't you being a bit too worried about the monster under the bed here?

Why raise 3rd street, everyone is going to call

That is about a 75% incorrect assumption at almost any level above the micros. It certainly isn't a strong enough assumption to give up the advantages you would have heading into the later streets by raising 3rd. If Sklansky does indeed say somewhere that you shouldn't raise in that situation if you plan on playing out the hand into fifth street ... well, at the risk of being branded an infidel and a heathen by not bowing down at the altar, I would have to say he's wrong.

I'm not going to argue that limping third street is incorrect here. It's fine to see fourth street cheaply to try to improve your hand. But the check-raise on fourth makes absolutely no sense when your hand didn't improve, and you're certainly not going to sell your representation of trip Js on fifth street after having only limped third.

I think the problem here is that you're playing each street in a vacuum, and that is only going to lead you down the path of bankruptcy. You just can't throw isolated bets and bluffs out there and expect them to work most of the time. Much more so in Stud than in THE, if you're going to commit to a hand, especially a marginal one like this one, you have to set it up carefully if you hope to do anything but get lucky now and then.

If you plan to play this hand unimproved into fifth street, you have to go on the offensive from the beginning. But if you aren't aggressive at the start, you have to fold when you brick fourth.

[xDiamond_CutteRx]

Ok Fishy, in your defense, a few posters over at 2+2 seem to agree with your idea of folding 5th.

But I object to your statement that I'm trying to play each street in a vacuum. That is completely untrue, and none of my actions were random.

Third street: I called because my raise would accomplish nothing but inflate a pot where I don't have much accuracy. Whether you believe it or not, most players at those limits WILL call a single bet more on 3rd street just to see if they improve on 4th street. I can't get out any dangerous hands by raising, I can't win the pot by raising, and I can't get value out of raising on 3rd, so I DON'T RAISE! There is no reason to raise, and my hand is too good to fold. Calling is clear I think.

Fourth street: My HAND did not improve much, but I'm in perfect POSITION to raise. The guy with the Jack had position, and no one had shown much interest, so he could bet with a lot of hands. I had 3 reasons for raising here:
1. His hand is probably not that strong and I may get him to fold now and I'll win the pot.
2. I can buy a free card if I don't improve on 5th.
3. I will probably either win the pot, or get the pot heads up, which improves the equity of my 8's.

Fifth Street: I don't think calling is viable here. I can raise to represent a strong hand and risk two big bets to win 4. I think there is at least a 33% chance that I either have the best hand or that he will fold, making my raise correct from an EV stand point. If he re-raises, I'm out of the hand, but at least I'll know. If he smooth calls, his most likely hand becomes Jacks and a four flush, and if he has less than that, he will probably fold.

The point Sklansky is trying to make is that you want your opponents to make mistakes. My not raising third, I make more of their future calls incorrect, and by raising fourth I make most immediate calls incorrect. I put a little more stock in a mathematical idea like that than psychological factors like showing more strength early in a hand, because you still make a lot more marginal calls more correct for your opponents.

[flafishy]

I just can't get my head wrapped around the idea that you keep the pot small on third street so it would be mathematically wrong for someone to call you on fifth or sixth street.

I want them to know that it's going to cost them a lot if they want to chase me. In the real world, that's more of an incentive for people to fold those marginal hands than Sklansky's overblown mathematical theorems.

[Phil14312]

In hold'em, if in a FL game, 6 people limp and you raise with AQ. On the flop, you have now given all gutshots the odds to call ( at least 12:1). However, if you limp in, you now give all gutshots only about 7:1 or 8:1. You only calling on the flop set yourself so that if your opponents are playing weak draws, they will be playing them incorrectly, not correctly.

Its this exact same principle but in stud.

[xDiamond_CutteRx]

In hold'em, if in a FL game, 6 people limp and you raise with AQ. On the flop, you have now given all gutshots the odds to call ( at least 12:1). However, if you limp in, you now give all gutshots only about 7:1 or 8:1. You only calling on the flop set yourself so that if your opponents are playing weak draws, they will be playing them incorrectly, not correctly.

Its this exact same principle but in stud.

Could not have said it better myself. In the Sklansky/Miller book they give a good example related to protecting pocket Kings against a large field, and in both the Sklansky "Advanced Player" books on Hold'em and Stud he has a section on "An Important Concept (borrowed from Razz)" that has to do with loose games.

overblown mathematical theorems

To me, that's really all that Poker, or gambling in general, really is.

[flafishy]

overblown mathematical theorems

To me, that's really all that Poker, or gambling in general, really is.

I'll agree with gambling in general if by that you mean casino games such as craps, blackjack, etc., which makes them all losing propositions for the player.

But if you're using math as the be-all end-all in poker, you're pretty much destined to a break-even career, I'm afraid. There's a reason people like Doyle and Ted Forrest and Mike Mizrachi play a lot of poker and people like Sklansky and Mellmuth write a lot of books.