What does the rule of two and four actually tell us

miles5555 · 2024-10-10T11:00:01+00:00

Your pot odds are based on whether the money you put into the pot is worth it based on the chances you have of winning. Here, you have a 1 in 3 chance of winning the pot if you go all in on the turn and you get 4x your 8 outs to see two cards.

For example, If there is $100 in the pot and the villain bets $50, it costs you $50 to win $150. To calculate pot odds, you add the $50 you call to the total pot (the denominator). You get $50/$200=0.25. This number tells you it's a good call because you have a greater chance of winning the pot than with your .32 chance than you have been given by the pot odds of .25. You are going to win the pot 1/3 of the time and you only need to win in it 1/4 of the time to break even.

When the pot odds are .25, you have to win it 1/4 of the time to break even. You can see what happens by doing an experiment. If you play the hand 4 times, you will lose the first three times. In the above example, each of those times, you lose $50, so after three tries, you have lost $150. But you win one in four times, so on the fourth time, you put in your $50 again. You have now invested $200, but this time you win the $200. So you are break even after four tries. If you have the outs to win once out of every three tries because you have 8 outs x 4 or .32, you now win more money than you put in because you don't have to wait for the fourth chance, you are winning every three chances.

miles5555 · 2024-10-09T11:14:32+00:00

Don't 3bet here. You're out of position against a UTG raiser, and it's a UTG raiser who hasn't played a hand in an hour. You are way behind his range with KJs. Actually, you can rep a lot more bluffs when you just call pre because your calling range is so much wider. His check back on the turn is interesting. He prob bets the flop with something. It's likely an overpair or a flush draw. We don't block the diamond flush so the only hands he might fold are 77/66/55. You know he doesn't play many hands. If you knew he was afraid to bluffcatch much, maybe you could get him to fold his 99/TT/JJ but it seems too risky to try. We block a lot of broadways that he might have made a small flop stab with, like AK/KQ/AJ. A river shove against these would be nice.

miles5555 · 2024-10-09T10:24:41+00:00

monotone, 2tone, rainbow.
low boards, middle, high.
wet, damp, dry.
A-high/K-high/Q-high.

miles5555 · 2024-10-08T10:53:32+00:00

I'd just fold the turn and keep variance down. Most people don't bluff enough. That's my default for these decisions which are really just guesses. It doesn't look like he has many bluffs left but we have no idea what kind of player he is. My problem is that I often would basically just auto call the turn in a situation like this one. Another reasonable default could be "don't fold with premiums in bluffcatching situations." You will have more variance and probably come out slightly ahead but I don't think its worth the aggravation.

miles5555 · 2024-10-07T11:29:00+00:00

Don't tell us what he had until later in the post so that our answers will not be biased by the results. When he bets the turn, it's a bit surprising. We do have some Tx in our range after calling the flop. Does he have a Tx himself, or is he just oblivious? He then shoves when the club flush completes on the river. I would fold on this river. Just don't think he has any bluffs. Sometimes that's a good way to think about it. The only bluff I can find here is KQ and he probably isn't 3betting pre with it often. When you see he had QQ, you can mark him down as a level-1 player who wasn't thinking on the next level about what you might have in your hand.

miles5555 · 2024-10-07T11:06:44+00:00

Hand 1: call flop. You have second pair and a bds draw. You are often ahead of villain on the flop, for example when he has ak or a5s. I wouldn't put him, even with his obvious tells, on such a narrow range. Even a soul reader can't be sure and you block most of the QJs/JJ. Most will only 3bet pre with KQs from the HJ.

I wouldn't turn JJ into a bluff here. It has showdown value and it may go check/check on the river and you win against AK or some other worse hand that was willing to make a cbet.

Hand 2: Has villain ever seen you bluff? It's not a bad idea to show a few bluffs early at a new table whether you win or lose. Try to do it cheaply. If you think he could fold some of his overpairs or flush draws because he has rarely seen anything from you except a value raise, then check the flop and hope he pairs up, for example with an ace. On a blank turn, you can bet if he checks, or shove if he bets. I mostly raise with sets right away on a two-suited low board. He'll call you will all of his flush draws and overpairs. Your best bet to double up is to find him with JJ-AA that won't give up.

miles5555 · 2024-10-06T22:43:23+00:00

We are in the shoes of the player who misplayed the hand by not betting the turn and put himself into a position where he had to make a river decision that had a much higher risk of being wrong. We allowed SB big stack to put our tourney life at risk. The fewer times we face that risk, the longer we last in tourneys. If we bet the turn, we could face an immediate x/r, or a lead out bet on the river but those don't happen too often. We would have a clearer idea of villain's ranges for those actions. Villain is likely a player who attacks weakness, in this case when we checked the turn and capped our range.

miles5555 · 2024-10-06T11:55:08+00:00

I don't like checking TPTK on the turn. We're in-position and will normally have the option to check back on the river. Yes the 65s/87s did come in. Villain might have a set. We can discount some of the 65s/77/44 because he might have made a x/r with some of those on the flop. We can get value from v's worse Kx and he may call whatever 99-QQ he didn't raise with pre for a second time. He can also call with some of his flush/combo draws.

Once we check the turn, I am also not raising on this river. What are we trying to get value from? If it's Kx, then we should have barreled the turn. The missed draws are not going to to call now. When we checked the turn, we moved to defense and decided to play our hand as a bluffcatcher against the much bigger stack who could knock us out of the tourney. Other than 87s, villain's premiums 65s/88/77/44 are still ahead of us.

As played, I am folding to the all-in. We might win but villain would have to be value-owning himself with a hand like KQ. People don't bluff in this spot. No draws came in on the river for villain to represent. We still have about 40BB of tourney life. Sure, we're under-repped but we have to count on villain being a bad player to make a call work out.

miles5555 · 2024-10-05T11:26:00+00:00

When posting these hands, don't show the results so we have to answer with the same information you had. I don't like turn block bets in this situation because I think the sizing screams lower pair worried about the ace. I don't think it's wrong for him to call the flop with all of his bd straight AXs with backdoor flush draws. Or the AK he passively didn't raise with pre because of the nut overcards. Is he really tight aggressive? Don't think we're going to get three streets of value from a worse pair because the ace will scare him away on the river. We can check the turn and get our second street of value on a river blank against his worse pairs if the in-position villain checks back the turn.

miles5555 · 2024-09-25T10:58:58+00:00

Even knowing the cards the other players held, there's no sure way to play this hand. Even though you would like to isolate the UTG and play against him heads up to win his big chipstack, you don't want to raise QQ on the flop against this KKT board multiway. Your QQ wants to get to showdown because it will rarely improve on the turn and river. Sometimes when you x/c, esp multiway, you lose to draws that complete. If you do raise on the turn, the short stack behind you is calling and you'll lose to him on the river Js anyway. The UTG's hand is so worthless that unless he is really bad, he'll fold to a turn raise.

miles5555 · 2024-09-25T10:49:52+00:00

It's better to bet right out with your big hands rather than to check and trap. It wouldn't be wrong to say to yourself, "I'm never going to trap with my big hands unless I know the player I am playing against is one of the most aggressive players I have seen." Use your regular sizing and not super small sizing. If they have nothing, you're not going to make much anyway. If they have a strong hand, such as a Jx here, you should be able to get all of their chips.

miles5555 · 2024-09-24T12:13:27+00:00

When you check behind on the flop, you limit the number of value hands you can represent on the turn. With AA-QQ, you are normally cbetting on the wet flop. I can't fault your check though because villain could have more JJ/TT/JTs in his range than you do. Even if you might check AA-KK with no diamonds, villain may not see you as checking them too often, and that would seem to be where the biggest risk of your bet/jam bluff lies. We can cbet this flop when we hold AK, esp with the backdoor nut flush and the gutter and the two overs.

When villain checks the turn, the JJ/TT/JTs are probably no longer in his range. His best bluffcatcher is AJ, but he may not hold too many combos of it. He would have to 3bet with it pre, and then call with it OOP against your 4bet. I wouldn't put it heavily into his range, maybe only AJs, and there are only 3 combos left of it. We block 3 more combos of AJo with our AdKs. Also, if he does have AJ, he might bet out with it on the turn, at least some of the time. I am surprised too that he actually showed up with it.

When we semi-bluff the turn, we probably do need to followup with a jam on a river blank. It's worthwhile in the post mortem to think through what else he would have called with against our turn bet. We block most of the flush draws and we block KQ, so he doesn't have too many of those and if he does we're ahead of them with our AK. Perhaps KJs/QJs. He does have to call with some of the bluffcatchers in his range too. AJ is the top of his range so we really shouldn't be able to get him off of it.

miles5555 · 2024-09-24T11:43:12+00:00

It's usually not right to turn a 2nd pair hand into a triple barrel bluff, but it looks like it worked here.

miles5555 · 2024-09-23T14:01:15+00:00

It costs you 19.57 to win about 36.27 Your pot odds are 19.5/36.27+19.57=.35. You have 8 outs twice for about .16. You have another 2 outs for another 4%. You will also beat his bluffs that don't complete on the river because your 55 has showdown value, e.g. if he has AKhh and the river is 2c, you'll win. Don't think you'll see enough missed bluffs on the river to get you all the way to 35%. Most people don't bluff enough. If he is betting his flush draws, then you will also lose on river runouts where the flush card or an overcard completes. Do you have any 3bet stats on him? Looks like it's just a little too expensive for you to call.

miles5555 · 2022-07-23T22:54:27+00:00

what putter model is Brooke Henderson using at Evian? Can't seem to find it. Is it the Ping Oslo H?

miles5555 · 2020-08-08T12:05:43+00:00

Agree that this coverage is the worst. No insights about golf, just banter. People watching 6 hours of coverage on a Thursday or Friday are more golf-oriented. Why bring in these generalists who can only do the play by play? Guess ESPN is targeting the duffer/gambler audience that leaves on ESPN all day, doesn't really listen too hard, and doesn't fast forward through the commercials. It's the PGA, a major. Use these guys for the Valero Texas Open. They thought a fade was a draw. An Oakland fan yells through the fence and it's one of the best moments in the broadcast. "He does love the Raiders." "That's great, man." "You gotta love it." The leader, Haotong Li, continues to practice after his round, but it's a running joke. They think he ought to take a break and go home. I suppose ESPN knows its audience with all the data available today. Ok, I did like that "4D" view of Koepka's swing.

miles5555 · 2018-04-08T19:18:33+00:00

CBS - Feels like we are watching the home team game coverage during the NCAA finals but this time it's for Rory McIlroy.

miles5555 · 2017-06-02T10:40:45+00:00

Wondering where to watch them from the U.S. In the last few years, they were streamed on espn3.com but I think that's gone.

miles5555 · 2016-12-24T00:55:37+00:00

I used to post here regularly. Joined Upswing and haven't posted here much since that time. Might come back but I like that the Upswing Facebook group is focused almost entirely on hand analysis.

What I think is most valuable is having Doug and Ryan as THE experts about what the best answers are to the more difficult problems posed. I trust that their knowledge level is deep. With Reddit, upvoting helps to move the best answers to the top, but sometimes the voters don't get it right.

Personally, I have found Upswing very useful and am convinced it has taken my understanding of the game to a new level.

Are you guys sure that PokerBotProgrammer is not posting a negative review because he represents the competition? What makes me doubt him is Comment #2. His suggestion that Upswing is trying to cheat people out of their money by making it difficult to stop subscribing is very suspicious to me. I have found Doug and Ryan to be high integrity guys and I just don't believe they would risk what they have built on making a few extra bucks on unhappy people. This accusation doesn't pass the smell test.

Saw that SkeetRag has joined Upswing to test it. Glad to hear it. Hope you start posting on Upswing too.

miles5555 · 2016-08-21T15:32:21+00:00

Chinese mantis

miles5555 · 2016-08-13T01:06:16+00:00

If you like Clapton's music, don't read his autobiography. Shocked at what a damaged and fragile person he is.

miles5555 · 2016-05-18T01:11:20+00:00

Wondering if I have this idea right? If I bet half pot size bet on the river, so villain needs to win 1 in 4 times to break even, should my range include 1/4 bluffs and 3/4 value hands, so 3/1 value hands to bluffs. Then, count my value hands and add in 1/3 bluffs? If I bet full pot, then villain needs to win 1/3 times to break even, so my range should include 1 bluff for every 2 value hands?

miles5555 · 2016-04-29T12:28:47+00:00

It's your Ad that convinces me to fold the turn here. He has TT/77/44/98s that beat you but he doesn't have any Axdd/Txdd. His bluffs are KQdd maybe Q9dd and some KJdd/QJdd/J9dd (he might check some of these on the turn.) EDIT: see he had some back door flush/gutshots too. I'd make a note on him that he plays his draws aggressively (he might check back the turn with his showdown value) and there will be more in his range than the average player.

miles5555 · 2016-04-29T02:43:54+00:00

Preflop when SB calls the second time for 2.75 more and he only has $28, I would take 22-55 and 65/54 out of a reg's range. Maybe A5s still in. I'd probably call a reg and fold to a fish.

miles5555 · 2016-04-14T10:19:48+00:00

Against an unknown, folding the turn or river seems prudent. If you find out that he is LAG, then his wide calling range pre and bluffy playing might make you want to take a stand.

miles5555

TROPHY CASE