[sweetjazz]

[ QUOTE ]
i think there's some confusion. if they are left with $50,000 stacks, then he should fold because there's no sense in calling to win $10.
however if they only have $50 stacks, then $10 is a significant percentage of that so he should call.

[/ QUOTE ]

If you only have $50 stacks, you can't profitably call, as the guy with AA can push all-in on every flop and still show a profit. (You won't be ahead of AA very often, and you'll often be vulnerable to redraws (when you make the most likely hand to beat AA -- two pair).)

With $50,000 stacks, the BB can bet about 30% of rivers (15% of the time he has the best hand on the river plus another 15% of the time it is a bluff). Since SB can't profitably call the final river bet (say you bluff just a tad less than you value bet), you can now bet about 60% of turns (since if the SB called, he'd be forced to fold half of the time on the river). And with the same logic you can now bet 100% of the flops. The reason deep stacks are important -- on each street you can make a bet that is significantly bigger than the size of the pot, thus essentially giving your opponent only 1:1 odds on a call.

Also, you have to take into account flops in which AA is the nuts (e.g. A [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] 9 [img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] 6 [img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img]) as well as flops in which AA still crushes a random hand (e.g. A [img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] K [img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img] T [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] and K [img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img] K [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] K [img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img]). On the latter flops, the BB cannot bet 100% of the time.

Nevertheless, after all the math works out, the BB can profitably call the raise with the deep stacks, since he can (in principle) play the hand in an optimal manner that will generate positive EV. Of course, there would be tremendous variance in such a play if SB decided to play nonoptimally and call some/all of the BB's bets. If the SB calls the flop and turn, say, then BB must give up about half of the time. Even so, he still has positive EV on the play no matter what SB does.

So while the result is interesting in some ways that perfect information can be more useful than the best possible starting hand, it only happens once the stacks get big enough.