Not Raising AA2 rainbow OTB

[GooperMC]

I don't want to start another "value of a naked AA" debate but I had what I thought was a novel idea a couple days back and wanted to run it by everyone to see if it holds water.

I was thinking that NOT raising AA2 rainbow OTB would be correct. The problem that I am seeing with raising AA2 OTB is that it isn't going to drive out anyone and it is going to build the pot for your opponents to draw at. If you keep the pot small you may be able to push out medium draws on the flop and sometimes even better hands (weak 2 pairs).

The goal of raising AA2 pre-flop is that with every person that folds you gain PE. This PE boost will grow faster then the size of the pot is people call so you want to be driving people out. I think the same can be said for flop play. Most of the time you want to be driving out medium drawing hands because they are sucking more equity from you
then they are building the pot.

I can give some examples if this wasn't clear.

Am I over thinking this (which I have been known to do) or am I on to something?

[toots]

Ms. "weak tight" here.

I'm not going to raise AA2 rainbow OTB, because its rainbowness seriously compromises its scoop potential. Unless we're lucky enough to see the board pair twos (for instance), or wonder of wonders, one of the two remaining aces hits, I don't see where you've got much of a chance at the high pot.

At this rate, you're just playing for the nut low with no backup, and the only thing you've got going is that the worst you could anticipate if your nut low hits is that you split it with two other people instead of three.

In other words, I see AA2 rainbow as being a little bit better than A2xx rainbow as far as catching half the pot goes, but I'm not sure that it's gonna win enough of the pot often enough to warrant an OTB raise.

[HajiShirazu]

There are some reasons not to raise I guess, but AA2xr still just about has to be getting a lot more of the pot on average than what most poor-playing online opponents are coming in with. You can still make aces up + nut low, or take it down with a high set/boat and no low comes, wheel, bluff out somebody with two bad pair on a scary low card board with the nut low, 3/4 an A2, etc... An overpair + nut low draw is a hand that you should play pretty aggressively in the right situations IMO. But for me the best reason to raise, in fact this is almost always the reason I raise in O8 in the first place, is that you might be able to fold the people behind you (in this case the blinds) and get some dead money in the pot. Even if the BB is the type that always calls, at least you didn't let the SB come in for half price. Any four can win and sometimes the blinds will get half a pot from you with a hand that they would have or should have folded.

[Ironman]

There is another consideration that I have been thinking about for just this situation.

When you are on the button and raise, you put everyone else in the hand on the defensive.

It gathers a lot of information on the cheaper streets.

If you raise on the button, the only person who bets out in front of you is someone that the flop hit square in the face.

People will generally check to you and you can either bet (I would usually bet here to punish the drawing hands) or take off a free card (I would usually bet the flop and take the free card on the turn), but you can figure out where you are in the hand very quickly.

There is so little slow playing in this game, I like to keep betting until I am given a reason to slow down.

(By the way, I think Toots is dead on about the unsuited part...this hand goes way down in value without the suits matched up.)

I have always limped with this hand in the past, but wonder if that really is the best action.

Dave

[GooperMC]

[ QUOTE ]
If you raise on the button, the only person who bets out in front of you is someone that the flop hit square in the face.

[/ QUOTE ]
But this is what you don't want and is exactly what I was questioning in my original post. This is going to price everyone in to draw.

Lets say that you raise pre-flop and 4 other players call. There will be 10SB in the pot. You flop comes nicely ragged K, 8, 4, and it is checked around to you. You bet, now everyone is getting 10:1 on their calls and will be correct to call with almost anything.

Now lets say that you limp. There will be 6SB in the pot. Same flop and it is checked around to the CO who decides to bet because he is in good position and nobody raise pre-flop. Now you can raise him and everyone is going to have to cold call 1BB in a 3BB pot.

This is almost the prefect situation but it makes the point. Keeping the pot small pre-flop will make it so that you can clear people out on the flop and drastically increase your chance to scoop a pot with a bunch of dead money in it.

[Ironman]

Goop...

Pot odds...you're right. I know you're right. That's how we play. You are dead on.

But you are giving these guys WAY too much credit (especially at .5/1).

A raise on the button means that your opponents have to make a decision in an uncomfortable spot. Every time you make someone make another decision under the gun, they have an opportunity to make a mistake. That's Ray Zee talking right there, not me. O8 is a game where you make money from people making mistakes more than outplaying your opponent. (I'm paraphrasing...sorry Ray.)

I really don't think you mind if people are drawing against you.

Does someone else have an A 2? Maybe, probably not.

Could someone back into a better high hand? Of course. But there is a lot of dead money coming into this hand.

I love it when there are people with a worse hand than me, calling my raise.

This raise could easily make someone fold the potential winning hand on the turn.

I'll take a look at my PT stats on this this weekend and see how the hands played out. I'll see if anything comes close to what we are talking about.

It's a very good question.

[gergery]

I think there are 3 classes of hands:

1) Hands that are playable, but have a small EV+ expectation and so should not be raised.

2) Hands that are moderately strong, are EV+, and could be raised, but that by raising them you give up some value (i.e give hand away, creates a pot that doesn’t allow for opponents mistakes). But raising reduces the overall value of this class of hands down to where it is isn’t strong enough to raise. Essentially, your hand is strong enough to raise in a vacuum (or against the completely clueless), but is not strong enough to “pay the cost” of raising against most opponents.

3) Hands that are very strong, and should be raised because their EV is strong enough that getting more money in now outweighs the “cost” you pay to raise

You are saying that AA2 falls into class 2 instead of class 3. Personally, I’d say its class 3, and so would raise.

--Greg

[AnyAce]

I am with Greg on this one. I think its a premium hand and worth a raise.

In addition, as someone noted I think the idea that your typical low limit player is thinking "hmmm, 6 sb, I better fold because the pot odds aren't there, but if they were 10 sb, I would call with just about anything" is not realistic.

I haven't this thinking much until you get to 3/6 or 5/10 and even then I see people colding 2 bets with A4xx preflop so I'd be glad to raise with AA2x and hope to pound'em...

AA

[Ribbo]

IF you're not raising AA2 rainbow from the button, what in high hell are you waiting for????????? (needs more ?)
If you're going to wait for AA2 suited, then would you mind telling everyone exactly how often you think that's going to happen.

[GooperMC]

I am saying that in EP I will raise hands when I want to push people out and raise in LP when I want to keep people in.

Example: I will always raise AA2 rainbow from EP but am thinking about not raising it from LP.

Example 2: I will never raise A2 suited or A23 from EP but will always raise in LP.

[ QUOTE ]
what in high hell are you waiting for

[/ QUOTE ]
A hand that plays better in a multiway pot then it does in a short handed pot.

[GooperMC]

I have finally got some time to really look into my idea. This is going to be a long post so bear with me.

First let me say that I have not tried this yet (I have still be raising this hand OTB) it is just something that I have been thinking about.

Here is what my second round of thinking has come up with (again I am hoping that you guys will tell me if I am way off base).

In poker you are going to make money 4 ways.
1) Jamming (betting and raising) the pot when you have more then (1 / players calling the bet) of the PE.
2) Calling (checking and calling) when you have odds to draw.
3) Having our opponents make mistakes
4) Getting better hand to fold.

Overall I think that limit O8 is more about 1, 2, and 3 then it is about 4 so I am going to focus on those.

Jamming:
Anytime that you have more then your share of the PE you should put as much money into the pot as you can. You will have more then your share of the PE any time that you have more then (1 / players calling the bet). Interestingly this has no relevance on “made” vs. “drawing” hands and it doesn’t even mean that you have to have the most PE.

Example:
You have a draw that gives you 40% of the PE and you have 2 opponents: 1 that has 55% of the PE and 1 that has 5% of the PE. In this situation assuming that both players will call you will make a little money for every bet that you put in the pot so you should jam.

Calling:
Anytime that you have less then you share of the PE but the pot is large enough to give you odd to call you want to put in as little into the pot as you can. In this scenario you lose a little bit of your PE for every bet that goes into the pot so that you want to keep the amount of money that you have to put in to a minimum.

The thing that makes poker interesting is that Jamming hands and Calling hand are at odds (forgive the pun) during almost every hand. The only time this isn’t the case is when everyone has the same PE which doesn’t matter because all plays will be neutral EV anyway. Every other time the player with the jamming hands wants to make the pot as large as possible and the players with drawing hand don’t want the pot to grow at all.

Opponent mistakes:
We make money playing poker because most of the other players (esp at low limits) are stupid and don’t realize what I talked about above. They will call without odds and they will jam with drawing hands. Every time that an opponent makes these mistakes we gain a little PE. The larger the mistake the more PE we gain.

What does this all have to do with the AA2 original post you ask? To really answer that I have to talk about another concept: Schooling. Just so everyone is on the same page schooling simply defined is one fish calling a bet that he doesn’t have odds to call which gives a player behind him odds to call which in turn gives the original player odds to call.

Example:
Player 1 has hand that if no-one else improves will win. Players 2-10 all have a non overlapping 10% of the PE, meaning that they all are looking for different cards to win. The pot is 5 bets and Player 1 bets.
Player 2 is getting 6:1 on a 10:1 draw and calls (without odds),
Player 3 is now getting 7:1 on a 10:1 draw and calls (still without odds),
Player 4 is now getting 9:1 on a 10:1 draw and calls (still without odds),
Player 5 is now getting 9:1 on a 10:1 draw and calls (still without odds),
Player 6 is now getting 10:1 on a 10:1 draw and calls (now with odds).
However because the pot is now 11 bets Players2-5 made the right calls too because the pot grew so large behind them.

I was very interesting in the effects of schooling so I wrote a little program. I found the results to be interesting and posted them here:
http://www.csc.calpoly.edu/~sjaspan/poker/All_Schooling.html

Schooling doesn’t happen as much in O8 as it does in HE but it does happen none the less, and it happens on hands like AA2 (and other hands that are vulnerable to draws). Schooling is the reason that AA2 plays better short handed then it does in a large mult-way pot.

Here are the results of how AA29 rainbow plays against various amounts of random hands:
http://www.csc.calpoly.edu/~sjaspan/poker/O8_AA2vsRandomHands.html
The summery is: “The more players in the pot the less +EV AA2 is.”

The only way to combat schooling is to give everyone such bad odds to call that the schooling doesn’t hurt you as much. For example if all of your opponents have 10% of the PE with a draw and the pot is 7 bets all it takes is 2 to call you to start hurting your PE. However if there are only 4 bets in the pot then it takes 5 callers to hurt your PE. This is the reason that we will check raise top set; to push people out of the pot so that schooling doesn't happen. We want 1 fishy to call not 8.

I can see everyone’s heads lolling after reading all that so I will get to the point. Lets say that there are 3 limpers to you OTB with AA2 rainbow and you raise. SB folds and BB calls. Checked to you on the flop and you bet, suddenly because everyone is almost getting odds to call you are getting massive schooling. Now lets say that you have the same PE situation but didn’t raise and the CO bets in front of you. You can raise and either push most of the players out of the pot or at the very least give them horrible odds to call.

If you look at the .1 PE table, I am proposing that you could actually gain EV by moving from a 10 pot with 6 players to a 6 pot with 3 players.

Sorry for the long post, but it took me a little while to figure all this out so I thought that it might help out some other people.

[gergery]

[ QUOTE ]
I am saying that in EP I will raise hands when I want to push people out and raise in LP when I want to keep people in.

Example: I will always raise AA2 rainbow from EP but am thinking about not raising it from LP.

Example 2: I will never raise A2 suited or A23 from EP but will always raise in LP.

[ QUOTE ]
what in high hell are you waiting for

[/ QUOTE ]
A hand that plays better in a multiway pot then it does in a short handed pot.

[/ QUOTE ]

There are two issues here.
1. Do you want to play a multi-way or shorthanded pot?
2. Once the number of people in the pot is fixed, do you want more money in or not?

With AA2x rainbow, you generally want fewer opponents in, because your equity is high with many opponents, but even higher with fewer opponents. I try to explain why this is the case in this thread (http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=omaha8&Number=2333180&Foru m=,,All_Forums,,&Words=&Searchpage=2&Limit=25&Main =2311202&Search=true&where=bodysub&Name=11039&date range=1&newerval=1&newertype=m&olderval=&oldertype =&bodyprev=#Post2333180).

So I think the answer to question 1) is "shorthanded".

Once its checked to you in late position, you can assume the number of opponents is fixed because virtually no one ever folds to a raise preflop after having put 1 bet in.

So now the question of whether your hand does better multi-way or shorthanded is irrelevant, because you can't influence that.

AA2 rainbow has significantly higher than average equity vs. 5 hands, so the answer to question 2) is "you want more money in".

I think that betting/raising preflop is almost always the best way to accomplishe that, but i'll allow that at some tables/players waiting til the expensive streets could be better.

--Greg

[GooperMC]

OK so I am probably over thinking this. Maybe a case of simple play is usually a good play?

The good news is that I I have learned a lot thinking / discussing this with everyone.

[JackWhite]

Why the attitude Ribbo? The guy is asking a question. You have to realize we are not all as incredibly perfect as you. If you think he should raise, can't you say so without the "what in the high hell are you waiting for?"

[Wintermute]

I'm with Ribbo. This is a situation where a comment like "WTF are you thinking?!" is appropriate. AA2 OTB is such an unbelievable no-brainer raise. No reasonably intelligent case can be made otherwise.

[gergery]

[ QUOTE ]
Why the attitude Ribbo? The guy is asking a question. You have to realize we are not all as incredibly perfect as you. If you think he should raise, can't you say so without the "what in the high hell are you waiting for?"

[/ QUOTE ]

Hi, I'm Graham Ribchester, and you don't have a feckin' clue how to play PLO8, do you?

[Ribbo]

This question has already been asked 100 times on this and every other board. He only has to do a search to find the answers he already seeks. A little self reliance goes a long way in a situation like this.

[JoshuaMayes]

I agree with what has been said. I would raise this hand every time, no matter what position I was in. A special bonus of raising on the button is that players will sometimes allow you to take a free card on the flop because of a "check to the raiser" mentality burned into their minds from holdem.

[JoshuaMayes]

You are basically saying what Greg said, i.e. with some hands you want to sacrifice some preflop EV so that your opponents make bigger mistakes on the later betting rounds. I agree with Greg that AA2 is too strong of a hand for this consideration to merit a call rather than a raise.

Although AA2 loses PE as more players see the flop, you cannot cut down the number of players seeing the flop no matter what you do; but you can get more money in with a premium hand.

For example with the following hands, you would have 30% PE:
As Ad 2c 9h (YOU)
Ah 3c Kd Th
2s 3h 4h 8d
Qs Qc Js Td
Ks 8c 4d 9c
By raising, you get an extra four bets in the pot of which you expect 30% for a total of 120% of a small bet. It will cost you 70% of the bet you put in, so your total EV of raising is 1/2 of a small bet. It will be very difficult to make more than 1/2 a small bet EVERY TIME this sequence of hands is dealt by inducing larger mistakes from your opponents post-flop than they would make with a big pot. How many flops can you envision that would enable you to induce larger mistakes from a group of opponents with the given hands with a smaller pot on the flop? I can think of a few, but not nearly enough to make me believe that I would be able to gain more than 1/2 of a small bet on average by keeping the pot small everytime this scenario arose.

This is just an example, but my point is that you sacrifice alot of EV by not raising AA2, much more than you are likely to make up by inducing mistakes postflop by keeping the pot small.

[toots]

Good explanation.

[GooperMC]

[ QUOTE ]
Although AA2 loses PE as more players see the flop

[/ QUOTE ]
It looses its chance to win but it actually gains PE are more people enter the pot. I made this mistake too. I think it is a hold over from the PL side of my game where the implied odds of letting someone hit a check flop when you are playing AA2 are bad.

If you are interested here is the revised EV calc for AA2 vs. random hands:
http://www.csc.calpoly.edu/~sjaspan/poker/O8_AA2vsRandomHands.html

[GooperMC]

I would like to thank everyone for their input on this topic. To play poker well I feel like you need to understand the theory behind poker (EV, Pot Odds, Implied odds, …) and I only way that I have found to do that is to think / discuss those theories.

I posted this idea because it was something that I was musing over. While it isn’t something that I am going to incorporate into my game (you guys convinced me of that), it did generate a lot of though / discussion which helped me out tremendously, so thanks.

[gergery]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Although AA2 loses PE as more players see the flop

[/ QUOTE ]
It looses its chance to win but it actually gains PE are more people enter the pot. I made this mistake too. I think it is a hold over from the PL side of my game where the implied odds of letting someone hit a check flop when you are playing AA2 are bad.

If you are interested here is the revised EV calc for AA2 vs. random hands:
http://www.csc.calpoly.edu/~sjaspan/poker/O8_AA2vsRandomHands.html

[/ QUOTE ]

Pzhon had a great point on this: that AA2 still has increasing pot equity as more people enter the pot, when you are up vs. random hands.

But you are usually not up against random hands. Usually you are up against the other Axx which you dominate, or KQJT which you are ahead of or 2345 which want but usually won't get an A on the flop since they are in your hands.

So I still think its unclear whether you want lots of callers or few callers with AA2rainbow, but having lots of callers is defnitely more desirable than i thought it was before this thread came along.

--Greg

[JoshuaMayes]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Although AA2 loses PE as more players see the flop

[/ QUOTE ]
It looses its chance to win but it actually gains PE are more people enter the pot. I made this mistake too. I think it is a hold over from the PL side of my game where the implied odds of letting someone hit a check flop when you are playing AA2 are bad.

If you are interested here is the revised EV calc for AA2 vs. random hands:
http://www.csc.calpoly.edu/~sjaspan/poker/O8_AA2vsRandomHands.html

[/ QUOTE ]

I am either missing something on the table that you linked to, or we are not using our abbreviations to mean the same thing. I used PE to mean pot equity. On the table that you linked to, pot equity declined as the number of opponents increased.

[PokerProdigy]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
If you raise on the button, the only person who bets out in front of you is someone that the flop hit square in the face.

[/ QUOTE ]
But this is what you don't want and is exactly what I was questioning in my original post. This is going to price everyone in to draw.

Lets say that you raise pre-flop and 4 other players call. There will be 10SB in the pot. You flop comes nicely ragged K, 8, 4, and it is checked around to you. You bet, now everyone is getting 10:1 on their calls and will be correct to call with almost anything.

Now lets say that you limp. There will be 6SB in the pot. Same flop and it is checked around to the CO who decides to bet because he is in good position and nobody raise pre-flop. Now you can raise him and everyone is going to have to cold call 1BB in a 3BB pot.

This is almost the prefect situation but it makes the point. Keeping the pot small pre-flop will make it so that you can clear people out on the flop and drastically increase your chance to scoop a pot with a bunch of dead money in it.

[/ QUOTE ]

But you could make this same argument in limit hold'em about NOT raising ace-king offsuit on the button, but you still raise preflop because your pot equity edge is pretty large. Now I have just started playing omaha/8 so I don't really know how strong AA2x rainbow is, but you might want to consider that giving people correct pot odds on the flop still (in many cases) does NOT justify playing in a weak/passive style.

Everyone be sure to let me know whether you agree or disagree that this example applies to AA2x rainbow because it will help me learn how to correctly play omaha/8.

[gergery]

the table is correct. Pot equity is the % of money in the pot that would be yours over many, many trials. Obviously, the % you'll win will go down with more and more opponents.

But, as the number of opponnets goes up, the number of bets won when you do win goes up, so amount of money won in aggregate goes up after accounting for both those factors.

[boscoboy]

[ QUOTE ]
There is another consideration that I have been thinking about for just this situation.

When you are on the button and raise, you put everyone else in the hand on the defensive.

[/ QUOTE ]

this is why i would raise - if you like the flop commence the punishment to the drawing hands

[GooperMC]

I have been convinced that raising is still a better play but I am not sure that everyone understood my point.

[ QUOTE ]
this is why i would raise - if you like the flop commence the punishment to the drawing hands

[/ QUOTE ]
If they are going to call raising pre-flop actually takes pressure off the drawing hands because they are going to be getting much better odds to draw on the flop. This means they can comfortably check call all of my bets which actually takes pressure off them. My point was that if I didn’t raise pre-flop they wouldn’t have nearly as comfortable odds to draw on the flop thus making them make larger mistakes by calling.

[boscoboy]

this may be true about the odds to draw out - but if im freewheeling with the nut low and AA i would welcome all callers(ie anyone willing to put in full bets to try to win 1/2 the pot)

also, it looks like you are talking about limit - i play mostly PL so i would quickly price the draws out of the market

[Buzz]

[ QUOTE ]
Am I over thinking this...?

[/ QUOTE ]

Gooper - Yes. I think so.

Raise or don't raise.

Often it won't make much difference one way or the other.

Sometimes when you don't raise you'll wish you had raised. Other times when you do raise, you'll wish you hadn't raised. You'll almost invariably collect an extra bet on the first betting round from everyone who has already limped - but you may not collect as much from them on later betting rounds. Worse, your raise may enable someone to out-play you on a later betting round.

Your raise may knock out the blinds or not. When you do knock out the blinds, sometimes you'll be delighted you did. Other times you'll be sorry you did.

In either event, you should recognize AA2Xn as a premium starting hand, even though not suited (unless X is a third ace).

We'll never settle the question of whether or not you should always raise with a premium starting hand.

I believe I'd be making a mistake if I never raised with this hand - but I'd be making a different mistake if I always raised with it.

What would I raise with, if not with this hand? It's a moot question, because I'm going to raise with this hand - just not always.

What starting hands do I raise with? Almost any playable hand when I think a raise is warranted - (but some hands more than others) - and not always with anything. For me, raising or not has a lot to do with who is in the hand, who I want to be in the hand, what I want from my opponents, and what I expect from my opponents. Sometimes I sense a raise from me would get way too much respect - other times a raise from me will seem to have little or no impact on my opponents. Depends on how I've been playing and on how my opponents think.

In any event, I believe AA2Xn (assuming X is not a third ace) is a premium hand, even though a rainbow. In other words I think AA27n, AA28n and AA29n are premium hands - and certainly AA23n is a premium hand. But do I raise with any of them? Maybe.

Just my opinion.

Buzz