NL Preflop Question #2

[David Sklansky]

Still didn't do the math but it appears a fold is clearcut in my first problem. When I said you have AQ I meant offsuit. His AK possibility is either. And pray tell why are some people implying that the tournament situation matters in this question? Amazing.

Anway question 2 is the same except he could also have two nines, which he will also fold if you move in. Now what?

Original question:

10 20 Blinds. You are in the Big Blind with AQ. You have plenty of chips. A tight player starting with a short stack of 300 makes it 100 to go in early position. All fold. 80 to you. He has 200 left.

You somehow are almost positive about his play. He has two tens or higher or AK. If you move in he will fold only the two tens. If you call he will always move in 200 on the flop and call if you move in. Preflop you should call, fold or move in?

[Jordan Olsommer]

Pushing is still a bad play here, only slightly less bad than in the original example, since you'll take the pot without a fight 2/7ths of the time instead of just 1/6th. I get it as having an EV of approx. -41

I didn't do the math for calling, of course, but if it was a "clearcut fold" against {AA-TT,AKs,AKo}, I don't imagine that {AA-99,AKs,AKo} would change things significantly enough to make calling correct. Just a guess, though.

[donny5k]

I think this added assumption makes it really close to EV neutral between calling and pushing good flops and folding. Pushing preflop is still the worst option.

[Jordan Olsommer]

[ QUOTE ]
I think this added assumption makes it really close to EV neutral between calling and pushing good flops and folding. Pushing preflop is still the worst option.

[/ QUOTE ]

Could be - like I said, it was just a guess. Although it would surprise me if both statements were true; that 1) Situation A is a "clear cut fold" , and 2) Adding just the 99 in Situation B is enough to make what once was a clear cut fold an arguable call.

There was a fellow in the other thread who basically wrote a "Perfect Poker" program, which calculated the EV of pushing only on flops where you had the best of it against {AA-TT,AKs,AKo} (i.e., playing 100% optimally). I reckon I'll wait until he weighs in on this thread to see if it really does make that much of a difference.

[donny5k]

Clearcut doesn't mean it's largely -EV, it just means it is -EV. And on Qxx and Axx flops, your equity jumps significantly since instead of being ahead against 21/30 hands in the Axx case, you are ahead against 27/36 hands, a 5% improvement. A 4-5% improvement in equity when you call is significant. But my gut feeling is that it is still a fold.

[Jordan Olsommer]

[ QUOTE ]
Clearcut doesn't mean it's largely -EV, it just means it is -EV.

[/ QUOTE ]

In a case where we can do the math exactly, any EV below zero is a "clear cut fold". However, with a question like this and the amount of estimation involved, I doubt anyone who got a calling EV of -1 would say "clearly you should fold." (as it turns out, even the guy who wrote the program didn't enumerate - he did a monte carlo with 10,000 random [out of 19,600 possible] flops and 1,000 iterations of each flop [to determine winrate] with only one opponent holding per iteration - I don't know if that's enough to be super-super accurate. That was my mistake though; I had erroneously thought that he had enumerated).

[mjm]

How does question 2 differ from question 1? We can go down the pocket pairs all day ie. 88,77,66,55 etc...because as long as his range is only increasing with pairs it is always -ev as any pair is favourite against AQo pre-flop.

[mjm]

ok am being an idiot missed the fact he will fold the Pairs TT & below.

[binions]

[ QUOTE ]
Still didn't do the math but it appears a fold is clearcut in my first problem. When I said you have AQ I meant offsuit. His AK possibility is either. And pray tell why are some people implying that the tournament situation matters in this question? Amazing.

Anway question 2 is the same except he could also have two nines, which he will also fold if you move in. Now what?

Original question:

10 20 Blinds. You are in the Big Blind with AQ. You have plenty of chips. A tight player starting with a short stack of 300 makes it 100 to go in early position. All fold. 80 to you. He has 200 left.

You somehow are almost positive about his play. He has two tens or higher or AK. If you move in he will fold only the two tens. If you call he will always move in 200 on the flop and call if you move in. Preflop you should call, fold or move in?

[/ QUOTE ]

So, he has 1 of 42 possible hands (16 AK + 36 AA-99 less 10 hands since you have 3 QQs, 3AAs, and 4 AKs blocked).

18 of 42 hands, you are an 11:9 dog to 99-JJ (and a 2:1 dog to hit the flop). Note if you have AQs, you are 13:12 dog.

The other 24 of 36 hands, you are at least a 2:1 dog to AA-QQ, and AK.

In no hand are you a favorite.

Preflop, you have no edge unless you go all in and get 99 or TT to fold. But that happens only 28.6% of the time. Meaning your edge is worth $130 * .286 = $37.18

That edge pales in comparison to the neg EV when you are called by the range of AA-JJ and AK.

What about taking a flop? You are only getting 13:8 on the call, and 23:8 implied odds since he is always going in.

You are 2:1 to hit your hand against JJ-99, and even when you hit your hand, there is a slight chance for an outdraw.

And when you hit your hand, you very well may be trailing AA-QQ and AK big time. Hitting the Q only helps against AK. Hitting the A only helps against QQ and KK. There is a much greater risk of hitting your hand and getting your money in bad than good. Of course, if you miss the flop, you are trailing each of these hands, he goes all in and you fold.

So, again you have a slight edge 42.9% of the time (ie v. JJ-99) getting nearly 3:1 implied odds on 2:1 shot, but giving up huge edge the other 57.1% of the time.

Easy fold given this hand range.

It would be a better question if he raised to 80 and had 500 chips, and you had AQs.

[Jordan Olsommer]

[ QUOTE ]

Easy fold given this hand range.

[/ QUOTE ]

I think you're skirting the core of the problem here, which seems to me to be the quesiton "Can judicious selection of which flops to continue with and which to fold on combined with the informational advantage of Villain's exact range and tendencies make up for the fact that you're putting in a small initial investment knowing full well that you're an underdog?"

Another example of this type of problem is the "Chris Ferguson Problem", discussed on RGP (and probably here as well, although I don't know of any threads off hand) and also outlined in Matt Matros's book - "Villain raises you preflop heads-up and accidentally flips over his hand, which is AA. Now you know what he has, and he knows you know what he has. What hands (if any) can you call with?" The answer may surprise you.*

If it was simply a question of "how well does AQ do against {AA-99,AKs,AKo}?", anybody with pokerstove can solve that in seconds, so it wouldn't seem to me to be of much interest.

*edit: also, assume stack sizes are enormous compared to the blinds and the raise.