Your ENTIRE bankroll on AA...do you do it?

[boose_bagina]

as high as 75%

[IMTheWalrus8]

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If given the oppurtunity in heads up play, to put all your bankroll on AA...do you do it?

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I worked way too hard to get my BR to where it is, and I'm not going to open myself up to a 15 % risk of ruin. I also think my chances of doubling up my BR before going broke is at least 99 %, and probably higher.

I'm very surprised at all the "yes" answers.

To the guys who say yes, let me ask it this way: If you know your ROI at a specific game, you can increase the stakes you play to a point where your risk of ruin is 15 %, but your rate of return would also, of course, be much higher. You wouldn't double up in one hand, but you'd do it pretty quickly. Why is putting everything on one hand any better than this?

[SCfuji]

actually there was a thread about what the best hand vs other hand edge was and it was something ala 77 vs 72, since you share a mutual card. if the other player showed me Ax and i had AA count me in.

[Nigel]

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Dogmeat - How many BB's do you have in your roll?

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I have over 1000BB


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Playing a level you have over 1000BB's for seems to go against everything you are saying in this thread. Do you think you are more than 15% to go broke with 1000BB's at your current level of play?

Seems like playing with about 100BB's dropping down to the next level each time you lost 50BB's would provide about the same element of risk you are looking at here with AA all-in. I didn't do the math, but it must be something similar to this idea assuming you are a winning player, no?

So why 1000BB's?

Nigel

btw - this question isn't just aimed at you, but to all the hypothetical risk takers in this thread who actually play with 300BB+ rolls.

[jman220]

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as little as $500 I have no doubt I could parlay that into $50,000 by the end of 12 months


god bless online poker, huh?

i find it absolutely amazing that i have zero doubt you could do this. however, the offset is that we are losing some brilliant minds with all these young guys leaving college to pursue pro poker. i don't know what the long term effect will be, but i guarantee there will be one. the fact that someone who is willing to apply themselves is perfectly capable of making huge sums of money at online poker is kinda sad for society imo. but i sit here and make money on the business of poker, so i really can't complain or lecture without being a hypocrite.

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This is a very interesting sentiment that I agree with completely. I may be the only winning player (caveat: or a losing player running really well for a year) on these boards who is actually in favor of the U.S. drastically increasing its regulations of online gambling, and I wouldn't be opposed to them banning it completely. It is a drain on our society and our economy. It is causing billions of dollars to be drained out of the U.S. economy an into the hands of offshore oftentimes somewhat shady online casinos. It creates a cycle of poverty that in the end hurts us all. Its why recently while playing on pokerstars, I started to get really annoyed at all the people who use their children's pictures as their player avatars. 90 percent of them are losing players, and are losing money that they could be giving to their kids. That said, or course I'm a hypocrite, because I do play, and I do make money of it. I can also afford to have this opinion because I am not a pro, and just play to supplement my income while I attend law school. I don't intend to continue playing once I graduate. But it really is a sad state of affairs that gambling for large sums of money has become so mainstream, and people just toss away tons of money on an addiction. I also have little doubt that many of the large winners on this site are intelligent enough (as evidenced by their ability at poker) to make just as much money, if not more money in the non-poker world.

[jman220]

This has been discussed before, but for the people saying yes, would you do this: You are offered the choice between taking a gift of 50 million dollars, or a 75 percent chance of winning 250 million dollars. Which do you take?

How about this for a real risk of ruin, not a hypothetical one where you might be able to get staked, etc: You have AsAc on a board of AhAd10d Your opponent holds Jd2h, and his cards have been exposed. He moves all in for 250 million dollars, but you don't have it. You can call him, but the guaranty that you must put up is your life. If you win the hand, you win 250 million dollars. If you lose, you die. Do you call the bet?

[boose_bagina]

[ QUOTE ]
How about this for a real risk of ruin, not a hypothetical one where you might be able to get staked, etc: You have AsAc on a board of AhAd10d Your opponent holds Jd2h, and his cards have been exposed. He moves all in for 250 million dollars, but you don't have it. You can call him, but the guaranty that you must put up is your life. If you win the hand, you win 250 million dollars. If you lose, you die. Do you call the bet?

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easy call [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

[dogmeat]

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Dogmeat - How many BB's do you have in your roll?

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I have over 1000BB


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Playing a level you have over 1000BB's for seems to go against everything you are saying in this thread. Do you think you are more than 15% to go broke with 1000BB's at your current level of play?

Seems like playing with about 100BB's dropping down to the next level each time you lost 50BB's would provide about the same element of risk you are looking at here with AA all-in. I didn't do the math, but it must be something similar to this idea assuming you are a winning player, no?

So why 1000BB's?

Nigel

btw - this question isn't just aimed at you, but to all the hypothetical risk takers in this thread who actually play with 300BB+ rolls.

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The more I have in my bankroll, the better I play - I don't know why, but I don't tilt (much) and I don't make too many bad plays. I haven't proven myself to be able to beat the next step ($30/$60) with any regularity, my last shot there online I went through 150BB. I'm most comfortable playing $10/$20, but most of the better games are at $15/$30. Not everybody is a genius, I'm a grinder - I wish I was better, but that's my situation.

This is not a problem for me, and I hope to move up or get more comfortable at the NL$1000 or even $2000 games. Since my win rate is under 1BB/hour at $15/$30 and I know how many hands I am likely to get in during the next 12 months, I can choose to take that 85% bet, and double my BR, or lose my BR and start over.

Because I believe I can start over and get back to a small BR (for me) of 300BB for the $10/$20 game in a few months from only $500, then I have no fear of taking a big gamble. In many ways I did that at the WSOP and in the $30/$60 online games, although I was not risking my whole BR. I have played poker for a long time, but when I started playing online in Sept of 2003, I deposited $200. I've never had to deposit again.

Clear as mud, right? Well, I am what I am.

Dogmeat [img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img]

[MicroBob]

while we're getting off on a bit of a tangent here I have to say I generally agree with you sentiments.

The number of losing players out there who shouldn't be playing nearly as high as they are truly does bother me and sometimes it is more difficult to tune it out.



Went to a casino with my non-gambling GF a couple months ago. She knows nothing about poker an barely can play BJ without getting bored. Sometimes we can play 30 minutes of roulette for amusement at $1 bet.
At the Horseshoe in Tunica some guy walked up to the roulette table and slapped down $1k on a single bet. He put $500 on 2nd 12, $500 on 3rd 12, lost the bet and walked away.
Her eyes just about popped out of her skull.


Similar reaction when we moved to the BJ table and some girl who didn't look that rich was betting $50 to $200 a hand.


Obviously to people who have been around it this isn't unusual at all. $1k on a single-spin of roulette or a green-chip player at BJ who probably can't afford to be playing with green-chips. Big deal.

But to her, never having seen this before, it was almost frightening.
She feels priviliged just to be in the U.S. working as a nurse at a hospital for $27/hr or so (I'm guessing).
She comes from a country full of people who would just jump at the opportunity and she almost feels guilty that she got so lucky because of the sacrifices that her family made to get her in such a position.

Just a different perspective I guess.
She sees the $1k on a single-spin and can't help but think "crap...that's more than a week's work for me."
and then when the dealers mentioned that he had been back and forth to that table SEVERAL times and had bought-in for SEVERAL thousand on different appearances there she just couldn't believe that someone would do that.

Although i think the green-chip blackjack woman might have been more bothersome to her because she seemed to be sweating her losses a bit more. The $1k-spin roulette-guy probably (I am assuming) had enough money to afford most of those losses.
but who knows?? I now am recalling the story of Leonard Toes (the former of the Philadelphia Eagles who is now bankrupt because he blew all of his money in Atlantic City on several bad nights of drunken blackjack) so I guess just because you are betting $1k or more per hand/spin doesn't necessarily equate to being able to actually afford it either.


It's all rather mind-blowing to me that people would do such things that we see take place in live casinos (and in online poker-rooms) day after day after day.

[David]

Of course I would never sit with my entire bankroll. The thought is absurd. I was trying to answer a hypothetical question that was based on situation that would never exist (for me anyway). I do stand by my statement though. There is no way you can fold a hand where you know you are at least a 3/1 favorite based on poker considerations alone. A fold here would be solely based on other considerations. Do you who promote folding here seriously think you are 3 times as good as any opponent who would sit with you in a game such as this? Highly unlikely your edge could EVER be better even when averaged out over many hands. The edge is too big to pass up IMO. Do you who promote folding think you have a 3/1 edge over your opponents in your regular game? Highly unlikely. You win over the long term by pushing small edges, much less than 3/1. At what odds would you push your whole bankroll? 6/1? 10/1? 20/1? 99/1? I would really love to hear the answers to that one. Now I'm gonna go sit at the .01/.02 NL table with my whole bankroll. [img]/images/graemlins/blush.gif[/img]