ITH Poker Forum

[Simpioni]

One of my regular opponents in my home cash game loves to chase draws. He will chase belly busters when he doesnt have the odds (especially if he has an ace) and will always check call his flush draws.

He will bluff the river if his straight misses when it comes a 3rd card of suit representing the made flush when he really has a failed straight. He can do this for an all in push aswell.

I know this is a difficult question, but what kind of odds do i need to call on the end with say, top pair, when i know he was chasing a draw and may or may not have hit it?

He will bluff quite frequently in this situation, Say 70% of the time at a rough guess.

[chrisjp]

You have a 70% shot at winning, so you call 100% of the time. Any time you are getting better than 50% then you don't have to do any calculations.

Chris

[Bugsbunny]

If I read the question right he doesn't have a 70% chance of winning. Opponent will bluff 70% of the time on a missed draw, and 100% of the time on a made draw. (He still has an easy call)

So the question is how often does he make his draw. That of course depends on the draw. Worst case would be an open-end straight-flush draw. With 15 outs he'll hit a straight or a flush better than 54% of the time.

out of 100 hands he'll make his draw 54 and miss 50. Of the 50 he misses he'll bluff 70%, or 32. So, in this particular case he'll win 54 out of 86 times he bets, or about 63%

On the other hand if he's chasing a gutshot, with an A, he'll hit the gutshot, or top pair (assuming you don't have an A) (7 outs) about 28% of the time.

If he's chasing a pure gutshot he only hits about 16.5% That doesn't include the chance of his paring any of his other cards. Some percentage of the time he'll go runner-runner to get 2 pair, or trips, etc.

A pure flush draw comes in about 35% of the time. So, let's assume that the average across all possibilities is about 33% (a guess, but I suspect it's not far off)

so 33 times (out of 100) he makes his hand. 67 he misses, meaning he bets .7*67=47

winning 47 out of 80 you still have a clear call 100% of the time, winning about 59% of the time. The more interesting question is 2 fold:
1) Given a 70% bluff rate on a miss what percentage of the time does he need a made hand to make the bluff rate = made hand rate (50/50)?
2)Given a 33% made hand rate how often should he bluff to make the decision 50/50 (and note that at 50/50 you should still be calling the river 100% of the time since the pot already contains money).

Answer to #2 -
This one is simple. bluff 33 times to equal the made hand rate of 33. So 33/67=49%
If he's bluffing at least 50% of the time when he misses you have a very easy call. Below that pot size vs bet size starts to come into play.

#1) The answer is, roughly, 41%.
Out of 100 hands a 41% winning percentage means you lose 59. 59*.7=41.3

That means he would need around 10.5 outs after the flop to have a 50/50 shot of having a winning hand given a 70% bluff rate when he misses.

Basically until he starts bluffing a lot less often always call.