AA against a coordinated flop

[rhinoceros]

PP no limit Holdem, .25/.50 blinds, I am in MP with AA. UTG, EP, MP call, I raise $1.50. All fold to SB who calls, BB raises $2, UTG folds, EP calls, MP folds, to me. Pot is now $8. I have the short stack with about $50, the others about $100 each. I raise $7, both call. I expected one, but not 2 callers. Am I right to be surprised?

Flop: Qs Js Tc

Check, check to me. My aces are As Ah. the pot is about $30. I may be behind, perhaps way behind. But it seems more dangerous to let them draw for free. I bet $20, both call.

Turn: 8c

check, check to me. Surprised by 2 calls on the flop, I figure one of them has me beat, and nobody is going to fold here, so I check.

River: 2c

BB bets $7, EP folds, I make a crying call

I lose to 99.

I could have raised all-in pre-flop and taken down the $8 pot. But if I am not going to try to win a big pot with AA, when am I going to try it?

Thoughts and suggestions?

[Ignatius]

> I am in MP with AA. UTG, EP, MP call, I raise $1.50.

A pot sized raise here would have been to $3.25. If you raise anything less here you have to be positive that (a) it will get reraised and (b) that a "normal" raise wouldn't get reraised. Unless you have one hell of a read, raising small with aces is a terrible mistake as with 4 or more callers, you set yourself up to either win small or lose big - but even if the trap works, you often cost yourself money if your opponent would also have raised a pot-sized bet.

> BB raises $2, UTG folds, EP calls, MP folds, to me. Pot is now $8.

You got lucky and should happily take it down. Since any raise now will necessarily give your hand away, you need to commit yourself to the pot now and should push in at least 40% of your stack (i.e. make it $20) - or move in right away if you think that this will rather trigger their calling instincts.

cu

Ignatius

After a few are in the pot, I like all-in with AA.

First, you want to drive a couple out since even AA plays best heads-up.

Second, anybody who calls you is making a big mistake. In the long-run, you will make a huge profit when putting in less than 50% of the money heads-up with AA since you will win much more than 50% of the time.

If everybody folds, that is okay as well. You won the blinds plus the initial calls.

I do not like to allow 3-4 to draw against me as my odds of winning are declining faster than the pot odds are increasing.

I think I would have liked an all-in here, too. In the online NLHE ring games I've played, people are often unable to let go once the've put in a few raises pre-flop, and are likely to call an all-in.

One thing though. Going all-in is good if you expect a reasonable chance of at least one call. But each additional caller puts more theoretical money in your theoretical pocket. You're hoping for as many callers as you can get here.

[AlanBostick]

</font><blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr />
One thing though. Going all-in is good if you expect a reasonable chance of at least one call. But each additional caller puts more theoretical money in your theoretical pocket. You're hoping for as many callers as you can get here.

[/ QUOTE ]
When the pot's big enough (and an $8 pot in a 0.25-0.50 blind game is plenty big), I want to see folders, not callers. Each caller I get for my all-in bet with pocket aces adds proportionally less and less to my equity, while jacking up my variance more and more.

Thought experiment: If you KNOW that UTG with a giant stack holds two black aces, how many callers do you need between you and her for an all-in call to be positive-EV if you have pocket kings? How about JdTd?

[qwerty]

I could have raised all-in pre-flop and taken down the $8 pot. But if I am not going to try to win a big pot with AA, when am I going to try it?

The only moment you should be trying to win a big pot with AA is pre-flop. After that you only have the best over-pair.

If you face big action with bottom two, do you feel completely secure? Well, with AA you are in a worst situation then that (post-flop).

Monster pots? Win them with top two, trips or better... or a bluff. But not with something between top pair and bottom two.

Qwerty

While I'll agree that each caller adds less to your EV than the last, each caller does add to your EV. And the time to be worrying about minimizing variance is not when you're in a low-blind, no limit ring game with the best possible hand.

I'm not sure about you're thought experiment. I know that even having everyone call wouldn't be enough to make me call with KK an all-in bet by someone I knew had pocket aces with either hand. With JTs, most of your straight outs are probably dead with a large number of callers, and your flush outs may be gone, too (certainly you're likely to loose if 4 diamonds hit the board). If we extended the though experiemnt to have the callers with random hands, then it may be possible that at some point JTs can call, but in doing so, he will be adding EV to the pocket aces as well.

I offer you a counter experiment. Use a poker hand analyzer like the one at http://www.twodimes.net/poker/ and one by one add hands that you think could have called AA. Each time, you add hand against AA, watch as the total EV for AA rises. (If you do use the one at twodimes, I believe you will have to multiply by the number of players, since the total of the EV column is always 1).

[Ignatius]

&gt; I do not like to allow 3-4 to draw against me as my odds of winning are declining faster than the pot odds are increasing.

This is a common misconception. An all-in family pot with AA is in fact the best you can hope for. Assume that everybody has $100: Is it better to get 85% (heads-up equity) from $200 or 31% (full table all-in equity) from $1000? Your EV will three times as high in the latter case.

cu

Ignatius