ITH Poker Forum

[Harlequin99]

In all my time playing cash hold'em I have never once seen an occasion where it would be correct to fold the nuts until now. Seems pretty obvious now but never had occasion to think of it before... what do people think it is? Is there only one type of situation where this is true?

(This ignores bankroll management issues - I would fold some nut hands if it was for everything I own with a decent chance of being outdrawn)

[Willem]

You can definitely consider folding the nuts in NL where you are facing a big bet/raise, and might be freerolled. Example is when you have AKo on a KQJT board with one or two flush draws. If you bet and are facing a big raise, you are splitting at best and are might be freerolled with someone with Axs (with flushdraw). It's a common situation in PLO but also occurs occasionally in NLHE.

[Harlequin99]

You can definitely consider folding the nuts in NL where you are facing a big bet/raise, and might be freerolled. Example is when you have AKo on a KQJT board with one or two flush draws. If you bet and are facing a big raise, you are splitting at best and are might be freerolled with someone with Axs (with flushdraw). It's a common situation in PLO but also occurs occasionally in NLHE.

Yeah, someone was talking about a time he faced a $3000 bet into a $40 pot holding K2o on a board of AQJT with two diamonds. He ended up calling and his opponent had AA but lost to a full house on the river. He took a couple of minutes to think about it and got hassle from others at the table for slowrolling the nuts. Seems like a pretty poor call to me now, but I am a NL rookie.

[frog]

where can I see how strong is my starting hand?

[Fenris78]

</span><table width="90%" cellspacing="1" cellpadding="3" border="0" align="center"><tr> <td><span class="genmed"><b>Harlequin99 wrote:</b></span></td> </tr> <tr> <td class="quote"></span><table width="90%" cellspacing="1" cellpadding="3" border="0" align="center"><tr> <td><span class="genmed"><b>Willem wrote:</b></span></td> </tr> <tr> <td class="quote">You can definitely consider folding the nuts in NL where you are facing a big bet/raise, and might be freerolled. Example is when you have AKo on a KQJT board with one or two flush draws. If you bet and are facing a big raise, you are splitting at best and are might be freerolled with someone with Axs (with flushdraw). It's a common situation in PLO but also occurs occasionally in NLHE.</td> </tr></table>
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Yeah, someone was talking about a time he faced a $3000 bet into a $40 pot holding K2o on a board of AQJT with two diamonds. He ended up calling and his opponent had AA but lost to a full house on the river. He took a couple of minutes to think about it and got hassle from others at the table for slowrolling the nuts. Seems like a pretty poor call to me now, but I am a NL rookie.</td> </tr></table>
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What a sick situation. I think the call is justifiable though. After all the only hand to be afraid of is Kdxd which is freerolling you, but I just don't see someone betting $3000 into a $40 pot with that, so I guess he is splitting most of the time. A naked K, trying to get other naked Ks off a split seems the most reasonable explanation. Of course, if I knew my opponent would play sets that way, I would make a fist pump call. Getting in $3k as a 70-30 favorite is a no-brainer. If he sucks out...that's life. As for the AA overbet, that's a super terrible play. You will only get called by Ks that are 70-30 favorites. And even though you will probably even get a naked K to fold some of the time, investing $3k to win $40 is just horrible.

[jeffnc]

To fold the nuts, not only would you have to be getting freerolled, but you'd have to be facing a lot of money too. This is explained pretty well in Angel Largay's book. Easy example - you have <img src="images/smiles/ha.jpg" alt="Ace of Hearts" border="0" /> <img src="images/smiles/dj.jpg" alt="Jack of Diamonds" border="0" /> and the flop is <img src="images/smiles/sk.jpg" alt="King of Spades" border="0" /> <img src="images/smiles/sq.jpg" alt="Queen of Spades" border="0" /> <img src="images/smiles/c10.jpg" alt="10 of Clubs" border="0" />. There is $10 in the pot and you are playing with $1 million stacks. Your solid, conservative opponent moves all in for $1 million. Obviously you are going to fold there even if you could afford to lose it, becayse obviously he has <img src="images/smiles/sa.jpg" alt="Ace of Spades" border="0" /> <img src="images/smiles/sj.jpg" alt="Jack of Spades" border="0" /> there. If you are only playing with $100 stacks then there's not enough worry to fold there.
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Other than a freeroll or betting more than you're comfortable with, I can't think of any other reason to fold the nuts in holdem.</span><span class="gensmall"><br /><br />Last edited by jeffnc on Mon Nov 09, 2009 1:46 am; edited 1 time in total</span>

[jeffnc]

</span><table width="90%" cellspacing="1" cellpadding="3" border="0" align="center"><tr> <td><span class="genmed"><b>Harlequin99 wrote:</b></span></td> </tr> <tr> <td class="quote">Yeah, someone was talking about a time he faced a $3000 bet into a $40 pot holding K2o on a board of AQJT with two diamonds. He ended up calling and his opponent had AA but lost to a full house on the river. He took a couple of minutes to think about it and got hassle from others at the table for slowrolling the nuts. Seems like a pretty poor call to me now, but I am a NL rookie.</td> </tr></table>
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Pushing with a set is horrible there, and folding (if you know what your opponent has) is also horrible.
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Now if you don't know what your opponent has, it's a little trickier. Assuming your opponent has a K, the call wins $20. If he has 2 diamonds, then you expect to lose 19% of the time, or $600. So the question becomes, how often does your opponent have 2 diamonds here? Unfortunately people shove with a naked K there all the time (that is to say, when someone pushes you are usually facing a naked K.)
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So when you see this play, you have to figure how many times they have the K plus 2 diamonds, how many times they have the naked K, how many times they have something stupid like a set, and how many times they do something stupid like bluff, representing the K. All those things are non-zero.
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Let's just say when you see a shove there, 70% of the time it's a K, 10% of the time it's a set, 10% of the time it's a K plus 2 diamonds, 5% of the time it's a bluff with 2 diamonds, and 5% of the time it's a naked bluff.
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(.70)($20) + (.10)(.79)($3040) - (.10)(.21)($3000) + (.10)(.81)($20) - (.10)(.19)($3000) + (.05)(.81)($3040) - (.05)(.19)($3000) + (.05)($3040) = $382 EV. So that is obviously a snap call.
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But of course I made up those percentages. If you think it's only 20% of the time a K, and 60% a K with 2 diamonds, then I think the calculation comes out almost exactly at 0 EV. Only if you think it will be a set less often and a bluff less often and K with 2 diamonds more often than that should you fold. But I don't think it's reasonable to discount it much more.
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Having said all that, obviously it's not super obvious what you should do so it's good to stop and think about this for a minute. The opponents who called it a slowroll don't know s*** <img src="images/smiles/icon_smile.gif" alt="Smile" border="0" />

[jeffnc]

It might be a poor call, but of course, not because his opponent had a set of aces. If he knew that, of course it's a good call.

But what a crazy bet by villain! Normally if you see a huge overbet like this it represents a freeroll with nut flush redraw. A good player could fold to a huge bet here.

Which raises the question: would it be possible to bluff a good player off of the nuts? Now that would be wild. Probably stupid because of the risk/reward ratio, but it would be interesting.

In a low limit game in a casino against unknowns, it's just plain stupid.

Getting back to the hand you posted, I have no idea what the villain was thinking.

[Zenjo]

It can be correct to fold the nuts on the river. Let's say there's $2 in the pot and your opponant bets $100 in a situation where it's bound to be a split pot if you call. The $1 you don't win by folding is less than what you would cost yourself in rake by calling.