theoretical question: how many callers do you want with aces?
 

Assuming you go all preflop, how many callers do you want at a full 10 man table with aces? It is obvious that the more callers you get the less likely it is to win the hand, but the more players you potentially bust. Many players would say you don't want more than 2-3 callers but, wouldn't you want all 9 players to call you because you are clearly getting +EV in the long run and are likely to win the tournament all in 1 hand.

I am not very good with math or game theory so using any sophisticated algebra is above my head.

Re: theoretical question: how many callers do you want with aces?
 

if your all in:

in ultimate theory, you want em all to call. you are fave (with several notable exceptions-im sure theres a thread on here somewhere, just scroll down a bit).

however this has huge swings of variance. id rather take a small pay day most of the time, over one big pay day every so often.

you want no more than three or four, and youll rarely get more than one or two.

Phill
ps, for the record, i rarely play aces all in, unless im sure ill get called (ie an early raise and a caller or raiser, or a re-raise to my initial raise. you want to get heads up as often as possible, and ive made my play more profitable from making all in raises and hoping im called to raising to 300+ (blind dependant). if the blinds are big, clearly its all in, but whilst getting it all in rpeflop witht he hand should be one of you goals when dealt it, its quite unlikely youll find someone to oblige

Re: theoretical question: how many callers do you want with aces?
 

Against nine random hands, I think you certainly make more by getting them all in. You want as many random callers as possible.

The interesting thing though is that poker is not played against random players. Players who will push and players who will call pushes can usually be put on a specific range of hands. Even the crazy nuts have limits.

What this means then is that you are more likely up against other pairs and you are more likely to have your other aces in other people's hands. In some extreme cases, you can even be a huge underdog to win the hand.

I read about one interesting scenario where AA was about 50-1 AGAINST winning a ten player preflop all-in scenario. I forget what the hands were exactly, but experimenting for a minute on my own I came up with a few scenarios where AA was about 20-1 against winning the hand.

These scenarios mostly involved situations where two ther opponents had your extra aces (AK and AQ for example) and where there were a lot of other pocket pairs out

These are just the sort of hands that might theoretically call in a ten player all-in scenario.

In fact, I will suggest here that if nine players go all-in ahead of you, you would rather be holding a hand like 88 than you would AA for this reason. Your other two eights are still probably in the deck.

So, while this sort of thing will never happen anyways, I think I'd sooner have three opponents with pocket aces than ten.

Perhaps someone can find that 50-1 against preflop aces scenario I was thinking about. I'd be interested to see it again.

Regards
Brad S

Re: theoretical question: how many callers do you want with aces?
 

[ QUOTE ]

In fact, I will suggest here that if nine players go all-in ahead of you, you would rather be holding a hand like 88 than you would AA for this reason. Your other two eights are still probably in the deck.


[/ QUOTE ]

this is the most ridiculous thing ive ever heard :/

Re: theoretical question: how many callers do you want with aces?
 

[ QUOTE ]
this is the most ridiculous thing ive ever heard :/

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Well, it doesn't seem that whacky to me. Remember those 8 players ahead of you are not playing random hands. Short of an harmonic convergence of stupidity, they are not all-in with nothing. In fact, if only half are paying attention, all the aces and kings are spoken for.

Re: theoretical question: how many callers do you want with aces?
 

[ QUOTE ]
this is the most ridiculous thing ive ever heard

[/ QUOTE ]

Think through what is being responded to your post. If you will think about it, these guys will teach you how to think through these situations, and you will profit from the information they share with you. By responding like this, I for one would never respond to another one of your posts if spoken to this way. "Don't bite the hand that feeds you."

What Aleo is trying to get you to rationalize through, is the fact that if 9 callers called an "All-in" bet, then theres more to the story than simply having 9 maniacs calling a solid stating hand.

Although AA is "the" best starting hand, I have to agree with Aleo on this. If there are 9 other callers, then 2 or three have to have some combination of AA, KK, or AK, so the chance of improving your hand is minimal. This while 2 or 3 others will likely have drawing hands (suited connectors and the like) and one of those will likely take down the pot on a straight, flush or trips lower than a painted card.

Personally, (and this is probably coming from my stud play), if I have AA, ideally I want 1, maybe 2 or 3 depending on the table, callers. Anymore than that and I'm going to get outdrawn by a big hand.

Re: theoretical question: how many callers do you want with aces?
 

An example from the Create-an-Upset thread, courtesy of Durron597:

http://twodimes.net/h/?z=453927
pokenum -h ac ad - 8h 8s - as kc - ah kd - ks qc - kh qd - qs qh - 2c 2d - 3c 3d
Holdem Hi: 278256 enumerated boards
cards win %win lose %lose tie %tie EV
Ac Ad 79140 28.44 196174 70.50 2942 1.06 0.287
8s 8h 81534 29.30 195042 70.09 1680 0.60 0.294
As Kc 2298 0.83 273016 98.12 2942 1.06 0.010
Kd Ah 2298 0.83 273016 98.12 2942 1.06 0.010
Ks Qc 30 0.01 257914 92.69 20312 7.30 0.034
Qd Kh 30 0.01 257914 92.69 20312 7.30 0.034
Qs Qh 0 0.00 276576 99.40 1680 0.60 0.001
2c 2d 40258 14.47 236318 84.93 1680 0.60 0.145
3c 3d 51094 18.36 225482 81.03 1680 0.60 0.184

This is pretty mild, too. I just thought it was droll that it happened to have 8s as the favorite.

Re: theoretical question: how many callers do you want with aces?
 

Im sorry that I came off as rude but I find it odd that noone is siding with me against his comment that 88s are better than AAs in this situation. Maybe if you run the math there will come up a situation very rarely in which 88s are actually a favorite to beat a field of 10 over AA, but this is few and far between. Just because yours aces are covered and you cannot catch a set does not mean 88s are better. Remember you will only catch a set with 88s once in 5, not to mention set over set possibilities while the odds of aces winning against a field being 20% or lower is not the norm.

Maybe I am taking his comment a little too literally in thinking he really advised that 88s are better than aces, but they clearly arent. If he was just trying to make a point that aces dont hold up very often with using a little bit of sarcasm, I apologize.

Re: theoretical question: how many callers do you want with aces?
 

[ QUOTE ]

In fact, I will suggest here that if nine players go all-in ahead of you, you would rather be holding a hand like 88 than you would AA for this reason. Your other two eights are still probably in the deck.

[/ QUOTE ]

I see what you are saying but if you are giving them credit for vaguely decent hands, then all of their cards are out too so your aces will win unimproved a lot. The problem is its tough to prove either way though I guess.

You might well be right, I'm just suggesting a counter argument.

Re: theoretical question: how many callers do you want with aces?
 

As for the 88 being better, I agree. And by the same token, wouldn't 22 be just about the best? Somebody's more likely to have the other 88 out than the other 22; and they're more likely to be playing something like 98s than 32s. 8's are more likely to be out than 2's; and with a ten way all in, you'll almost certainly have to improve to win - no matter what you hold.

Of course, if this were the first hand, I might fold to a 9 way all in - and settle for second place [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]