How many callers do you want with KK

[TheCat]

It is counter intuative but a lot of poker is, still sceptical however. What we are saying here is I can increase my chip +EV by getting more callers and +EV equals success at this stage of the tournament. What I don’t see is although my +EV goes up so does my chance of being knocked out. There is clearly a trade off here between the two. I find it difficult to accept that you risk going out most of the time for a big +EV. You might well be correct but I’d want to see something more persuasive. Surely even in a cash game you don’t want a large number of callers. If we did we would never raise with a strong starting hand.

[SossMan]

[ QUOTE ]
I want 4 callers with the following hands:

1. AK
2. AK
3. AQ
4. AQ

[/ QUOTE ]

In addition to those 4, I'll take the guy with QQ and the blinds, who have JJ and JJ respectively.
Of course, the board will probably end up looking like this:
X [img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img]X [img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img]X [img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img]X [img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img]X [img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

As others have stated, I go all-in and hope as many callers as possible because the more callers are, the likelihood they are holding the A's, which is the only card I don't want to see on the board. If they get sets, trips, 2 pairs and the like, bless them.

[Toro]

Funny you cite the JJ example. Last Thursday in a sng on Stars me and another player both had JJ against KK and A9. I took it down with a jack high flush.

[Jeff]

The more callers, the better.

They aren't going to call an all in with garbage. If they do, they have a huge disadvantage to you.

They will call an all in with AA. There is a ~1 in 26 chance of you running into AA.

They will call you with KK, probably QQ, JJ. KK is very, very bad, but there's a high chance at a split, and QQ/JJ/TT are very, very good to be up against.

A big ace will likely call you, AK you dominate, AQ-AT are just as bad.


Let's say lots of good hands were dealt, and people call you with AQo, QQ, AJs, and JJ.

You are so far ahead here that it isn't funny. There are 4 cards in the deck that can beat you.


So, if a lot of people call, you are quite possibly in very good shape because they likely share each other's outs (especially aces). You'd likely be in more trouble if there were different suited connectors that all called.

If 1-2 people call, you have a huge shot at winning unless one of them has AA.

In a larger hand, other players may bet other people out, which gives you less competition, and again, this helps you.


If doubling up or tripling up would put you in really good shape, 2-3 callers is good. More than that will increase your shot at a big stack at the final table though, with an increased chance of failure.

However, given that the callers are more likely to share outs with each other, I'd say the more callers the better, within reason of course.

With 5 people in the pot, it's a coin flip unless someone has aces. A coin flip to quintuple your stack sounds like a nice deal to me.

[Boylermaker]

With 20 spots to go and shortstacked, my goal is to accummulate as many chips as I can. Therefore, I'll take as many callers as possible.

[Pil Sung Do]

I want callers. The more, the better, IMO. Why? They're likely to have one of the 4 aces. If you have 4 callers, each one w/an A, you're in GREAT shape. I'd be more worried with just one caller, which means a higher likelyhood of Aces still in the deck.

[SossMan]

wow...ok, let me take these one at a time...

[ QUOTE ]
What we are saying here is I can increase my chip +EV by getting more callers and +EV equals success at this stage of the tournament.

[/ QUOTE ]

That is exactly what I'm saying. Why shouldn't your stack be in very close proportion to how well you finish in the tourney? Do you feel that your tournament equity would be twice as much with twice the amount of chips? While each individual chip is worth less to you as you accumulate more chips, having a big stack in relation to your opponents gives you much more room for errors/bad beats/blind stealing/picking on small stacks down the road. That is why it is pretty common knowledge that chipEV and cashEV don't greatly diverge until you get to within a few spots of and into the money. Do a search on here, there has been much written about it by people much more eloquent than I.

[ QUOTE ]
What I don’t see is although my +EV goes up so does my chance of being knocked out. There is clearly a trade off here between the two. I find it difficult to accept that you risk going out most of the time for a big +EV.

[/ QUOTE ]
Well, then, I'm not sure you understand EV. It's pretty hard to find a "big +EV" situation that you wouldn't take because not doing so would presumably allow you to take advantage of "bigger +EV" down the road. These big +EV situations simply don't come along that often, and it is almost always wrong to pass on them.

[ QUOTE ]
Surely even in a cash game you don’t want a large number of callers. If we did we would never raise with a strong starting hand.

[/ QUOTE ]

Ok...this one is blatently wrong. In a cash game you would ALWAYS take a +EV situation (unless you are playing with money you can't afford to lose). You would always want people with worse hands to call your raise...this is how we make money in poker.
But the reason we raise is to charge the people with weaker hands and give them improper odds to call your bet. It is a common mistake to think that we raise to "thin the field". If they go away...rats!, they made a proper decision...if they call w/ out the proper odds, whoo hoo, we win (even when we lose). Not raising with big hands is wrong not because you fail to thin the field and thus lose more often, but you didn't make your opponent make a mistake. (well, not a bad mistake anyway)

[BuffaloSoldier]

With my luck, the flop comes Q-Q-2, or club, club, club.
Even worse, 7-7-2-7-7 on the board.

Anyone else ever felt like this...?

<sigh>

[Sundevils21]

9 @ 10handed table
8 @ 9handed table