[Closed] Unpaired AK vs. drawing hand at NL $10 (FR), how much to raise?

Let's assume he has a draw 100% of the time

Condition 1:
The amount you raise should be at least enough that if he chooses not to fold, he will have a negative expected value. Or quickly said: don't give him the odds such that he can call or reraise profitably.

Condition 2:

You want to raise more than mentioned in condition 1. You would like to maximise the expected mistake he is going to make. Say - for the sake of the argument - if you raise $1 his EV when calling will be exactly 0, i.e. the break even point for the call. What you want to do now is to maximise the following number:

(Probabilitythat he calls your raise) * (Amount of money above the break even point)

In that way, you will maximise your own expectation.

Common sense conclusions: the more fishy or loose your opponent is, the more you should raise as he is likely going to make some horrible calls with nice looking draws.

Now my suggestion:

His bet is 0.35, the pot is 1.15. If you just call, the pot would be 1.85.

If you raise the pot on top of that (i.e. a total raise of 2.2), you'd give him 1 to 2 Odds or 33%. That is still too good here, as a flush draw or straight draw gets there in about 33-35% of the time and also - on top of that - we can win by just pairing his cards. He might have many more outs than that, in fact, he might have up to 15 outs against you.

So if you raise here, you need to raise big. I'd raise at least $3 (or in fact if your stack is $6 or less, I'd go all-in (if your stack is any bigger, I would really worry that my read that he has a draw is not correct and still fold)

In your case, going all-in is a no brainer.

However, having said that: We assumed that your read was 100% correct, which is never the case. Still, with just $2 in your stack, it's rather low risk, so if you trust your read, going all-in is the best way to play it.

Ah, I see why my reasoning is flawed now; even going all in I can't afford the level of protection I need in this case, so I should get the best I can or none at all, right?

(And I was absolutely - well, 95% or so - certain of my read in this case. I'm certainly not arrogant enough to think that I know what my opponent(s) is/are holding most or even much of the time, but very occasionally I am sure.)

Originally posted by howard182
Ah, I see why my reasoning is flawed now; even going all in I can't afford the level of protection I need in this case, so I should get the best I can or none at all, right?

Yes, that's it But none at all would be by far your worst option here, given your read.