Multiway Pot / Reverse Implied Odds

[daviebhoy]

Hi,

I read a little bit about reverse implied odds recently but not totally sure how I should be applying this. The issue came up in this hand last night.

Notes on opponents :

Gambleag is multi-tabling loads of tables, he is very aggressive when in a hand and I am generally avoiding him unless I am very strong.
Blondechik has played a lot of hands and been running very good hitting the board hard a lot.
Finney888 is playing very fishy and showing down a lot of strange hands.
Hero - I have won a lot of small pots so far and had what I represented when called down and my raises and continuation bets have been shown a lot of respect up until this hand.

Hold'em NL (£0.25/£0.50) - 2008/12/18 - 21:14:24 (UK)
Table "Berjost" Seat 5 is the button.
Seat 1: Gambleag (£49.25 in chips)
Seat 2: Devildean (£6.83 in chips)
Seat 3: Zakstar78 sits out
Seat 4: Finney888 (£14.49 in chips)
Seat 5: Blondchik (£87.60 in chips)
Seat 6: Hero (£67.35 in chips)
bigdeal67: posts small blind £0.25
Gambleag: posts big blind £0.50
----- HOLE CARDS -----
dealt to Hero [ ]
Devildean: folds
Finney888: calls £0.50
Blondchik: calls £0.50
Hero: raises to £2
Gambleag: calls £1.50
Finney888: calls £1.50
Blondchik: calls £1.50

I raise looking to attack the limpers but get gamble calling in the BB which I don't like at all. He took a long time over his call and I was sure he was going to re-raise but I came over the top of him again with QQ last time he did that so I think he decided to just flat it and see a flop first.

----- FLOP ----- [ ]
Hero: checks
Gambleag: checks
Finney888: checks
Blondchik: checks

I expected to check/fold here but get to see the turn for free.

----- TURN ----- [ ][]

Initially I am thinking this is a good card although would have been better. As I raised pre-flop and my raises have been shown respect up until now I decide to take a stab at it with my up and down draw :

Hero: bets £5
Gambleag: raises to £17.50

Yuck, hate this and my cards are ready to hit the muck.....

Finney888: is all-in £12.49
Blondchik: folds

But, hmmm. Pot is offering me odds of about 3.5-1 to call here after Finney pushes. Very tempting and he could have almost ATC here. The flush draw wouldn't surprise me in the slightest. Nor would T2o.

There is £43 in the pot and I have to call £12.50. Gamble has £30 left behind so the real question is what is he holding. I really thought he was going to re-raise pre-flop so I think he has a hand. He spent a lot of time over it and eventually flatted. He could easily have been caught up in a hand elsewhere tho. I think AKs, AQs and overpairs bet on flop so I'm discounting them. He is very aggressive when he has a hand so don't believe he would check TT, 88 or 22 on flop multi-way. Therefore 77, 99 and to a lesser extent J9 or 9T are possibilities. I'm not sure he calls here with something like J9 tho so often and if I was right about the re-raise pre-flop then its even more unlikely. He could also be playing overpairs, set or bluffing with flush draw or gutshot so I can't totally discount them as I have seen him do it before but four-way its an even riskier move than my initial bet.

I need 23% chance of winning to call. Open-ended straight draw is 31% but using reverse implied odds its unlikely in this spot I have that. If two of my cards are out then I have 24% still. As said I am not really sure how I should be factoring this in but the implied odds of hitting my hand and having Gamble beat to factor in against him bluffing and having something sick like Q9 and busting me if a Jack comes.

I'm guessing people will think I am over-complicating this and I should just fold because I am likely beat with just my Ace high. Any thoughts appreciated though. Raising pre-flop with A9 in SB and betting into three opponents with Ace high OOP on turn aren't moves I am especially proud of and I am aware of the problems with this but it was situation specific and not what I generally think is good play!

I guess the question is - are pot odds good enough to call here ?

[daviebhoy]

I have just realised my mistake and that I have only about 16% at best to make my straight on the river. Also, I am splitting the pot here a lot if I hit so I think it is a fold. Still any thoughts appreciated.

[bolt pp]

why are we playing this hand in the first place?

"to attack the limpers" sigh, pls at this level just forget about doing that shit.

once theres two limpers you can limp if really want  but id rather limp a 65 or something there than your hand.

Now you cant c-bet the flop because one of your customers is a shorty and now it looks like you've thrown £2 down the drain.

i wouldnt fire the turn here, the shorty can shove so much here and gambleagg used to play 1/2 and 2/5 on crypto and is one of the loosest winning players at low stakes,(didnt seem to do too well at mid stakes) though he's setting the shorty in here he's got something.

9j has you drawing dead and suited straight draw and combos with a pair have you in a bad way.

I was gonna say you're overcomplicating this so much but ive read you already say that yourself and a hand that should cost you max 50p has cost you +£20

fuck it, you mangled the hand pretty bad anyway, might as well carry on butchering it and try and get lucky now

[Graham C]

I'm not really a cash player, but I really don't like the hand and find myself agreeing with Bolt.

[daviebhoy]

I have thought about this a lot since playing it as I was again trying to justify my play to myself.

I think I have identified a few mistakes made here. I don't mind the pre-flop raise still but agree it is far from brilliant but my turn bet is horrible OOP into three players.

The other mistakes I made at the time were not calculating the pot odds and straight draw percentages correctly. I thought I had 30% chance of winning the hand and I was being offered 4-1 which was a mile out looking back now.

Anyway, I called and came on river. I checked and gambles pushed all-in. I figured I had to call now I made my straight and they showed down :

gamble
finney

I did get lucky but I know I played this horribly on reflection.

I'm not sure why I keep posting these horribly played hands here. I guess just needing confirmation that there is no justification for such bad play. I really want to stop them as I'm doing alright and I do play hands well from time to time :-) But I know I need to stop making such daft mistakes if I want to keep on playing.....

[Graham C]

If you're playing them because you're not playing enough hands and you're getting bored, try firing up another table.

[GreekStein]

Gambleag is terrible but just insta fold here - its clear he has you crushed plus if you do hit you could be drawing to a split.

Bolt is right when he says about punishing the limpers, the most profitable way to get paid at low stakes is make a hand. The fish will pay it off all day long.

[daviebhoy]

I've tried multi-tabling but think I just make more mistakes :-) I also don't feel aware enough of what my opponents are doing.

I am spending more time taking notes inbetween hands and tightened my range a lot and prefering to concentrate on the one table for now. I would normally fold A2-A9 here to any raise. When guys limp with 69o and miss the flop more often than not and I raise pre then bet the flop - they fold. I am finding that quite profitable so I don't totally agree with not attacking the limpers.

I'm not getting bored - I just should stick to making this play in position and not do it in the small blind i think.

I agree about the making a hand and getting paid off. I rarely 4bet pre-flop in any position 6 handed but would often play AA like this in SB with 2 limpers. 9Ts is probably better for this play here tho than A9.

dn

[gatso]

I'm struggling to think of any situation where I like a 4xBB raise behind 2 limpers

[bolt pp]

I also don't feel aware enough of what my opponents are doing.

GOOD, this is a good thing because you over analyse everything and wind up confusing yourself.

Poker at this level is supposed to be very easy and you're making it difficult for yourself.

you should be able to at least 4 table this level no probs and the reason you cant is you're too busy doing maths in hands that have fuck all to do with anything.

[Cf]

I'm going to ignore analysis of the whole hand, and talk more about the reverse implied odds factor, as the river card is a perfect example of what we're worried of.

You hold: 

Board: 

Implied odds are calling with the intention of being able to extract future bets from your opponent if you hit your draw. Reverse implied odds are essentially the opposite - we expect better hands to call us, and worse hands to fold. The classic example is holding AA on a 2toaflush flop. We're suffering from reverse implied odds to the guy holding a flush draw - if he misses his draw we get no further money from him, if he hits it then we'll pay off the flush (to a certain extent).

This example is slightly different but the same point applies. On the river if we hit our straight, do we expect to be called by a worse hand? In general no - on this board a straight would be blatently obvious. If as is the case we hit our straight, but a flush card also comes then this is where the reverse implied comes into it. You would expect pairs/sets to fold to your bet, but expect to be called by a flush, which beats you. The non-flush straight cards themselves aren't neccesarily clean either. A 6 would give us a straight, but we still lose to and pay off J9. A 9 means we'd lose to and pay off Q9.

Having seen the results - yes you were lucky. gamble probably shouldn't have paid you both off there. And seeing the 96 shows another factor we should consider - we may well be drawing to a split, which makes the price even worse.

So in summary: fold

[jakally]

I'm struggling to think of any situation where I like a 4xBB raise behind 2 limpers

I think a raise PF is ok, but needs a bit more thought.
You are trying to isolate one of the limpers, and play a raised pot, against a (probably) weak hand, in position, or you are happy to take it down now.

The raise is probably too small to achieve this anyway (5 or maybe 6BB would be better), and you need to also consider what kind of opponents you are playing into.
If they are the kind to call whatever then you may be better waiting for a stronger hand.

I'm not sure I agree with the definitions of reverse implied odds here - may google it to find out more.

[daviebhoy]

Its probably clear by now that I am now expert in this but my understanding is that there isn't an agreed precise definition of reverse implied odds. Descriptions vary but the general idea is that your chances of winning the hand are less than you might think initially as opponents might be holding some of your outs or some cards you think might be outs actually make your opponents the best hand. You then need to factor in how much this may cost you when making your decision after factoring in implied odds of hitting your hand and getting paid off.

When I played this hand I thought I might have 8 outs but infact I only had 7 to split the pot so my pot odds and outs are actually less than I thought at the time. Getting the calculations completely wrong in the first place didn't help matters and as bolt has pointed out even starting to think about reverse implied odds in this situation was a fck up.

[gatso]

I'm going to ignore analysis of the whole hand, and talk more about the reverse implied odds factor, as the river card is a perfect example of what we're worried of.

You hold: 

Board: 

Implied odds are calling with the intention of being able to extract future bets from your opponent if you hit your draw. Reverse implied odds are essentially the opposite - we expect better hands to call us, and worse hands to fold. The classic example is holding AA on a 2toaflush flop. We're suffering from reverse implied odds to the guy holding a flush draw - if he misses his draw we get no further money from him, if he hits it then we'll pay off the flush (to a certain extent).

This example is slightly different but the same point applies. On the river if we hit our straight, do we expect to be called by a worse hand? In general no - on this board a straight would be blatently obvious. If as is the case we hit our straight, but a flush card also comes then this is where the reverse implied comes into it. You would expect pairs/sets to fold to your bet, but expect to be called by a flush, which beats you. The non-flush straight cards themselves aren't neccesarily clean either. A 6 would give us a straight, but we still lose to and pay off J9. A 9 means we'd lose to and pay off Q9.

Having seen the results - yes you were lucky. gamble probably shouldn't have paid you both off there. And seeing the 96 shows another factor we should consider - we may well be drawing to a split, which makes the price even worse.

So in summary: fold

[ ] this is what reverse implied odds are

[Royal Flush]

Love the explanation of what RIO's are not!

RIO are when you draw to make a hand but still lose, say you call with 78 soooted when you have flopped a flush draw and lose to a higher flush draw, or say you peel to make a set get there but find oppo had flopped a higher set.