AKos vs 67suited

[cat923]

I was playing in a MTT on Poker Stars. I catch AKo and go all in pre flop. I have a caller with 67suited.

What are the percentages preflop?

Naturally he paired his 6 and I did not catch.

Perhaps 67 suited is a good play?

cat923

It's something like 59/41. But I always say 60/40. Sorry about the loss. It happens.

[dogsballs]

http://www.twodimes.net/poker/

[EnderIII]

The percentages are not the whole story. The size of the pot and the amount he needed to call are very important in determining whether this was a good call. How big was your stack, what were the size of the blinds and was there any other dead money in the pot?

For example, if there were three limpers to you, you go all-in for 6x the big blind and everyone folds to the last limper, he is getting very good odds to call with a wide range of hands.

It is good to start asking questions about percentages, but it is better to delve further looking at other aspects that might make seemingly bad calls correct. (Often seemingly bad calls are just bad calls, but if not, you will have learned something very important).

[jedinite]

58% - 42%. You're really not a big favorite preflop with just AK.

I wrote a post on some of the preflop odds that people not familiar with the math often overlook, especially how little of a favorite AK is preflop compared to any hand besides Ax. You might find this interesting:

[ QUOTE ]
And on a third level, a lot of the time i believe people don't understand the math of even two hands going up against each other heads up. Even though a lot of people have seen the numbers flash during the WPT broadcasts, people seem to forget (or conveniently ignore) that certain hands aren't really that big of favorites over another especially if you're seeing all five cards. Your pocket pair is only a 55%-45% favorite against any two overcards (if you raise with 99 and are called by JKo for example). Vice-versa Ace-King looks really good preflop but its still an underdog to a measly pair of deuces. Not to mention edges like Ace-Ten being only a 65-35 favorite over a hand like Jack-Three offsuit or 6-4 offsuit. Ace King unsuited is "only" a 2-1 favorite (67%-33%) over a measly seven-two offsuit.

Yeah, over time that 65-35 edge is going to mean that you're going to win almost two dollars for every dollar your opponent does - but thats over thousands and thousands of hands. 65-35 isn't that big of an edge, and the 35% side of that hand is going to come through a lot more than a lot of people seem to think (more than one hand out of three) by their cries of "Bad beat" or "Beginner's Luck!" if you will...

Your profits in poker come from pushing small edges. Those people who are seeing every flop lose over the long term because they can't outrun the rake and they can't depend on luck to carry them forever.

We as winning poker players need to always keep in mind that every cent of our profit comes from our opponents mistakes - and while its frustrating to see somone call a three-bet preflop with a trash hand and hit two pair to crack your kings, that opponent is making a mistake according to the Fundamental Theorm of Poker and they're going to pay you off long term. if your opponents weren't making mistakes and everyone was Playing Perfect Poker, then we'd just be shuffling money around according to the random distribution of the cards, and we'd all be losing money (no one could outrun the rake).

[/ QUOTE ]

rest of the article:
http://performify.com/2005/09/beginners-luck.html

[nath]

[ QUOTE ]
I wrote a post on some of the preflop odds that people not familiar with the math often overlook, especially how little of a favorite AK is preflop compared to any hand besides Ax.

[/ QUOTE ]

This is why I call final-table all-ins with 72o...