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I ran off to the casino tonight and played a few hours of $1-$2 NL…

One of my hands in particular was the subject of quite a bit of controversy. The table discussed it at length immediately after it ended, but I was told later on that the players continued to talk about it behind my back even after I had left for the night. Most of the table hated my play, one or two people thought it was borderline acceptable, and nobody (but me, of course) seemed to think I did the right thing. The word on the street is that after I had gone home a few of the players went so far as to call me a huge idiot.

Obviously I disagree.

But because it will keep me from falling asleep tonight I figure I will throw out the details here and see if any of you guys have an opinion. I did a brief topic search on a few different poker strategy forums but came up empty. That means that either a) this situation almost never comes up, or b) when it does the player involved is never dumb enough to do what I did.

So here is the setup:

I had been playing for about two hours and had a very strong feel for the table. I had pretty much figured out everybody’s game and had become the captain of the table through aggressive, solid play. The table was playing very tight passive (the players were folding most of their hands, and the ones they did play were usually limped) and I was working to counter that by raising a lot, and not necessarily with good (or even decent) cards. During the past two hours I had run up a good profit and then given it all back after running into a few really gross spots. At the time this hand took place I was sitting on $220, down eighty dollars on the night.

The lady to my right, a regular in the higher stakes $3-$5 NL game, kept nagging me to straddle her blinds. She realized that I was the only other player at the table who seemed willing to gamble and the two of us had basically assumed the task of loosening up the table. I obliged her request and put out a $4 straddle.

After the deal the player two to my left opened the pot by making a raise to $29, a huge raise by pretty much any standard (7x+ the straddle, 14.5x the big blind). Everyone else folded around to me in the straddle and I looked down and was legitimately upset to find Ace-King offsuit. The man who had raised me was a tight, solid regular who I had played with quite a lot and he seemed to almost always show up with a hand when he bet. The man was sitting on about $500 at the time, though it didn’t really matter because our effective stacks were limited to the $220 in front of me.

I hemmed and hawed aloud for about twenty seconds, actually admitting to the table, “I honestly don’t know what I’m supposed to do here.” Then I told the table, “I am embarrassed to tell you guys what I have, but it probably doesn’t matter because even if I did… nobody would believe me.”

And then I folded.

The table quickly began to speculate over what hand I could have folded there and after about a minute of listening to their theories I admitted that I had folded Ace-King. At that point the general consensus turned to me being a total liar.

Although most of the table remained highly skeptical about what hand I had actually tossed, there was a very long discussion about the correct play with AK there. I make it a point to never attempt to educate the other players at my table, but for the sake of my sanity and a good night’s sleep here is my thinking on the situation. And while this is a post-game analysis I promise you that my thought process in the moment followed this exact same logic… whether it is correct or not.

Analysis

I have three choices when the action came back to me. I will list them in what I consider to be the order from Worst to Best.

Calling
The most common thing that I have heard about my play tonight is, “You have to at least call! Just see what the flop brings.” My brother is in this camp. I wholeheartedly disagree.

This is the very definition of Reverse Implied Odds. Specifically it is to say that I am running a negative free-roll by flat-calling the $25 raise heads-up and out of position (I am first to act on every street for the rest of the hand). To see what I mean try to imagine the various hands that my opponent could have, the various flops that could come, and what would happen in each situation.

Let’s pretend that I actually flop an ace or a king. If my opponent has Aces, Kings or another pocket-pair that flops a set I am definitely going to lose all of my money: an additional $200. If my opponent has a lower pocket pair he can easily escape the hand and I will definitely win $29 plus the blinds, but almost never win more. If my opponent somehow has a dominated Ace or King (AQ or KQ) I will probably double through him… but maybe not, he is a good player.

Most of the time I won’t flop anything. If my opponent has a better hand (any pair) he will win the pot with a continuation bet. If my opponent has a worse hand he will win with a bet too.

The only way for me to make ANY money on the hand is to both hit my hand AND have my opponent hit his hand… and have mine be better. Far more likely is that his position and established aggression will simply win the pot when I miss. Further, even if I do hit my hand, I might still be drawing almost dead against his. My brother and others have said that I should call and “take a coin flip for $30,” but AK is not a coin-flip when I don’t get to see the turn and river. By simply calling the raise I give my opponent the best chance to win the most money with the best hand and lose the least money with the worst hand.

Again, I refer you to the definition of reverse implied odds.

Reverse implied pot odds, or simply reverse implied odds, apply to situations where a player will win the minimum if he has the best hand but lose the maximum if he does not have the best hand.

That said, I understand why this was the most popular option among the other players. I consider it to be a massive mistake that just about everyone playing $1-$2 makes. The concept of reverse implied odds is somehow completely beyond the grasp of nearly all low stakes players and is a big reason that I feel like I have a good edge playing those games. And even though he doesn’t read this blog it is the reason that I continue to yell at my brother when I see him calling raises with K-10 and stacking off when the board brings him a pair.

Raising

Okay, if calling is the worst choice of the three then what about raising? Well, in this spot I guess it is ok if you feel like a pure gamble for $200+. Raising is probably the correct action most of the time given this general scenario, but in my mind there were a couple of massive factors pushing me in the opposite direction.

1. I know the player. He doesn’t mess around much at all. Yeah, he might be screwing around here… but I doubt it. That said I completely discount all random garbage hands. The worst he could have in this spot is A-J suited or a small pocket pair. I never, ever, ever expect to find this guy making a 14x raise with total air.

2. His raise size. This was the biggest problem for me… and I told him as much before I folded. “If I had less money this would be an easy decision. If I had more money this would be an easy decision.” See, because his raise was so overly huge it would then force my re-raise to be similarly gigantic. In order to make a fair raise in that spot I would have to push out at least $85. With only $220 to start with I would have then committed more than a third of my stack. If he re-re-raised I would be obligated to call off my last $140 and pray that he might roll over Queens instead of Aces. There is no in-between raise that I could make and still be able to fold to a four-bet.

3. My table dominance. Up to this point, despite behind down a little bit I had solid control of the entire table. I didn’t see the point in coin-flipping (at best) for stacks when I could just move on to the next hand and chip away relatively risk-free. I am not of the mind set that I should play a hand simply because I am dealt it. I prefer to play situations rather than cards, and this situation was awkward from the jump. Why not pass and wait for a better one?

4. You can do a simple hand analysis here too if you want (I obviously didn’t at the table, but I had a general sense of the result). Assume that any raise commits me to the hand (because it does) and therefore let’s just say that instead of making a smaller raise I simply move all-in. This guy is not a moron and he will fold 100% of the hands that I have beat 100% of the time. So, if he has a worse hand I win his $29. Now let’s say that he will call me with about 50% of the hands that beat me – he will call with pocket 9′s or better and fold pocket 8′s or worse (not an unreasonable estimate).

This means that I will:
a) NEVER get the money in when I am ahead.
b) sometimes get the money in as a small underdog
c) sometimes get the money in as a massive underdog (vs AA or KK).

To summarize, about 50% of the time I win $29 by forcing a fold, about 15% of the time I win $220 by having the worst hand and sucking out, and about 35% of the time I lose $220 when I don’t suck out.

So… (.5)(29) + (.15)(220) + (.35)(-220) = 2.9 + 33 – 77 = -41.1

Those percentages are approximations but the purely mathematical result of raising all-in is that over the long run I can expect the decision to LOSE more than $40 on average. I would expect that my approximations there are actually a bit generous to me too, meaning that the true net loss would be even greater.

Conclusion: I should FOLD

Following my train of thought, both now and in the heat of the moment, it seems pretty clear that by either calling or raising I am giving my opponent a fairly massive freeroll for my entire stack. At the very best I am giving him the ability to make a perfect decision against me. Alternatively, by folding I merely surrender the $4 straddle and move onto the next hand. Honestly, the fold seems pretty straight-forward to me… but then again, I can’t seem to find anyone else who agrees with me.

What am I missing here?

(In case you are curious my opponent eventually admitted that he had raised with pocket 4′s, and means that the correct play would have been to re-raise him. However, that hand is clearly at the very bottom of his range, and knowing the result doesn’t make my analysis any different.)