AA first hand, call all in?

[MrEngenic]

Phil Ivey or another top pro has AA in BB the first hand in a major tournament, like WPT or WSOP. Folded to unknown SB who moves all in.

Will he call?

What if button moves all in and SB calls?

[ansky451]

Phil Ivey is not good enough to pass up a 80/20, he calls. 99.99% of pros would call this, maybe Hellmuth would get psycho and think he could find a better edge than this.

I would raise him...

Not only does Phil Ivey not call, I don't either. Yes, he's getting great odds, but for what? Let's say the odds are 80/20. Then 20% of the time he busts out, and 80% of the time he doubles up early.

There are two issues. (1) How likely is he to double the initial stack anyway, eventually? (Answer: probably better than 80% -- on average he only needs to outlast half the field. Heck, even I do that more than 80% of the time.) (2) How much of an advantage is it for him to double his stack earlier rather than later? If he is a lesser player, I think that the answer is *a lot*, because now he doesn't have to gamble so much in order to make up for the fact that he is a lesser player -- he can wait for great hands. But Phil *already* doesn't have to gamble to make up for being a lesser player. So it seems to me that the 80% chance of getting a double-sized stack early, while obviously wonderful, does not outweigh the 20% chance of going bust immediately.

Obviously, later in the tournament, when doubling your stack becomes increasingly difficult, and the average skill-level of the other players is higher, it makes more and more sense to take the gamble. But on the first hand? I wouldn't take that gamble, and, as they say, I'm no Phil Ivey.

There is another way to look at it. How much does doubling the stack increase his chances to finish in the money? Let's suppose that the top 10% of the places are paid, and that all the players are equal (just to make things simple), and that Phil's main goal is to finish in the money. Then in order for the call to make sense EV-wise, it must increase his chances of finishing in the money to around 13%. Does it? Well, there are complicated arguments about how initial stack sizes affects the chances of finishing in the money, and you can sort through those arguments if you want. I personally don't think that this initial double-up (*if* you double up -- remember that there is a chance you will split the pot) increases your odds by that much. This is *especially* true (in my opinion) if you are a good player.

There is also this to consider: if the all-in player is a good player, chances are he has AA (even though statistically this is very unlikely), which means you are just getting your money back if you call. If he does *not* have AA, then he is a moron, and probably dead money anyway, so you certainly don't care that he steals the blinds once in a while, and you have no immediate need to bust him. And in the second scenario, at least one of the players is clearly a moron (because you have AA, so at least one of them doesn't), and the other probably has AA, so you aren't even doubling up (if you win).

[prayformojo]

[ QUOTE ]
Not only does Phil Ivey not call, I don't either. Yes, he's getting great odds, but for what? Let's say the odds are 80/20. Then 20% of the time he busts out, and 80% of the time he doubles up early.

There are two issues. (1) How likely is he to double the initial stack anyway, eventually? (Answer: probably better than 80% -- on average he only needs to outlast half the field. Heck, even I do that more than 80% of the time.) (2) How much of an advantage is it for him to double his stack earlier rather than later? If he is a lesser player, I think that the answer is *a lot*, because now he doesn't have to gamble so much in order to make up for the fact that he is a lesser player -- he can wait for great hands. But Phil *already* doesn't have to gamble to make up for being a lesser player. So it seems to me that the 80% chance of getting a double-sized stack early, while obviously wonderful, does not outweigh the 20% chance of going bust immediately.

Obviously, later in the tournament, when doubling your stack becomes increasingly difficult, and the average skill-level of the other players is higher, it makes more and more sense to take the gamble. But on the first hand? I wouldn't take that gamble, and, as they say, I'm no Phil Ivey.

There is another way to look at it. How much does doubling the stack increase his chances to finish in the money? Let's suppose that the top 10% of the places are paid, and that all the players are equal (just to make things simple), and that Phil's main goal is to finish in the money. Then in order for the call to make sense EV-wise, it must increase his chances of finishing in the money to around 13%. Does it? Well, there are complicated arguments about how initial stack sizes affects the chances of finishing in the money, and you can sort through those arguments if you want. I personally don't think that this initial double-up (*if* you double up -- remember that there is a chance you will split the pot) increases your odds by that much. This is *especially* true (in my opinion) if you are a good player.

There is also this to consider: if the all-in player is a good player, chances are he has AA (even though statistically this is very unlikely), which means you are just getting your money back if you call. If he does *not* have AA, then he is a moron, and probably dead money anyway, so you certainly don't care that he steals the blinds once in a while, and you have no immediate need to bust him. And in the second scenario, at least one of the players is clearly a moron (because you have AA, so at least one of them doesn't), and the other probably has AA, so you aren't even doubling up (if you win).

[/ QUOTE ]

God help us. This is going to be good.

[Neuge]

Absolutely not. To call getting 80/20 you have to have a better hand than AA. No way will pros take the best of it for their stack. That's idiotic.

[sunek]

In my opinion most pros would call this and probably even see this as a present from heaven. with a field of more than 5.600 any player would need both skill and luck to win. As Dan Harrington puts it: to win a large tournament you will have to face death once or twice and win (this is not an exact quote but the point is good enugh). So they might as well face death in the first hand.

If any pros reads this thread it would be very interesting to hear their opinion.

Regards

sunek

[Jeebus]

[ QUOTE ]
Not only does Phil Ivey not call, I don't either. Yes, he's getting great odds, but for what? Let's say the odds are 80/20. Then 20% of the time he busts out, and 80% of the time he doubles up early.
There is another way to look at it. How much does doubling the stack increase his chances to finish in the money? Let's suppose that the top 10% of the places are paid, and that all the players are equal (just to make things simple), and that Phil's main goal is to finish in the money. Then in order for the call to make sense EV-wise, it must increase his chances of finishing in the money to around 13%. Does it? Well, there are complicated arguments about how initial stack sizes affects the chances of finishing in the money, and you can sort through those arguments if you want. I personally don't think that this initial double-up (*if* you double up -- remember that there is a chance you will split the pot) increases your odds by that much. This is *especially* true (in my opinion) if you are a good player.

There is also this to consider: if the all-in player is a good player, chances are he has AA (even though statistically this is very unlikely), which means you are just getting your money back if you call. If he does *not* have AA, then he is a moron, and probably dead money anyway, so you certainly don't care that he steals the blinds once in a while, and you have no immediate need to bust him. And in the second scenario, at least one of the players is clearly a moron (because you have AA, so at least one of them doesn't), and the other probably has AA, so you aren't even doubling up (if you win).

[/ QUOTE ]


that's all the work i can put into this, the personification of my poker skills just hung itself after reading this post.

[henrikrh]

This has been argued so many times. I would call, no matter how early in a tourney it was, becuase I know later down the line i will be in situations where it will be 60-40. 80-20 is great, and you gotta havea stack to build a stack.

I'm presuming by the level of effort put in here that this is a serious post, so it has to be worth a serious reply.

I've seen plenty of posts on poker discussion forums debating the relative merits of calling all-in with AA first hand of WSOP, with 8 other all-ins before you. This is the first time I have seen a debate around calling all-in with AA heads-up.

I don't know a single pro who would throw AA heads-up to an all-in raise. You don't get it much better. Phil Ivey certainly wouldn't worry about going out first hand as it makes little difference to sitting nursing a stack for 4 days and going out on the bubble.

There is no way Ivey will double his stack if he keeps throwing AA (let alone the 80% chance you are giving him). With Ivey sat at his table with double the average chip count he would be deadly.

Surely there can be no debate about this one??