AK is the nuts

[n1bd]

[ QUOTE ]
Id say theres about a 50% chance he has AA or KK.

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In that case I am toast.

AKo vs. AA-KK is .18, so if everyone folds a fraction P of the time and otherwise calls with AA-KK, my EV is

EV = P * (1000 + 70 + 70 + 30 + 15) + (1-P) * .18 * (2000 + 70 + 30 + 15) - 970 = 0
1185P + 381 - 381P - 970 = 0
P = 589/804 = .73

So if someone calls with AA/KK more than 27% of the time here, I lose.

Against AA-QQ I have .31 showdown equity and it works out to P = .59, so I need them to call no more than 41% of the time with AA-QQ.

[iceman5]

So what happened?

[n1bd]

Hand #1: All fold to MP (the original raiser) who calls with QQ.

Hand #2: He has KK.

[Chris Dow]

I think the results are important here. Of course the guy has at least QQ. He isn't going to fold it. He doesn't fold it. You end up in your best case scenario and it is QQ vs AK. In a cash game this is just not good. Number 2, even more disastrous. You're really asking for it when you play AK this way, and you're gonna get it.

[georgesimpson]

I know you're a math guy from looking at some of your other posts.

So you are risking 4x the pot to win x basically.

From the scenarios described the most likely hands are AA, KK, QQ or AKs (best case). It is also possible that they hold JJ - 77 and AQs. Let's assume the proportion of the maximum strength hand you'll be up against is 70% the former group (hands you don't like to see), and 30% of the latter which will almost always fold here.

So let's say you take the 30% of the time because all the hands in that weak group would be insane to call you.

therefore your expected value 30% of the time is x.

Just for argument's sake let them be crazy and actually choose to call with AKs.
AA wins 93% of the time.
KK wins 70% of the time.
QQ wins 57% of the time.
AKs win 53% of the time. (extremely generous)

simple average says 70% of the time they will have ~70% pot equity.

30% of the time you will win x outright because they didn't have strong enough hands to call.

in the second scenario you risk 4x to win 4x+x (the contribution already in the pot). 30% of 9x is just 3x.

Therefore you are risking 4x to get .3(x) + .7 (-1x) =
-.4x.

It doesn't make sense even with these really lax assumptions. (assuming my math is right).

[n1bd]

Yeah, your math and approximations seem really good.

At the time, I put the chance of one of them having a premium hand at much less than 70% since the only two raises had been pretty small and the original raiser had not reraised the second time around. I definitely wouldn't have called if I thought it was more than 50%.

Having read the comments here and chatted about it with some people, though, I am starting to think I was wrong and the chance of a premium hand is prohibitive.

[cero_z]

Hi n1bd,

[ QUOTE ]
Having read the comments here and chatted about it with some people, though, I am starting to think I was wrong and the chance of a premium hand is prohibitive.

[/ QUOTE ]

I have to jump in at this point. I was going to respond to some of the 1st few replies, but your rebuttal was excellent, and said most of what I was thinking. Now you're starting to be convinced by these guys, and I think they're wrong.

In hand #1, there is virtually no chance you're looking at AA or KK, for the reasons you mentioned. UTG would have to be a total idiot to play his hand this way if he held AA/KK, and even then, he'd have to be a total idiot who wasn't greedy. His raise is too small to be one of those hands. MP is good, and he played QQ well throughout the hand. If I were him, I would've called you with JJ or better, or AK/AQ. But this is because he can see what you can see: nobody is likely to have a hand as good as TT at this point, except you or him, who could have TT, JJ, or QQ exactly, but nothing better. His hand is as likely as AA to be ahead in this situation; just not as far ahead.

Your all-in raise makes sense with AK, since you want to win now, but don't mind being all-in against anyone at this table, since AA/KK is ruled out. As you pointed out, there's a lot of dead money in the pot right now.

I will make a play like yours in this hand with far less than AK, as long as I'm dealing with typical opponents, who won't usually call that much money unless they have a premium hand. The guy happened to have QQ; I assure you that most folks who go call 30, call 40 more pre-flop don't have anything close to that 90% of the time.

Hand #2 is obviously terrible, given how your opponent views you. You made a couple of mistakes, I think. When he made it 100, I wouldn't re-raise. Re-raising anything more than the minimum pot-commits you, given his small stack, and allows him to play his hand perfectly against you.