Poor analysis by ESPN Poker Club writers…

i haven’t looked at the espn poker club “blog” lately, mostly because i once found an egregious error in andrew feldman’s math and wrote him about it (anyone who can’t add up the chips to determine some simple pot odds really shouldn’t be telling people how to play poker). he wrote back saying, “ah thanks! i kenw i did something wrong there.” for some reason i went there today and read the ‘back-and-forth’ debate between feldman and some guy named Cosmo. you can read the hand here: espn poker club

i found myself gasping at the lines written by the two authors. amazingly, in a two-sided debate, they manage to BOTH screw up several streets in a SINGLE hand. now that is talent.

PRE-FLOP: raising to about $300 is correct here. given a tight limper UTG and a tight player min-raising to 100, you really have to define your hand here clearly. you could be facing two marginal hands and you could be facing one or more monsters. raising to 300, 350, or more is standard. raising to $250 or $275 as feldman suggests? pretty silly. you want to try to price people into the hand as much as possible?

POST-FLOP: honestly, calling is the most reasonable option here. it’s bizarre that neither cosmo nor feldman note this simple fact, but simply calling this bet should be a fairly strong signal of strength to the UTG player. that being said, the UTG player is either WAY ahead (K or 5), or WAY behind (smaller pocket pair). why exactly would you want to willingly stack off all your chips to “protect” your hand when your opponent is either crushing you or completely crushed? lifetime, you gain much more EV by calling here and getting more calls from a player who is very behind. think about it: if your opponent has TT, you want him to call with the pot odds that are there. why would you want to force him out? i think this idiotic comment by cosmo is particularly telling:

His hand ranges increase now [note: your opponent's hand ranges shouldn't be INCREASING during a hand. if it is, you're in trouble], and I still have him on a small pocket, or suited ace. With his smooth call, I know he’s weak. If he’s the chip leader, he can bully and take down this pot. He’s the only one who can bully here, and if he was huge, he would’ve done it [by the way, I don't think this is universally true. if i'm the limper and i have AA. i consider just smooth-calling here. the min-raiser's stack is going into the middle regardless. not a terrible idea to trap our Hero]…. The hero’s play postflop is to also push all-in. Squeeze out the limper and isolate the short stack.

what?! you’ve put him on a smaller pair or a suited ace, so you want to push him out of the hand? the pot is laying him something like 3.5 to 1. the chances of him hitting an A or a set on the turn is somewhere in the vicinity of 9 to 1. calling allows you options to induce a bet, bluff, or call on a later street. pushing leaves money on the table.

cosmo goes on to astutely say, “Calling here does nothing but invite another call.” yes cosmo, you are right. and that is what you want.

POST-TURN: checking behind is just fine here. you can be fairly certain that most any K would have bet the turn. given the size of your remaining stack, you’ll be able to get it all in on the river if you can induce a bluff/bet. you can check and hope he bets if you’d like. if this was a cash game, you might check behind on the turn here also, but for a different reason: to keep the pot small when you don’t have a monster.

RIVER: now here’s where i think both of these espn guys are absolutely nuts. fold on the river? to be honest, this is a dream double-up situation. you’ve played the hand very well so that a smaller pair will fire on the river at you. sure he could have a K, thought unlikely given the play. sure he could have pocket 9’s. sure he could have limped with 56 suited, though unlikely given his style. sure he could have aces even. but with the pot laying you 2.5 to 1, you have to be very sure he doesnt’ have JJ, TT, 88, 77 (all of which are extremely likely in this hand), Ax, or a straight bluff to lay this down. it is a sin to not at least THINK about this before making a decision. i would very rarely lay this hand down here unless i’m against a completely rock.

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i think feldman and cosmo go wrong at several points in this analysis, but the largest problem is this: don’t try to over-protect a hand. if you’re pushing in on this flop because you’re protecting your hand against a draw, there’s just no justification for that. anyone who is trailing you is WAY behind. sure it’ll be scary if an A falls on the turn. but that’s going to happen well less than 10% of the time. the rest of the time you’re going to be picking up nice EV by inducing a call from the limper. sometimes having guts at a poker table doesn’t mean the balls to go all-in. sometimes it means being able to stomach the possibility of a bad beat when the math is in your favor.