[AKQJ10]

[I'm posting this verbatim as I intended to do this morning. Interestingly, I correctly anticipated the reply!]

In the section entitled "The First Two Cards: Early Position" in Hold 'em Poker For Advanced Players, David Sklansky and Mason Malmuth start a new paragraph on the topic of entering the pot from early position:

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If no one has yet called, almost always raise with AA, KK, QQ, AK, and AQ. Part of the reason to raise with these hands is that they lose value as the pot gets more multiway (especially if your opponents see the flop for one bet rather than two). If there have already been callers, usually raise with hands in Groups 1 and 2, AQ, and perhaps some other hands at random. (Again, these random raises should be made only occasionally.) (1)

[/ QUOTE ]

A plain reading of the text indicates that a pair of aces are in the class of hands that "lose value as the pot gets more multiway." I'm not fond of argument from authority -- "Sklansky and Malmuth say XYZ, therefore it must be so," -- and in fact, I'm not sure that aces do in fact lose value as more opponents enter the pot. Perhaps the assumption here is that players enter the pot with reasonable hands like AJ and 99, not less-dominated hands like 92s and 54o that I see in the games I frequent, but even so I don't see how that would make the aces less durable. Perhaps the intent was to say that (for example) only queens, AK and AQ lose value, but aces and kings are best raised for other reasons. However the passage doesn't make this distinction and there's no obvious reason to infer it.

I think the real truth requires an inference from the parenthetical phrase "(especially if your opponents see the flop for one bet rather than two)." Intuitively it's probably better for the aces to play against, say, two opponents for two bets each than against four opponents putting in one bet each, even though the odds enjoyed by the aces are only half as good (4:2 instead of 4:1). So whereas I too believe Miller to be correct, that the dream scenario for aces would be to have nine opponents all-in, Sklansky and Malmuth's statement apparently presupposes that there will necessarily be fewer opponents in a raised pot than in an unraised pot. (Obviously Sklansky and Malmuth play in games very different from the ones I play in, where there may well be equally many opponents in a raised pot!) Still, this doesn't really resolve why aces are included among the hands that, "lose value as the pot gets more multiway." If the multiway pot results from incorrect cold-calls with dominated hands -- that is, by any hand against AA except the case aces -- I don't see how that can possibly reduce the value of the aces.

So as it happens, I'm not entirely convinced of the veracity or universal applicability of the passage I cited. Nonetheless, I still believe that the idea expressed in that passage is plausible, just not totally convincing. The idea that aces "lose value as the pot gets more multiway," though possibly erroneous, is hardly absurd.

(1) David Sklansky and Mason Malmuth, Hold 'em Poker For Advanced Players, third edition (Henderson, NV: Two Plus Two Publishing, March 2004), 22.