Scuba_Curtains: AK hand 2

[Irieguy]

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btw just to be clear. There are quite a few tight robotic like players who will raise ONLY with AK and AA-JJ in EP. I see absolutely no benefit to voluntarily putting in a decent amount of chips out of position to fight against such a range postflop. There are clearly players whom are this tight (I know of some who don't raise JJ), and going out of your way to pick battles with them just because you have AK is not a great strategy in my opinion.

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Are there really quite a few players at the $215's that are precisely this tight (namely never open-raising with AQ from EP?) You've played more $215s than I have, so maybe there are... but there are virtually none at the $109s.

Ok, so let's say the EP raiser is precisely this tight. He raises 4BB in level 2 to 120 chips. Folded to you, 165 in the pot and it's 105 more to go.

There are 12 ways for him to hold QQ or JJ. There are 9 ways for him to have AK (and you are slightly ahead with 6 of them.) There are 6 ways for him to have you dominated by holding AA or KK. So, you are getting better than 3:2 on a preflop call, and you are 6:21 to be dominated.

But if you are dominated, you are only going to pay him off if you make top pair against his set.

On the other hand, if you flop top pair (particularly with a king), there is a reasonable chance that he will pay you off with an underpair (QQ or JJ).

Positional advantage will allow him to win some of the pots when you both have AK... but the fact that you are suited when he is a 3:1 dog to be suited will offset a bit of that, particularly when you both get committed and you are freerolling.

Overall, I think that getting better than 3:2 preflop with a hand that draws to the nuts and with which you are not likely to pay off a dominating hand is a favorable situation.

In fact, I like calling against your villain more than I would against one who would open-raise with more pairs because I can confidently fold more easily when I miss the flop.

I don't see how I would lose money in this situation.

I don't imagine you would either.

Irieguy

[maddog2030]

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Ok, so let's say the EP raiser is precisely this tight. He raises 4BB in level 2 to 120 chips. Folded to you, 165 in the pot and it's 105 more to go.

There are 12 ways for him to hold QQ or JJ. There are 9 ways for him to have AK (and you are slightly ahead with 6 of them.) There are 6 ways for him to have you dominated by holding AA or KK. So, you are getting better than 3:2 on a preflop call, and you are 6:21 to be dominated.

But if you are dominated, you are only going to pay him off if you make top pair against his set.

On the other hand, if you flop top pair (particularly with a king), there is a reasonable chance that he will pay you off with an underpair (QQ or JJ).

Positional advantage will allow him to win some of the pots when you both have AK... but the fact that you are suited when he is a 3:1 dog to be suited will offset a bit of that, particularly when you both get committed and you are freerolling.

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I did my own quick calculations.

WARNING: These calculations were done at 3am, and very quickly at that. Others have described me as "retarded" as well as "brain dead". So take these numbers for what they're worth. If you find any glaring mistakes, please let me know. Hopefully it won't undermine the whole equation.

Fold: 0 chips

Call and miss: -105 chips (70%)

Because you share some of the cards with a good portion of his range, you are less likely to hit your hand on the flop. Let's estimate it to be 30% to hit an A or K on the flop, though I'd expect it to realistically be slightly lower.

Now to get to the more difficult part:

Call and hit against QQ/JJ (44% of the 30% of the time we hit): +435 chips

This was done assuming you can always get a pot sized bet from the opponent on average. Probably unrealistically high.

Call and hit against AA (11% of the 30% of the time we hit): -500 chips

If you hit an A or K, you are still behind and don't know it OOP. Let's assume you lose half your stack in total here, though this is probably conservatively unrealistic.

Call and hit against KK (11% of the 30% of the time we hit): +200 chips

75% of the time you will hit an Ace and at best get a potsized bet out of him for +435. 25% of the time you will lose 500 of your stack when you hit a King, so overall +200.

Call and hit against AK (33% of the 30% of the time we hit): +25 chips

Assume his position and your suitedness probably near cancel out. Assume you guys split the blinds.

Not very realistic at all. If he's betting hard, it's either going to be AK or AA/KK, so you'd have to often fold to heat or adjust the losing numbers in AA/KK so they are bigger since you are calling down more. Big favorable assumption IMO.

Overall: -25 chips

I think I covered all the big bases. I also think most of the assumptions were overly optimistic. If you disagree with them, then we can adjust them now that everything is setup. But as you can see, as it is, this isn't a profitable play given these assumptions.

The whole problem with this play is there's no where to bluff when you miss, especially acting first, and no real hands to extract real value from (we're completely relying on QQ/JJ and a little from KK to make up our value). Either one, or both, of these things needs to be fulfilled for AK to have real value as a hand.

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Overall, I think that getting better than 3:2 preflop with a hand that draws to the nuts and with which you are not likely to pay off a dominating hand is a favorable situation.

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General comment: I think people generally way overvalue pot odds in no limit preflop when there's postflop poker to be played.

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In fact, I like calling against your villain more than I would against one who would open-raise with more pairs because I can confidently fold more easily when I miss the flop.

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You shouldn't be any less confident. If you miss, the lower pairs are still ahead of you. If he widens his pair range enough then yes you can profitably bluff him off the best hand some of the time, but there's no harm in folding to the best hand when it's not profitable to bluff and not feel confident about it. I didn't do the math so I don't know how wide it has to be to make this true.

[maddog2030]

Also, I forgot to mention, I don't even think adding AQ will do much good here in real play, though it probably makes playing this closer to break even with better assumptions.

[curtains]

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Also, I forgot to mention, I don't even think adding AQ will do much good here in real play, though it probably makes playing this closer to break even with better assumptions.

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pretty sure you are world champion for that analysis.

[ravensfan]

Maddog i like the analysis...
First things first: im a borderline fish and dont come anywhere near these levels. i play 100nl tables and 22 tourneys. So if im donking it up please be patient [img]/images/graemlins/confused.gif[/img]
But arent there other possibilities too... such as a flush draw with 2 overs ie 3h, 4h, 8o which is pretty much also a coinflip versus an overpair, although i think that hero would be slight favorite with what i would guess to be 13-13.5 outs (since hes more likely to have Qs, Js, or AQ, than Ks if hes equally likely to raise Js as Ks) given villians hand range.. which should give about 55%?
these could definitely have a lot of implied odds, especially if villian is as predictable in betting as in preflop hand selection and is capable of laying down an overpair to a hard c.r... which increases fe
and pushes the +EV higher... this situation will come up what 4% of the time?
im too lazy and tired to do the math on it, but couldnt this boost the EV to positive territory both for this hand and for future BB situations?
also, since youll likely hit the flop 1 in 3 wouldnt u want to keep the pot small and close off the betting to a) stop a reraise which would force a fold to either QQ or KK which you might want to see that free card against b)disguise your hand or c) keep the chips out of pot that are -EV (ie those that were raised: u get 2x ur bet 1 in 3 times and 0x ur bet 2/3)

[maddog2030]

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But arent there other possibilities too...

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Yes, but there's so many of them it would make the analysis way too complicated. I tried to cover the major bases, and using what I felt to be somewhat conservative estimates (though this can be argued), I think that makes up for the missing cases.

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such as a flush draw with 2 overs ie 3h, 4h, 8o which is pretty much also a coinflip versus an overpair

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That's only good for QQ/JJ, so say you're splitting the big blind there with some FE tacked on depending on your opponent. AA/KK still has you beat.

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these could definitely have a lot of implied odds

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There isn't much implied odds. These stacks are only like 33BB. There's only a pot sized bet and a push left for these stacks postflop. If these stacks were deep, then I'd agree with an autocall preflop if villian is one who'd pay off.

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is capable of laying down an overpair to a hard c.r

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Not going to happen with such small stacks.

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also, since youll likely hit the flop 1 in 3 wouldnt u want to keep the pot small and close off the betting to a) stop a reraise which would force a fold to either QQ or KK which you might want to see that free card against b)disguise your hand or c) keep the chips out of pot that are -EV (ie those that were raised: u get 2x ur bet 1 in 3 times and 0x ur bet 2/3)

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Against this hand range, you would have to play this hand pretty passive/weak a majority of the time to keep the villian's hand range as wide as possible, which is crucial to extracting any value out of him because he's going to see your overcard, but you can't know how strong he is.

[Michael C.]

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Are there really quite a few players at the $215's that are precisely this tight (namely never open-raising with AQ from EP?) You've played more $215s than I have, so maybe there are... but there are virtually none at the $109s.

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That's not true. There are more players with this range in the early rounds in the 215s, but there are definitely some players in the 109s with this kind of range too. Have you ever seen Sonnenbrand raise with 10 10 or AQ from first or second position level 1? And I can think of several other examples. In fact would you or would most people here raise with those hands levels one or 2 from utg or positions 1-3? There are plenty of 109 players who will raise in early position with AJ or AQ, but it's just not true to say there are virtually none who won't. I'm a lot looser than most 109 players, and I just limp with those hands from ep.