Playing AA in big multi-player pots

[Tosh]

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Anyway, there was a method to my madness here. I was kind of hoping at least one person would run with it and offer up an actual statistical answer for why you should ever call when you're only a 44% favorite to win, as you are when you've got AA against four opponents who will see the hand through to the river. This doesn't happen often, but when it does anyone will say you'd be a fool to fold. Oh really? If it's okay to call in this spot, then why would you ever fold when you've got one of the "coin flip" hands; a pair against two overcards or vice versa. Well, part of it is because you don't really know for sure that that's the cards you're playing against. But if you can somehow put your opponent on AK/AQ/AJ/KQ/etc and you've got 55 and he just pushed all-in, why would you ever fold? You have better than the 44% chance of winning in the AA situation. Is it simply a matter of the amount of chips involved?


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I can't believe you're actually serious. But just think what price you are getting for a 44% chance of winning, its not even close to the same thing as a coinflip hand.

[fnurt]

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But if you can somehow put your opponent on AK/AQ/AJ/KQ/etc and you've got 55 and he just pushed all-in, why would you ever fold? You have better than the 44% chance of winning in the AA situation. Is it simply a matter of the amount of chips involved?

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The short answer to your question is yes. When you make a bet, it makes a big difference whether you are getting paid off at 3:1 or 1:1 when you hit.

But who cares, you say, I'm going to get busted out of the tournament half the time either way, I don't want to take that risk. Well, try the following experiment. Every time you find yourself making an absurd statement like that, take a sharp object and poke yourself in the eye.

The point is not that you should gamble all your money every time you have a 51% edge. But some edges are so big that you simply have to take them. AA preflop is one of those edges. If you know a strategy that has better than a 44% chance to quadruple your money, post it here; but it better be something more concrete than "fold and wait for a better opportunity." This is a game based on mathematics, and you generally won't get ahead by passing up huge advantages.

The other point of this experiment is that when the rest of us go to live tournaments, we will know that we can always push the one-eyed players off a hand by betting all-in, because they won't take the risk no matter how good the situation.

[tvdad]

Okay, now we're getting somewhere. You call with AA in the 4-opponent all-in situation because the pot odds are so high. Fine. Then you would also call in this spot with KK, QQ, JJ, TT, 99, and 88 because they all have winning percentages of 40% or better, right? You shouldn't even have to think about it. Actually, with those high pot odds you could go all the way down to 55, or even hands like K9 and QT because they all have at least a 30% winning percentage, right? I mean, who wouldn't take a 30% chance at quadrupling your money?

This is where I was going with my question. At what point do you discount the pot odds and concentrate on survival? How close does it need to be in order for you to fold, even if you have the advantage? It might take a lot of thought when deciding to call an even money proposition with a 51% edge. But do you even have to think about it when you're getting 4:1 with a 30% edge?

[pzhon]

You go too far when you talk about entering a 4-way all-in with something like K9 or 55. JJ does very well against 3 random hands. However, it doesn't do well against 3 hands that have decided to move in, particularly after seeing other hands move in. If 3 people move in before me, I don't think JJ will win 25% of the time, so I fold it. AA still does well against good hands, particularly AKo.

Survival is overrated. You lose in most tournaments anyway. Get your chips in when you are a clear favorite, and you will win more.

[Michael Davis]

"but I have lost AA a lot over the past few years (close to 75%) on multi-player all-in situations like this."

I don't think you should make judgments about four tournaments in a few years.

-Michael

[HUSKER'66]

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According to a table in Ken Warren's "Winner's Guide to Texas Hold'em" for hands that are played all the way to the river, AA is an 88% favorite against one opponent, 76% against two, 68% against three, and only 44% against four.

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I was kind of hoping at least one person would run with it and offer up an actual statistical answer for why you should ever call when you're only a 44% favorite to win, as you are when you've got AA against four opponents who will see the hand through to the river.



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Incorrect.

tvdad, you need to go back and reread Warren's research. You will win 44% of the pots against six opponents holding random hands and playing all the way to the river.(a situation that you will very rarely see in NL)

You would probably have a much greater chance in a NL tourny situtation of facing three and then the % of pots won is 68%. Given the oppurtunity to either triple up, knock out three other players, or both with a 68% success rate....you'd be a fool not to take that proposition.

Husker

[tvdad]

Who said anything about four tournaments in a few years? It's not that rare in the cheap tourneys.

Thanks to Pzhon, who hit me over the head with a fact that I was ignoring: In a multi-player all-in situation, you're not up against random hands. You're probably up against very good hands. So those random hand stats can be thrown out the window. I get it, I get it. Although in these cheap tourneys those non-random "good" hands can be as weak as Ax, Kx, or even Qx. I see it all the time. So I understand why those lesser hands like K9 and 55 have much less than a 30% chance of beating a group of non-random all-in hands.

It's also pretty obvious that if there are three all-ins before you, you can probably bet one of them has AA. So you'd fold anything other than AA in this spot, right? Just out of curiousity, what are the odds that KK can beat three very good starting hands, one of which is AA?

[Michael Davis]

AA does better against non-random than random hands.

-Michael