66 better than 77 -- a theoretical question

[Rococo]

I have a question that is probably of more theoretical interest than practical applicability. Does anyone believe that a starting hand of 66 has a slighly higher EV against poor NLH players than 77 or possibly 88?

I'll explain my reasoning after I hear whether anyone agrees. I also would be curious to know whether the stats from any of the $100 max players bear out this theory.

FWIW, I doubt that the difference in EV is great enough to warrant modifying one's starting requirements.

[amoeba]

I'm going to say no.

to have a higher EV, 66 has to either beat more hands than 77 (which it clearly doesn't) or it has more implied value than 77 when playing against poor players(which you seem to be implying).

So what hands are your opponents playing where they pay off 66 more than they pay off 77?

[Rococo]

You are correct that I believe that it is related to implied value (thus the advantage over poor players). I'll want to a let a few more people weigh in before I give my reasoning.

[Ghazban]

I don't believe it is. The only reason I can come up with for why you would bring this up would be the situation where the board is 2345x and a poor player playing any ace will pay off your 6-high straight with his wheel. This scenario comes up so rarely that I don't think its impact on the overall EV of 66 vs. 77 is significant enough to make it a "better" hand.

[Rococo]

That is exactly the reason. I obviously agree that this situation doesn't come up very often, but I have seen it on more than one occasion. I find that poor players almost always commit their whole stack with the wheel.

Moreover, the situations in which 77 wins and 66 loses are also relatively infrequent.

[amoeba]

seeing as how you need 2345 non flush to come on the board...this situation is very, very rare.

Its about as rare as the few times 66 loses to 77.
(3456 board, set of 6 beaten by set of 7).

[Ghazban]

Though you may have a legitimate argument, I think its negligible in terms of applying it to your game. Are you going to call a big raise before the flop with 66 but not with 77? Probably not. Are you going to bet 66 more aggressively preflop than 77? Again, probably not. You aren't going to have to wait for a 66 vs. Ax hand on a 2345x board to bust the fish who overplay sucker straights in any case as they'll be more than happy to pay you off with TPGK when you make a small 2-pair with suited connectors.

[Rococo]

Although both situations are infrequent, a showdown hand with a board of 2345 (with one player holding 66 and one player holding an Ace) will occur far more often than a showdown hand with a board of 3456 (again assuming that one player is holding 77 and the other has a 2).

Even poor players don't play unpaired deuces that often.

The situations in which the strong player with the high end of the straight beats a poor player with a set will occur with equal frequency, regardless of whether the board is 2345 or 3456.

In any case, as I said in my initial post, I'm virtually certain that the difference in EV is not significant enough to affect play, but I thought that it was an interesting question.

[Rococo]

I completely agree. I said all along that I wouldn't adjust my play even if I am correct because the difference in EV isn't significant.

[Ghazban]

I am somewhat curious as to whether or not anybody with a very large sample size in pokertracker (or something similar) could post stats for these two hands. Maybe in the very very long run, a difference in value would show up....