Monday, November 12, 2007

True or False?

A couple of recent Cardrunners videos bring up some counterintuitive tactics that I'm not sure I agree with. I'm not saying that Cole South and Brian Townsend are wrong, but a couple of their suggestions raise questions in my mind.

1) CTS 2 $1-2 NL: On the last hand of the video, CTS raises to $7 from the cutoff with AK, and the tight-aggressive button reraises to $24. CTS 4-bets to $61, the button raises all-in, and CTS calls the rest of his 125 BB stack -- another $218. The button naturally turns over AA, dominating CTS completely and costing him a buy-in.

CTS claims he played the hand correctly. "One hundred big blind stack, cutoff vs. the button, I'm certainly not going to play that any different," he says.

True or false? Is this really a good play? Why?

A commenter in the video thread asks the same question:
I dont understand the comment at that AK vs AA hand against the tightest player at the table. You said thats a cooler but I dont agree with that. The guy raised you just 2 or 3 times, he could have big hands, and that last hand he shoved after a 4-bet !! You still think that was a good play and a cooler ?
Someone else responds:
You have to understand that CTS was taking his image and their positions into consideration. Scarecrow was playing tight at first, but near the end he was beginning to 3bet CTS more, plus his stats were leveling off to raising 15%. This, combined with CTSs 4440 stats and the fact that they were CO vs button means AK is a favourite over scarecrows range.
2) Sbrugby 21 $5-10 NL: Sbrugby is the BB with JTs. The button raises, and the small blind calls. Sbrugby says calling from the big blind with a hand like JTs is wrong. True or false?

12 comments:

Fuel55 said...

Hand 1 - in a $1/2 game the range isn't aces only for most retards. What was CTS calling and what could he win? Was AK unfoldable mathematically?

Hand 2 - JTs is the shizz - I'd never fold it from the BB getting 7:2 (if the original raise was to 3BB). It plays well against a broad range.

Gnome said...

Thanks for the comment. I edited the post to show bet amounts and stack sizes in Hand 1. You can see that he wasn't nearly pot committed.

Jordan said...

Gnomey, you got these hands dead-on. In the first instance, it sounds like CTS is justifying his bad play after the fact. If all he says is that he will never lay down AK in that position, it just means that he cannot explain WHY his play was good, and therefore, logically, he doesn't have a reason WHY his play was good because it was BAD!

I'd also call with the JTs. It's an easy enough hand to get away from if you miss, but if you hit it the right way, its the type of hand that can felt your opponent.

kurokitty said...

I'm not sure why you wouldn't call with a hand that gives you good implied odds. If the button raises 4BB, there's 9 BB in the pot (including your BB) and you only have to call 3 more for a hand that can be the absolute nuts if you hit.

In the first example, I'm sure it's just a sour grapes excuse because he lost the hand with a poor move. I feel like people fall in love with hand ranges and get in trouble when their experience tells them they should fold.

Unknown said...

I grow weary of poker players who say they were "coolered" all the time.

OK, so every hand, technically, is a cooler. If you lose to a set and you have TPTK, it's a cooler. If you have J-J and you call an all-in with A-A in a cash game, cooler.

Or, you know, you could make a correct laydown and save yourself some money.

Unknown said...

Oh, and I like the call with J-10 sooted. It's got a lot of potential and it's easy to fold if it doesn't hit. Perfect. In that sense it's almost a better hand than Q-Q.

Wes said...

If you saw the video, cts was raising every time on the button. With that image, you would imagine people would play back at him, so it is just natural that he would assume this and 4bet with a great hand. Calling and shoving over any cbet is ok too unless the board comes disastrous, but that is complicated to work out here without knowing which is better without a lot of tendencies I would know real time.

When he shoves, well shit now he's getting greater than 1.5:1 on the call, and you are pretty much never less than 40% against a person's range. If you don't think the person is playing back at him with something marginal like Ax or some pocket pair, or even some goofy hand he decided to play back on, you just have never played 6max very well. The guy has 3bet him 3 times before, sure he could theoretically have AA or KK every single time, but chances are he didn't. If cts gets AK allin preflop with his image, he is very giddy about it because it is very +EV.



JTs calling in the BB is fine. It is marginal and doesn't really matter a whole lot in most scenarios.

bg26892 said...

Gnome - noticed you have a sweet FT skin setup, would you mind pointing out where I get it?

Thanks!

Fuel55 said...

Now that I know the stack sizes in hand 1 I can fold AK and even QQ probably. Perhaps CTS calls to show that he is not a folder and that you'd better not 4-bet without AA or KK? Not much metagame value at 1/2 though.

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

I think the AK play is very read-dependent and image-dependent, personally. Like some of the commenters said, if the player has been raising and reraising a lot preflop, then I think the reraise and maybe even the allin call here is defensible because you can easily put the guy on a wide range since your own range is so wide. Conversely, if he got rereraised allin on a 4-bet after he himself had only raised one time at the table over an hour, then that move from his opponent screams AA or KK and probably warrants a fold for the amounts of money you indicated in your post.

I don't even think the second question is a real question. It goes without saying that you call against a button raiser and a small blind caller. Not only are there two other players to take your JTs up against, but their ranges are sufficiently weak given their table positions that you could easily have top pair best kicker if a Jack or Ten comes down and you face some action after the flop.

The much better question would involve only one other player instead of two others, and/or coming from an earlier position at the table that really indicates some potential hand strength. Ultimately for me I think this has more to do with having at least two other players involved in the pot and less to do with the other players' hand ranges. In the end even if you can put them on a high pocket pair or AK, that does not make a hand like JTs unplayable. Like many have said above, it's the easiest hand in the world to get away from if you don't flop to it, and it is the literal perfect hand to crack someone's AA or KK with.

Alan aka RecessRampage said...

I think hand 1 has been beaten to death.

In hand 2, does sbrugby advocate folding or reraising (ie, putting on a squeeze). I was surprised to see no one brought that up yet. I mean sure, calling is fine but how about reraising and taking control of the hand?

Jordan said...

I completely agree with you. I remember watching that AK v AAs hand and thinking 'wtf are you doing Cole?'

Guy might as well have sent him a personal note letting him know he had aces.

Also, Scarecrow had started to 3-bet Cole tons, and CTS didn't seem to be paying attention to it b/c every time it happened he was like 'well this guy hasn't played back at me' or 'this guy is super tight' and he was folding.

And of course, JTs is gold there.