What if you knew everyone's hole cards?

[SossMan]

You should really think about this some more. Your win rate would go through the roof. Why would you ever have to take 55-45 advantage. You would be correct to fold AA preflop to a single all in because you acctually would (for once) be able to take advantage of low-risk opportunities later on. You would essentially never risk your chips in an all in situation that you didn't have the mortal nuts or were like 95% to win.

Also, you would be build such a huge stack early simply by taking down pots where nobody had anything that even if you got unlucky in one of your later 80-20 situations, it wouldn't be nearly enough to cripple you. You would have to be playing very badly (given the situation) or get very very unlucky to not WIN nearly every tournament you played in.

[Jordan Olsommer]

[ QUOTE ]

I've thought about this off & on for a few days without coming up with an elegant or comprehensive way to approach it. My instinct is that you'd increase your chances by a factor in the 3-5 range. The most common recurring benefits would be to keep you on the proper side of all the 55/45-type decisions that arise, and to make you bluff-proof. Only rarely would you get away from the wrong side of set-over-set or know to call with your pocket 3s when someone move-in preflop with pocket 2s.

[/ QUOTE ]

I would estimate that it would increase your winning chances by a factor more than three-to-five, but that's just a guess.

It would seem that if you knew everybody's hole cards (and they didn't know you knew them), then you could apply the Kelly Criterion for bankroll management to every decision you are faced with during the tournament, since by knowing everyone's hole cards you know your exact edge (especially if you don't get lazy and you account for folded cards), and of course you already know your exact odds so long as you can keep a count of the pot. I don't know how one would quantitatively take into account the increasing blinds, but then again it's a bit better than just winging it I should think - anyone who could see their opponent's hole cards and still takes pocket deuces all-in against an AK before the flop early in a tournament is a damn fool (unless the rest of the table folded the six remaining aces and kings).

For what it's worth, you can probably get a good idea of how it would work against weak-to-intermediate opponents if you have a copy of Poker Academy Pro - just start up a No-Limit tournament, and select Options -> "Play All Face Up".

[jcmack13]

[ QUOTE ]

Don't ask me how but I played someone heads up no limit 5 card stud and I knew what his hole cards were every single hand. I beat him in 30 out of 30 freeze outs.

[/ QUOTE ]

If you guys weren't doing this together as a type of poker experiment, then I know how. You are a miserable, low, cheating little f--k. If you were playing for money you should get your ass kicked and give five times the money back.

[TimTimSalabim]

Knowing you're on the right side of 55/45 probably doesn't make much difference in a tournament, where often your survival is at stake and you're looking for a bigger edge to get your money in. The bigger advantage would be hands that might either be a huge favorite, a huge dog, or close to even, knowing which one it is. Or knowing when you're being bluffed. Or knowing when it's safe to bluff your opponent. Or knowing someone outflopped you or outdrew you and is now a huge favorite to crack the hand that you were trapping with. No more "I know you're bluffing but I can't call" or "I know I'm beat but I'm calling anyway". I think 3-5x is a good guess, but it's very hard to quantify. Even the very best players who are already excellent at making reads and acting on them would still be helped a great deal(although I'm sure Hellmuth would say this would offer him no advantage whatsoever over what he has now [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]).

[lighterjobs]

here's a post that was on rgp about "magic glasses" as they called them.

[DDH]

[ QUOTE ]
I'm trying to figure out how you woudn't win 99% of the tournaments you entered. Or maybe I'm missing something.

[/ QUOTE ]

The luck factor would balance a bit of it out. You could get everything in, knowing that you're a pre-flop 4-1 favorite and still get sucked out on. You'd probably make the money a good number of times though.

We were playing for push-ups. He wound up doing 600 of them in one afternoon. Hahahahahahahahaha!!!!!!

What made him even more stupid was that he was a blackjack dealer. He should have caught me. Hahahahahahahaha!!!!!!! [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img] [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img] [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img] [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img] [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img] [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img] [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img] [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]

[zoobird]

You need to read some of the other responses here more carefully - especially the one by SossMan. The whole point is you'd never get all in without the nuts before the river. Even if you had AA and the other person had 72o, you'd fold if they put you all in. At least, that's what you'd do if they didn't know you could see their cards. If they knew, it would be a little tougher.

[illegit]

Your ability to steal and resteal and avoid putting money in as anything less than a 80% favorite would make your odds of winning increase about 10x-15x i would guess.

Every time someone steal raises and you know they have a hand that can't call a push (and neither does anyone behind you) you simply push and win the pot.

[burningyen]

I'm thinking of the numerous hands that look like:

you: 92o
your opponent: KTo
flop: 863r

You're pretty much guaranteed the pot.