TPTK rine on a drawy board

First of arr, aporogies for the rurr in posting. I had a guest from out of town, and have been praying a rot the rast coupre of days to catch up. I have been meaning to make a post on this subject for a whire though. It's a situation that comes up fairly often - you raise, get a call from rate position, flop TPTK, bet and get raised. Against nits, this is an easy fold, but against a prayer with more moves it can often be a semi-bruff, arthough of course you could be badry beat as werr. Most prayers read this as a "shove or fold" situation. That is, you either shove in to price out or get varue from the draw if you think that's a large enough part of your virrain's range, or you ford if you give credit for a set.

But I'd rike to propose that sometimes carring and shoving a safe turn can be better, especiarry when you think your opponent has 12 outs or more. To give an idea, here's a prime exampre of the kind of hand I'm tarking about, anarysis to forrow the HH:

Full Tilt Poker, $0.50/$1 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 9 Players
LeggoPoker.com - Hand History Converter

BB: $100
Hero (UTG): $116.90
UTG+1: $157.90
UTG+2: $111.25
MP1: $111.65
MP2: $77.50
CO: $100
BTN: $97.85
SB: $103.15

Pre-Flop: dealt to Hero (UTG)
Hero raises to $4, 4 folds, CO calls $4, BTN folds, SB calls $3.50, BB folds

Flop: ($13) (3 Players)
SB checks, Hero bets $10, CO raises to $33, SB folds, Hero calls $23

Turn: ($79) (2 Players)
Hero bets $79.90 and is All-In, CO calls $63 and is All-In

River: ($205) (2 Players - 1 is All-In)


Results: $205 Pot ($3 Rake)
Hero showed (two pair, Aces and Jacks) and WON $202 (+$102 NET)
CO showed (two pair, Aces and Jacks) and LOST (-$100 NET)

OK, so let's compare my line to shoving the flop. Shoving the flop is the absolute worst line to take against a set or top two pair, guaranteeing I get stacked, so just calling can't possibly be worse than that. I'm also going to assume, perhaps incorrectly, that this player doesn't have AT or AQ no spades. I don't think that's going to affect the comparison of the two plays too greatly, and I don't think many players make a big raise on the flop with those hands either. Most of the time that big raise is either a set or a big draw, like top pair and a flush draw, or a flush draw and a straight draw. Either way, it's 12 outs, nine of which (the spades) are really obvious.

So given that he's got 12 outs, if I shove, he will correctly call the $63 raise getting over 2:1. My equity in the pot is 54.5%, so in EV I'm getting about $9 (a 9 percent edge in a $100 flip, so my EV = .545*100+.455*(-100) = 100*(.545-.455) = 100*(.09) = 9).

The other option is to just call and ship any non-spade turn. I'm assuming he's going to call if he hits his three non-spade outs (in this case, a seven), and that he'll have 90% equity in this case. I have more equity in this case if he hits a seven, but a little bit less if he has, say, QTs and the turn is a king. A spade falls on the turn 9/45 = 20 percent of the time assuming he has two in his hand. In this case I'll check-fold and lose $37 in the hand. 3/45 percent of the time he'll hit his hidden out and we'll get it in with him having an 80 percent edge. The other 33/45 percent of the time I'm shoving with the best hand and he does NOT quite have the odds to call. He's getting 2.2 to 1, but is a 2.7:1 dog. If he does play optimally and fold, I then win $41. So all told, my EV = (33/45)*41-(9/45)*37-(3/45)*.8*100 = 18.13. Twice as profitable as shoving the flop! And that's when the villain plays optimally. If he can't resist and calls the turn shove without hitting, my EV rises to $21.43. Here the villain did in fact call and I faded the spade on the river (miraculously) to felt him.

It does suck to check-fold a deuce of spades on the turn, knowing that you let him get there, but you need the discipline to do just that - part of the profitability of the play here is getting away when you're drawing dead. Execute the play properly and you'll get an additional 9-12 bb in expectation.

BRUECHIPS

This is some top notch analysis - yer line is pretty sick, personally I would have just shipped it. However, how you faded spades is beyond me, ROR!

BRACKCHIPS