Perfect Play and Correct Play

I’m reading poker legend, Barry Greenstein’s book, Ace on the River.  It’s filled with a lot of narrative, not just poker notes so reading it is very entertaining.  One of the concepts he talks about is the idea of the “Perfect Play” vs. the “Correct Play.”  The perfect play would be decisions a player would make if opponents cards were visible.  A correct play is informed decisions made with the information available. 

Many times the correct and perfect play are the same.  For example if an opponent showed his top pair on the flop in fixed limit hold’em and bet, but I had four cards to a flush and the pot was more than six small bets the correct and the perfect play would be to call.

There are a lot of cases, however, where the perfect and correct play are not the same.  A hand like this came up for me recently:

Hero in Highjack with A♦-Q♦
UTG limps
Hero raises
Button calls
BB calls
UTG calls
Four players, 4 Big Bets in the pot
Flop: 3♣-A♠-7♣
UTG checks
Hero bets
Button calls
BB folds
UTG check-raises
Hero 3!
Button takes two to the face
UTG calls
Three players, 8.5 Big bets in the pot
Turn 5♣
UTG checks
Hero bets
Button calls
UTG check-raises

Hero calls

Button calls

Three players 14.5 Big bets in the pot

River 10 ♥

UTG bets

Hero calls

Button calls

UTG turns over 8♣-J♣

The perfect play on the turn would have been to fold to the check-raise because I was drawing dead at that point.  The correct play was to call the turn and the river, why?

I’ve played a bit with UTG. He’s one of those “hard luck” guys who plays way too many hands and gets all sad and pouty when he gets drawn out on. He’s fairly passive and I’ve seen him make quite a few pretty hopeless call-downs and terrible river folds when he just “knows he’s beat.” His flop check-raise could mean he had a weak A, two-pair, a set or a flush or straight draw. Being ahead of a good portion of that range and the pots as big as it was, I think my 3! was good. I have no idea what button is calling with, probably a straight or flush draw.

The turn was a nightmare card but with UTG’s check, I decided to make a value bet as many players in this spot would often have one club, in his case possibly the A of clubs.  As big as the pot was, getting more than 12:1, I need to be ahead of both opponents less than 10% of the time.  Even though I was crushed in this hand and I failed to make the “Perfect Play” I made correct decisions.