Could I have gotten away from this?

[Patrick]

Playing at Wynn, get AA in SB. Standard raise had been to 11-12 all night, I raised to 15 and 3 callers.

Flop comes out 5 – 8 – J, two clubs.

I bet 50, two folds, button raises to $300. I call off the rest of my stack, he instantly says he is on a draw, it hits on river.

I had a couple of other spots I am pretty sure I played….unfavorably…. but this one is sticking in my head.

I raised to 15 thinking it was a slightly larger than normal raise, and I did want a caller. I feel like betting 50 into a 63 pot was the right sizing, am I just completely wrong here? I started the hand with about 225 in chips, what should I have been thinking when he reraised me? Or is this just a spot where I’m going broke?

Thanks,

Patrick

[Kevin Rex]

First off, you didn’t get it in badly if he was on a draw. It just happened to hit.

The only thing I can pick on is your preflop raise sizing. If standard raise was 11-12 and you raised from the small blind getting 3 callers i assume there were several limps (at least two) ahead of you. I’d be adding $2 to the $12 open size for each limper, plus a fee for being in the small blind OOP (Brad does the math on these raise size calculations in some of his earlier vlogs). Honestly a size of $20-$24 could be appropriate. Yes, that is a big size, and it may seem like not that big of a difference (only a few BB), but when you think about how it compounds the size of the pot on later streets it can generate LOTS of extra value for you. If you raise to $20 and get only 2 callers instead of 3, you now have the same sized pot with only 3 players instead of 4 and consequently you have more equity. Woo!! If you still get all 3 callers now you can bet $65 on the flop into a pot of $85. Now the pot on the turn is $215 instead of $163. Big difference! 1/2 players don’t like folding once they’ve put money into the pot. Exploit them!

As played I think your bet/call is fine. I actually really like your bet sizing on the flop. Too many people would bet like $30 here and miss a TON of value. You didn’t mention what the size of the effective stack was. If it was $300 on the flop – the size of your opponents jam – then his raise looks pretty fishy. You don’t usually see people raising that big with a value hand like 88. You should also ask yourself what kind of player he is. If he open-raises some hands preflop then he is repping a VERY thin value range of like 55 and J8 only when he jams the flop. It’s unlikely he has 88 or JJ as he’d have raised that preflop. There are SO many draws on that board i think you have to call it off anyways.

Overall, you played the hand fine. I’m confused why you say you wanted to get away from this. You got your money in as a favorite to win the hand – you caught him bluffing! You should WANT to be in spots like this. In the long run, you’ll win money. Don’t sweat it, he got his money in on a draw and hit it. 2/3rds of the time you’re going to be stacking a $600+ pot. I thought you were going to say he had 55 or something. If THAT were the case then yeah, that’s just a spot where you lose your money. When you get it in against a draw though you’re usually going to win. It’s a spot where you’re going to lose your money only because he happened to hit that time. If it hadn’t come in on the river you wouldn’t have given it another thought.

Keep grindin’.

[scottanderson5]

Agree, overall well-played. Maybe size bigger on your pre-flop open, but other than that you did well. It’s great to get someone to come along when they are on a draw, unfortunately they have to hit sometimes.

[Patrick]

Thanks for the feedback.

I don’t think I phrased it right as far as wanting to get away from it….I really thought I played it decently, and there was no way in my mind I was going to lay it down with the way the hand played out.

My question was more around wondering if I was missing something that could have let me get away from it.

I will definitely take the pre flop raise sizing into account, as the player who came along was, IMO, priced in at that point with a less than premium hand. (gapped suited connectors). If it was 20-25 for him to call he may not have made that call.

[Michael]

You should not want to get away from hands like this.
You should be begging and pleading each opponent to please shove into you with a draw when you have AA. Draws have:
2 outs to improve from pair to trips (not really a draw, but … )
4 outs for inside (gut shot) straights
8 outs for open ended straights
9 outs for flush draws

The best case scenario for V is a flush draw, assuming your AA doesn’t cover the suit in question. In which case you are 64% to win on the flop; 82% on the turn. If its a straight draw or one of the others, even better for you. Sure maybe you think 64% is not favorable enough to rip in $300, but that is a personal decision on gut feeling, stop loss principle or other accounting items, not just math. The math says stick it in. In the long run, if you are presented this option 100 times and you call off all 100 times, you will win 64 and lose 36, a delta of 32 which, when multiplied by your net profit on the decision ($300) is around $10,000 for having put $30,000 at risk (copious amounts of rounding involved). That’s fast street math for — yeah its +EV and a fancy formula.

In this specific instance, you hit the 36% result. In the long-game, statistics catch up in the end. You can look up lectures on variance for more info on that.

[Author]

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