Stud 8, 3rd and 4th street decisions (2 Viewers)

[FDLmold]

Maybe more interesting? The dead cards are and . 3rd went bringin, fold fold fold, raise by the , call, and action back to me. Should I have reraised? Put pressure on the 9?

 

[moose]

100% you reraise. They have high only hands. You are the only person in position to scoop.

 

[Legend5555]

Mandatory raise. You have the only low going atm.

 

[H|Q]

Raise and hope the king reraises

 

[FDLmold]

1) Should have raised. 2) I didn't. 3) Back off! I'm learning.

4th street. Bricks for everybody. Bet, call, action to me:

Seems like a call or fold. Certainly not time for a raise.

 

[moose]

For a sb, since you close the action I would call. If you were trapped between the two I would tend to fold. Unless you draw a K or A you will get to act last on the next street so you can fit or fold 5th but if you draw low, it pretty much commits you to 7th.

 

[RainmanTrail]

This spot is a lot more tricky than it looks. Yes, you have the best Stud8 starting hand, but you have to catch to win anything here. You'll only make a low about half the time. Somthing that is unique to stud games is that if you're up against a weaker player, it is a mistake to raise a pot even if you are ahead, when the correct play on the next street might be to have to fold if you catch bad and your opponent catches good (note that this only applies when you are heads up). This comes up a lot in lowball games like Razz and in Stud8. The problem is that there will be a disproportion of profitable continuations between you and your opponent on the next street, because you will fold when you brick out and he won't. So even though you might have more equity now, you won't realize that equity often enough because you will be folding more often than him on the next street.

In this hand, you're in a similar spot. The primary difference here is that the K is in steal position and could very well have any 3 random cards. Because of that, I would lean towards reraising here with the intention of calling through a brick on 4th street (for the noobs, "brick" = bad card for us). But you can only call through the brick if the pot was reraised on 3rd street, because otherwise you won't have the proper pot odds to continue. If the K were in earlier position, you'd probably want to just call here and either fold 4th street if you brick, or raise 4th street if you catch good.

 

[FDLmold]

So reraising on 3rd allows me to have the pot odds I need to call one Small Bet on 4th if I brick? That's quite the layer of strategy. I'm not sure in any of my Stud8 readings I've encountered that.

 

[FDLmold]

I called by the way. Caught perfect on 5th and started dumping as much money in as I could. Caught a 6 on 6th street, both opponents stuck around. I scooped a 11.5 big bet pot, or something like that.

 

[RainmanTrail]

So reraising on 3rd allows me to have the pot odds I need to call one Small Bet on 4th if I brick? That's quite the layer of strategy. I'm not sure in any of my Stud8 readings I've encountered that.

Yes, but only if you have a premium hand on 3rd street.

 

[Legend5555]

Against 2 high card hands, I'd raise here on 3rd the majority of the time. If you catch good, barrel away. If you catch bad, get to 5th for one bet then reevaluate. When it comes to "razz" hands like yours, having a gap weakens your scoops a good bit. You really want 3 of a suit or 3 in a row to feel good about applying max pressure on 3rd, especially heads up. But when it looks like you are going multiway with the best low draw, then raising on 3rd is usually a good idea.

One thing that should be mentioned here is that the ante and bring in on ACR are both big, very big. The ante in all stud limits is 12.5% of the BB, and the bring in is half the SB. A more typical ante is 7.5% and bring in of 30-35%. So often, even in a pot that isn't 2 bets on 3rd, it can often be correct to peel on 4th if you catch bad.

Because of the larger antes, you also need to defend your bring-in a lot more heads up. Especially against a high card. You are getting 7 to 1 to call the completion if you are the bring in heads up at an 8 handed table. Even with something like Q23, 445, 3K3 against an opener with an 8 through K if they opened in a steal position. If you catch good and the catch bad, you can barrel away at the high card hand as they will often have a steal and be forced to fold. The small pairs can have some decent value if you have another low card with them, or your buried high card is bigger than the stealing player's door card. These are tricky spots to navigate though.

I played 1/2 and 2/4 a good bit last night and finished up about $60. Would have been more but I got 7 out scooped when I got heads up with split kings against a low hand. They bricked 5th and 6th but had caught an A on 4th while I made kings up on 5th. On 7th they checked and I value bet and they had caught an A on 7th to make aces up. They were the bring in with 993 as it turns out and went A3J(A). They didn't raise 5th, so I felt comfortable that they hadn't made aces up yet.

 

[JustinInMN]

Sorry I am late to the party on this one, but I found this interesting and want to add some thoughts.

3rd street:

You do have the option to bring in for the full bet, but I usually don't ever do this because I just don't like telegraphing my hands like that, and the vast majority of the time, I am going bail on my bring in. In theory you could come up with some balanced strategy for every doorcard to mix up your full bet vs bring in, I haven't developed such a strategy yet.

I do agree with the other generally I would want to raise when it gets back to me as hero. However, there is one good justification to flat that I think merits discussion. It's that you have the only possible 3-baby hand and if you raise, will the villain with the K respond by 3 betting and would that pressure the villian with a 9 to fold? This actually is not a great outcome for you heads up with a player that likely has split kings or at the very least a high pair wired. You would much rather be in the spot where you are the only player going low putting 1/3 of the money in while being a favorite to get at least 1/2 the pot.

So I would usually raise, but I think there is a case to flat given the villains door cards are not babies.

4th Street:

Well hero caught bad and both villians caught potential flush help (but we are blocking spades as well), I still think this is a pretty standard call one bet, closing the action. If it got bet and raised in front of you, you might have to think about it, but calling one bet here is pretty safe beacause other than two dead sixes, the cards you need to develop your low are very live, and if you catch good on 5th street, you will be favored to at least make a low again against to players that are unlikely to develop a low. (Unfortunately you will have to dump it on another brick, however.)

On the other hand, if you had caught good on 4th, you would have licence to jam here, on 5th, and 6th unless one of the villains develops something thrilling.

5th Street:

Yup that's a pretty good card. And the bets doubled . You didn't make mention of villians' upcards here, but so long as it didn't look like they were developing lows of their own, you should take 5-4-3-2 to war here with confidence.

6th street:

Nice catch !