When do we Flush Math down the Toilet?

[bruce]

This is a topic that bugs me. And the most frustrating thing for me is I don't have a good answer.

Let me digress a little. We all know that math is important. From my college days of four semesters of math
until the present math is important in all walks of life.

We know that math is important in poker. If the pot's big
drawing hands are profitable. If you're mathematically
inclined you can figure out exactly how large the pot ought
to be before putting in your chips. If you're an even deeper thinker you can take into consideration implied odds if there is a future round of betting.

So what am I getting at?

Let me address this in a round about way. If I'm playing
in the WSOP ME day 1 and it's the first hand of the event
and if six players limp and I raise with pocket Kings and one of the limpers moves all in I'll probably fold. It may
not be sound mathematically, but it's the first hand of the
event and the likelyhood that he has AA is too great. And
secondly (LOL) that's what TJ and Tom say in their (LOL)
great book.

But what happens if we are half way or two thirds of the way
through a big event. Let's for arguments sake say I have
AA and I'm headsup against another player who we'll say
is reasonable who calls my raise BTF. Let's say the flop
comes Q Q T with a flush draw. We both have average chip stacks and I make a pot sized bet and he moves all in. What am I supposed to do? If we analyze this mathematically and put him on a range of hands which he
will call BTF then it's probably an easy call. He may
have a smaller pocket pair, a flush draw, a straight draw,
or an outright bluff. I guess you can now figure where I'm heading with this. We call and of course he has triplicate
Queens and we're busted from the tournament and as we're walking away our friend says, "you idiot, why did you call,
it was very obvious he had three queens" and I feebly try
to explain to him that mathematically my call was correct.

Comments appreciated.

Bruce