Re: How much of an edge woud the best players fold early?
 

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You'll take a 60% advantage, yet you'll fold KK to an early all in.

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Yeah. I assume we're talking about something like blinds are 25-50, I make it 150 out of my 10000, guy moves all-in. I've never seen him before and it's very early. This is an easy fold.

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So pretty much if anyone goes all in early on in a tourney and you have no reads on him, then you think that he has aces 60+% of the time? This seems to not accurately reflect some of the aggression I've seen from the WSOP.

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The problem is that you do not have enough data to perform good bayesian analysis. Obviously if he shows me something other than aces I would call, but the very first time you see someone make a ridiculous all-in overbet, my experience is that you'll do MUCH better over time assuming they have the nuts and folding everything less than the nuts. If they are making a habit of this, you'll know it soon.

Every stage of a tournament is different and as it gets later such dramatic overbets become impossible because the average-stack-to-blind-size ratio shrinks so much. But if I have 200 big blinds, there's no way I'm putting them all in the middle preflop without aces unless I have meaningful evidence my opponent will do it with at least one hand other than aces and kings.

So I suppose in a sense I'm advocating "waiting for a better spot", but not because I am intentionally passing on an edge; rather because I have too little information to assess the edge, and I believe I'll have much better information in the very near future.

I did fold KK preflop in the first hour of the WSOP this year: the one and only time I've done that in a tournament.

Re: How much of an edge woud the best players fold early?
 

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You'll take a 60% advantage, yet you'll fold KK to an early all in.

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Yeah. I assume we're talking about something like blinds are 25-50, I make it 150 out of my 10000, guy moves all-in. I've never seen him before and it's very early. This is an easy fold.

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So pretty much if anyone goes all in early on in a tourney and you have no reads on him, then you think that he has aces 60+% of the time? This seems to not accurately reflect some of the aggression I've seen from the WSOP.

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The problem is that you do not have enough data to perform good bayesian analysis. Obviously if he shows me something other than aces I would call, but the very first time you see someone make a ridiculous all-in overbet, my experience is that you'll do MUCH better over time assuming they have the nuts and folding everything less than the nuts. If they are making a habit of this, you'll know it soon.

Every stage of a tournament is different and as it gets later such dramatic overbets become impossible because the average-stack-to-blind-size ratio shrinks so much. But if I have 200 big blinds, there's no way I'm putting them all in the middle preflop without aces unless I have meaningful evidence my opponent will do it with at least one hand other than aces and kings.

So I suppose in a sense I'm advocating "waiting for a better spot", but not because I am intentionally passing on an edge; rather because I have too little information to assess the edge, and I believe I'll have much better information in the very near future.

I did fold KK preflop in the first hour of the WSOP this year: the one and only time I've done that in a tournament.

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very good post and I agree with you.

Ok, how about this then(sorry if my continued hypothetical questions are annoying): What if a guy goes all in 3 times in the first hour preflop. The second time you hold pocket Ks...what do you do? If you fold that one, the third time you also have pocket Ks...what do you do?

Other than that your only reads on him are that he is an internet player. Not terrible, but definitely not on the level of the pros.

Re: How much of an edge woud the best players fold early?
 

Second time I probably call with kings. Maybe. Unless I think he's smart enough to have done it the first time to set me up for this. No, even then I call. If the poker gods are so cruel as to give me KK vs. AA against a guy who recently made a ludicrous overbet and is now making another, then I wasn't destined to win this tournament. I accept their punishment.

Anyway, I can always suck out.

Re: How much of an edge woud the best players fold early?
 

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I did fold KK preflop in the first hour of the WSOP this year: the one and only time I've done that in a tournament.

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That only puts you 3 behind Hellmuth in that category.

Kevin...

Re: How much of an edge woud the best players fold early?
 

I think this is what makes Sklansky's all-in strategy so interesting.

Re: How much of an edge woud the best players fold early?
 

first hand, gotta be AA or I drop it

what a great story that would be - losing an all in preflop with AA - sure, yer first out, but no one could honestly blame you for it...

RB

Re: How much of an edge woud the best players fold early?
 

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Yeah. I assume we're talking about something like blinds are 25-50, I make it 150 out of my 10000, guy moves all-in. I've never seen him before and it's very early. This is an easy fold.

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At first when I read your post your points seemed to make perfect sense to me. Also I must point out that you have played immensely more hands than me and so you would be better suited to correctly play this situation than I.

However, what range of hands can you put your opponent on in this situation? I highly doubt somebody with AA would move all-in in this situation. It seems that even an incompetent player would probably either call or make a smaller raise in this situation. I'm not saying that moving in here with AA is necessarily wrong, (though I think it might be... is it?) but I think any pair between 66-QQ are nearly as likely as AA. Am I way off?

Re: How much of an edge woud the best players fold early?
 

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Yeah. I assume we're talking about something like blinds are 25-50, I make it 150 out of my 10000, guy moves all-in. I've never seen him before and it's very early. This is an easy fold.

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At first when I read your post your points seemed to make perfect sense to me. Also I must point out that you have played immensely more hands than me and so you would be better suited to correctly play this situation than I.

However, what range of hands can you put your opponent on in this situation? I highly doubt somebody with AA would move all-in in this situation. It seems that even an incompetent player would probably either call or make a smaller raise in this situation. I'm not saying that moving in here with AA is necessarily wrong, (though I think it might be... is it?) but I think any pair between 66-QQ are nearly as likely as AA. Am I way off?

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I agree somewhat with this. You have to ask yourself: What is my opponent trying to accomplish with this bet? To me, it looks like he doesn't want any callers. Aces wants a caller.

Re: How much of an edge woud the best players fold early?
 

I read your post Paul(http://tinyurl.com/6mkfl).. so I take it you make that call w/ AA facing 9 all ins? You never specifically said in your post.. Just curious.

Re: How much of an edge woud the best players fold early?
 

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I read your post Paul(http://tinyurl.com/6mkfl).. so I take it you make that call w/ AA facing 9 all ins? You never specifically said in your post.. Just curious.

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I don't understand how anyone could read that entire post and not understand whether Paul would make the call. He only said about 10 times, in vehement and emphatic terms, that any good player has to make that call.

I share the amazement of others who fail to understand how there is still a debate over folding AA preflop. Oh noooooo... if you lose you're out... oh nooooo... you mean a good player doesn't win every single tournament he plays in?