[SammyKid11]

[ QUOTE ]
to outright dismiss the ace is still in my mind bad

[/ QUOTE ]

Look, we're not outright dismissing the ace because it's not possible for villain to have an ace and raise, we're dismissing the ace because the combination of him a) having the ace, and b) raising the flop with quad aces...is SO LOW as to not be worth it.

You know how when you get dealt KK ITM, all you're thinking about is how to get all your money in? Sure, it's POSSIBLE your opponent has AA (a lot MORE possible than villain here having quad aces and raising the flop with them)...but it's not likely enough for you to play the hand any differently preflop than if it were impossible. I think this is what people are saying. The likelihood of villain having quad aces AND raising them on the flop are less than 1%...thus, you don't spend a lot of time worrying about the fourth ace. Sure, one out of every hundred times you encounter a situation that meets all of these criteria (which might take 3 years even if you play 70 SnG's a day) you'll be toast...the other 99 percent you'll make more money by playing your hand as though your opponent does not have 4 aces. It's a HUGE gain to go with VERY likely assumptions. In fact, that's all we have...we can never know FOR SURE what our opponents hold -- we can only make deductions on the best available information to determine what is most likely for them to hold.