Bruechips Fade N' Go, Pt. 2

In a previous post I described a good way to play TPTK against a suspected semi-bruff. Brackchips was impressed enough that he thought I should patent it. So I'm announcing that the play is now called the "Bruechips Fade N' Go", and if you use it to good effect, can send me $1 out of the pot if you want.

Anyway, I wanted to go over a couple more aspects of the play. The first, which I mentioned kind of in passing, is that it can limit your losses if you're up against a monster hand. Say the flush card comes and your opponent has a set. You'll check with the intention of folding, and he will either bet, in which case you fold, or check behind, in which case you again lose zero. Let's assume you maintain the same strategy on the river. Then whenever a spade comes, which is now 11/45 of the time (your opponent has a set, therefore does not have a spade - he could have one, but we'll assume he doesn't - so there are 11 left in the deck), you'll lose the min.

So let's go back to the same hand as in the first post. Let's say my opponent has a set s % of the time, and the 12-out draw the rest of the time. How low does s have to be for me to shove, if I'm only going to shove or fold? If he has the draw, I have about a 10% equity edge, for an EV of $10. If he has a set, I'm basically drawing dead. I'll say it's an EV of -$95. So the EV of shoving (assuming he calls with both groups of hands) is s*(-95) + (1-s)*10 = 10 - 105s. The EV of folding is obviously -14. Setting the two equal and solving for s gives s = (24/105) = 23%. So if I think he has a set less than 23% of the time, shoving is best, whereas more than that, a fold is optimal.

Now what if I can use the Bruechips Fade 'N Go? We already calculated last time that if he's got the draw, the EV of the Bruechips Fade 'N Go is $18 if he folds the turn unimproved, $21 if he calls. Let's be pessimistic for the moment and say he'll fold. Also note now that if he has a set, 11/45 of the time you'll lose only $37 instead of $100. So then your EV up against a set is 34/45*(-95) + 11/45*(-37) = -81. Now perform the same calculations before to find s: s*(-81)+(1-s)*18 = 18 - 99s. Setting equal to -14 and solving for s again, we get s = 32/99 = 32%. So if you're using the Bruechips Fade 'N Go, you don't have to fold as often as if you are using the "shove or fold" strategy.

The potential downsides of the play, which I haven't talked about as much yet, are: 1) not getting full value out of AQ by shoving the flop, and 2) getting bluffed on a spade turn when your opponent doesn't have a flush. I will discuss these in a later post, but feel free to get the comments section roaring on if these issues make the play much worse, or if there are other drawbacks to using the Bruechips Fade 'N Go.

BRUECHIPS