Trials of a Poker Apprentice: Good call = wrong move?

Watching the Doyle Brunson North American Championship on the World Poker Tour the other night, one hand really hit home for me, causing me to revisit a dilemma I have never been able to adequately answer for myself.

The hand involved Gavin Smith and Minh Ly, after it got down to three-handed. Dan Harrington had the chip lead, while Minh and Gavin were virtually equal in chips. Gavin made a standard open-raise with A7s. Acting next, Minh pushed all-in with K8o. Harrington was out and Gavin faced a decision for nearly all of his chips (he would have just barely enough to cover the big blind if he called and lost).

Gavin thought for awhile, examined his opponent, kept thinking, took one last look and finally called. Now, this call would be considered very questionable, but I have to give Gavin credit for being able to read Minh. Watching the show, I felt that it was very easy to read Minh at that stage of the tournament. I know, that sounds silly, especially since watching on television I could see the cards and knew what everyone was holding. But if you happen to see this episode again, compare Minh's body language on his bluffs to his body language when he held pocket aces. There is a world of difference there, and I have to think Gavin, as good as he is, could see it. I'm not saying Minh is a bad player or anything like that. Anyone who can start with nothing play $2-4 and work his way up to the big game at the Bellagio has to have a level of talent I can only dream of someday possessing. It's just at that stage of the tournament, whether it was stress or exhaustion, I believe Minh was wearing the strength of his hand on his face.

Back to the hand, Mike Sexton was ecstatic, saying something to the effect that, regardless to how the hand played out, Gavin made a brilliant read and a brilliant call. But did he?

I don't really know the answer myself, but let's look at the facts. Gavin held a very marginal hand, although three-handed I don't think he made a mistake open-raising with it. And I can't say that Minh made the wrong move by pushing all-in with his hand, since his bet should have been enough to push out just the type of hand Gavin held, absent a good read. But my questions arise when examining Gavin's play.

First, we have to acknowledge that Gavin was ahead in the hand, an almost 2-to-1 favorite as it turns out. (It would be closer to 3-2 based just on unseen cards, but Dan had folded one of Minh's outs when he threw away his K9.) We have to also assume that Gavin was reasonably certain he was ahead in the hand, given his prolonged study of Minh and eventual call. But does being ahead warrant a call?

I think Gavin would have to also know that Minh had him "middled" -- two cards between Gavin's. Assuming he was certain Minh did not have a pair, he would have to know that, in the worst case scenario -- in Minh held a suited connector above seven (and of course not the same suit as Gavin's) -- Gavin would only be a little better than a coin-flip favorite (roughly 55-44 by my calculator). As it turned out, the hands matched up to be the best possible lead without dominating Minh, 62-37.

Regardless of how good Gavin's read on Minh was, I do not believe he could have known with any certainty that Minh didn't hold a suited connector. His read was more likely something like, "I am almost certain he doesn't have a pair or an ace, therefore I am ahead and I should call."

But how far ahead should you be before you risk your entire tournament? The people who write the poker books will tell you that if you can make a bet when you have an advantage, regardless of how thin that edge is, you should always take it. You will lose and you might even have a bad run in which you lose more than you win for a time, but "over the long run" you will make an enormous profit.

While that rationale may be logically sound, that doesn't necessarily make it true.

Or, in other words, just because it's universally true, doesn't mean that it is always particularly true.

At the risk of committing poker heresy, I have to disagree with the concept of "pushing every edge" in certain real-world applications. Mathematical concepts might be "true" in the most broad sense of the term, but that doesn't mean their application is always correct.

As an example, think of Newton's law that an object in motion stays in motion, at the same velocity and direction, unless and until acted upon by an outside force. Solid concept, but not applicable for us earthlings. When you throw a ball into the sky, it doesn't continue into space. Newton's law isn't wrong. In fact, it is working perfectly, because there are outside forces at work on the ball, mostly gravity. The point of the example isn't that the fundamental truth is wrong, but that it doesn't apply in our real world setting, because we will never see that object remain in motion in perpetuity.

Similarly, the "law" that you should always take a bet when you have any edge only really applies when you have an unlimited bankroll. Now, to take one extreme, if you have a million-dollar bankroll and sit in a $10 max NLHE game, you pretty much have an unlimited bankroll and, over time, you will eventually make a lot of money. But to go to another extreme, suppose you are offered a bet in which you are a 51-49 favorite. By our law of gambling, you should take that bet every time it is offered. But suppose your cost for losing the bet is your house. How willing are you to take that bet? If you win, which you will do "most" of the time, then great. But if you lose the first bet, which you will do almost, but not quite, as often, you're homeless.

Essentially, that is the decision Gavin Smith faced when Minh Ly pushed all in. In fact, that is exactly the decision. The difference between first and third place was roughly $700,000, which would buy my house several times over. If he had laid down the hand, there is no guarantee he would have made first or even second, but he would have still been competitive. However, playing the hand and losing would make it virtually certain that he would finish third, making $327,000. And let's not forget that calling and winning would assure him of finishing at least second ($620,000), since Minh would have been knocked out.

So, when you boil it all down, Gavin's decision was whether to wager $300,000 (prize money, not chips) on a probable 3-2 favorite at best.

That's not to mention risking the possibility of winning $700,000 more. And this is not a situation in which, if you lose, you simply wait for the next chance to make the same bet. This is a one-time shot.

I have to salute Gavin for reading his opponent correctly and then having the guts to follow through on his read. But I don't know that I could have made that call. Given how recklessly Minh had been pushing his entire stack into the pot, I'm pretty certain that I would have folded, choosing to wait for a better spot to make a stand, certain that I could double through him when the right situation presented itself. I'm not saying I'm right or he's right. I don't know.

Of course, he's made two final tables so far this season, while I have trouble lately cashing in a SNG, so maybe that should be your guide.

Now, I'm not judging the call based on the way the hand turned out. Notice, I've not mentioned the outcome once.

And I'm not saying that he made a mistake mathematically. Given a sufficient bankroll, I would certainly make the same call every time I had a chance. But this was not an unlimited bankroll situation. It was a live-or-die moment.

This is the biggest question I have about poker. Is it ever right to fold when you know you are ahead, but in extreme danger? In Omaha, that can certainly be the case. You can be ahead in the hand, but your opponent can have so many draws that you are actually behind mathematically. That's not generally the case in hold'em (the only situation I can think of is pair vs. smaller pair with an open-ended straight flush draw), but I still cannot help but wonder when I flop a good hand and my opponent pushes all-in and, based on my knowledge of the player, I KNOW he is semi-bluffing with a flush draw with two cards to come, should I throw away my hand? I know that, over time with an unlimited bankroll, I should pray my opponent is that stupid and call with glee every single time. But I have never been in an unlimited bankroll situation. My losses are all still very real and very painful to me.

Granted, that is because I tend to play at limits that are too high for the money I have. I can't help it, or at least I haven't been able to so far. I've never known the luxury of having 100 or 200 buy-ins. When my bankroll gets to the point that I have three or four buy-ins for the limit I'm playing, I feel the need to move up. That's not healthy, for my wallet or my psyche, and it's definitely something I need to work on. But the way things are now, when I get to that three or four buy-in level, I start getting too comfortable and that leads me to engage in sloppy play. It's a situation where I am damned if I do and damned if I don't. If I move up, I put myself at risk of going broke during one bad session. If I don't, I get careless and I lose anyway. The answer, of course, is patience, something I seem to have in starting hand selection and picking spots, but which I have been unsuccessful putting into practice when it comes to game selection. I know this is true, and I also know that it is the single-biggest factor that keeps me from becoming the winning player I know I can be. If I want to become a long-term consistent winner, I have to avoid putting myself in short bankroll situations. Hopefully, it is something I can learn to conquer. I just wish someone would tell me how.

The extreme examples I noted earlier -- the million-dollar bankroll in a $10 max NLHE game vs. betting your house with a 51-49 edge -- are just that, extreme. We're not likely to find ourselves in those situations. Most of the time, we're going to be somewhere in the middle.

But in a tournament, when facing a call for all or nearly all of your chips, when the difference between winning and losing that one hand means a significant amount of money, we are much closer to the example of betting the house with a small advantage. That is something that should scare the hell out of poker players, or at least small bankroll players like myself, because we face it far more often than we would like to believe.

On the other side of the coin, we cannot allow fear of going broke to paralyze us from calling every time it is possible we face a coin flip. At some point, you just have to say screw the danger and push forward, much like Gavin did. He made the correct read and followed through with a gutsy call. The only thing that could be suspect is his timing. I cannot question how he played the hand, but when. Risking $300,000 prize money in a probable 3-2 situation? I can't say I agree with that.

Lord, I think this is longest post I've ever written. I had better quit now before I cause a worldwide word shortage and we end up paying $3 a gallon for vowels. But, of course, we can't wrap up without a look at the news.