Pure Theory Question

[Leonardo]

David,
Without simulation,I would say the answer is T2o.Maybe 92o. The reason being that it is around 50% with a random hand I think, and it has the possibility of being really dominated.

[Jacob_Gilliam]

I dont think it is possible to answer this question without knowing how much you are paying for the informtion. If you pay a significant ammount of money to see the cards with a hand like T9 you would still have to bet when your opponent shows you pocket 2's because you are the favorite but the hand would be -EV because you lost money when you saw his cards. Therefore unless the ammount is really small the correct decision would be to never pay and play the top 50% of your hands. (Of course if you only had to pay a dollar you would always pay except with aces.)

[OrangeKing]

[ QUOTE ]
Could the answer be q7o?

Newbie Reasoning: Q7o is the most marginal hand. If you held AA, it wouldn't be valuable to know what the opponent held. Congruently, if you held 27o it isn't valuable to know either.


[/ QUOTE ]

Just to correct a slight error in your newbie reasoning: there would be some small value to know what your opponent had if you had 72o. There are several hands which 72 is favored over, and even a handful it dominates.

Chances are that you've been told that 72o is the worst starting hand in hold 'em, but this is only true in a multiway pot. Heads up, 32o is significantly worse. Granted, this is only important theoretically, but since a lot of people seem to get it wrong, I like to point it out in all these threads. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[GFunk911]

[ QUOTE ]
I dont think it is possible to answer this question without knowing how much you are paying for the informtion. If you pay a significant ammount of money to see the cards with a hand like T9 you would still have to bet when your opponent shows you pocket 2's because you are the favorite but the hand would be -EV because you lost money when you saw his cards. Therefore unless the ammount is really small the correct decision would be to never pay and play the top 50% of your hands. (Of course if you only had to pay a dollar you would always pay except with aces.)

[/ QUOTE ]

But the question is, for which hand would you pay the most, i.e. for which hands is the information most valuable. YOur reasoning is flawed, in that you pick a situation (pocket twos) where t9 is the favorite. The advantage is is discovering situations where you are a significant dog and avoiding them, assuming your hand is a favorite vs a random in the first place

[Jacob_Gilliam]

Point taken.

Iguess that you would pay the most money to see your opponents cards with T9 IMO. But in practicality unless the ammount paid was very small you would always lose paying to see the cards. (This is sort of similar to paying for insurance in blackjack.)

[ZeeJustin]

This depends how loose/tight he is. The tighter he is, the stronger the hand would be. If someone plays only AA, KK, and QQ, the answer is KK.

The player would have to be extremely loose for Q7o to be the correct answer.

[astrodon]

This actually happened to me one time (only for $100). The answer is I raised him all-in in the dark (mostly because it pissed me off that he would represent that much disrespect) - HE FOLDED! [img]/images/graemlins/cool.gif[/img]

[Popinjay]

[ QUOTE ]
This depends how loose/tight he is. The tighter he is, the stronger the hand would be. If someone plays only AA, KK, and QQ, the answer is KK.

The player would have to be extremely loose for Q7o to be the correct answer.

[/ QUOTE ]

only one hand, you have no read

[ZeeJustin]

Thinking further about this problem, the answer would never be a hand like 22. Your value is the same against such a wide range of hands.

It would have to be a hand that has a great disparity of value vs different hands. Against an opponent that plays any 2 cards, I'm thinking a hand like JTo or QJo would be the answer.

I don't think the hand could ever be suited, because being suited increases your value vs every hand by virtually the same amount (unless of course there is suited domination involved).

Edit: Against someone that doesn't play any 2, QJo is obviously too weak. KQo might be a more reasonable answer.

[reubenf]

[ QUOTE ]
How much am I paying him to see his cards? I think that matters?

[/ QUOTE ]

That's essentially the question.