are you guys opening every Ace from the button nowadays?

if not, what aces are you cutting out and in what situations?

(let's just talk about day to day stuff...let's ignore shotstackers and nothing extreme like an 80/50 fish with a 35% 3-bet or something...don't wanna talk theory and make up weird hypotheticals)

Yes super standard.

What a coincidence. I was thinking of the same thing the other day and tried to google it, didn't come up with much.




They lack play-ability, like you can't make draws with A7o, so they are difficult to run multi-street bluffs with. One thing I do like about them is that it has marginal showdown value, and we can pick off river leads when we checked back the turn.

Axo are a lot of combos, it makes up about 7% of hands.

When I used to mainly fold these, I would only get a Btn RFI of 35%.

Who cares what your rfi is. Are you making money opening A7o? Are there any players who if they are in the blinds make that a non profitable open?

I generally am. Depending on who is the blinds it may be a minraise, but I generally have been.

What are you thinking?



EDIT:

I was assuming folded to me on the button.

Yea they are marginally profitable, but sample size is an issue here of course.

I think playing Axo against opponents who have a good donking/leading range, makes it difficult, as they can blow us off our hand with a balanced range of vlaue hands/draws/bluffs.

I also think its hard to play against fish who donk a lot, they prolly have more air in their range, but they can still be tricky when they have a huge VPIP, as their range could be anything.

yes folded to you on the button

re: "they are marginally profitable". are you saying this looking at your database? or a large sample of databases of regs? or just guessing?

re: fish. yeah I don't wanna talk about fish here. that's a whole separate subject and opening ranges (for me) vary big time from fish to fish)

anyway..

I would love someone to correct me here or point out my logic flaw. my math skills are not amazing and i'm sure this is not the way to do this. but here it goes:

Let’s just say you have a SB that is folding 80% and 3 betting 15% and a BB that’s folding 40% and 3 betting 15%. and let’s say the BB is not a very foldy type postflop. Like you’re not gonna just get a good cbet board and win it all the time. Let’s also say it’s not really profitable to have a large 4 bet bluff range vs these guys. So let's say you are not going to 4 bet bluff Axo here. I think these are pretty common occurrences.

so you win the blinds 1/3 of the time - and get 3-bet or squeezed about 1/3 of the time. then 1/3 of the time you are just sitting there with A6o postflop vs a guy who isn't gonna fold a ton. so you prob have like 55% raw equity in this spot postflop (just a guess).

so let’s just say you open 2.5x
1/3 of the time you lose your open raise (say 2.5x) when you fold to the bb / squeeze
1/3 of the time you win the 1.5bb (when they fold)
1/3 of the time let’s just say you get to a flop with 55% raw equity but not much playability (not the worst but not the best). so say you open 2.5x and the bb calls. pot is 5.5bb. let’s say you win 60% of the time since you’re in position. that’s 3.3 minus your initial 2.5 you win 0.8 bb. (I’m sure I’m butchering something here. What is the better way to calculate that for some math guy?)

so that’s -2.5*.33 +1.5*.33 +0.8*.33 = -0.825 +.495 +0.264 = -0.066

btw for the 1/3 of the time you see the flop, every time you win a small pot, you will be winning a bunch less due to rake at 400nl and lower. especially 200nl and lower.

One thing I am not factoring in is how much more fold equity you have given that you have an Ace blocker. Anyone have any idea how much that would add up to? is 3% reasonable to assume? or is it higher?

Would this be correct then?

so it would be -2.5*.30 +1.5*.36 +0.8*.33 = -.75 + .54 +.495 = 0.285

it's too early in the morning for this **** hah. looks like a clear open if this is close to correct. although rake may push it closer to breakeven.

Yea thats just me looking at my database, but like I said, sample prolly renders it meaningless.

I'm no maths guys, but in your EV of opening from the Btn, shouldn't the third term be

1/3(0.8*0.6)??

No idea about the second equation.

i dunno...i think i already factored in the 0.6 and said you win 0.8bb when you get to a flop. i'm sure i ****ed that up...but I figure if you 2.5x and the bb calls the pot is 5.5bb. say you win 60% of that, then subtract your open.

damn with a name like Patel you should be good at all of this!!!

I just thought of something else...i didn't factor in for when you get called in two spots.

In optimal strategies A2o must be an open because its relatively high in the any two cards range. You said not to think of weird hypotheticals, but i'm sure its relatively possible that conditions exist where you will be getting 3-bet so often by regs that A2o is an unprofitable open based on fold equity and equity when called alone, but in that case you have a 4-betting option because they are 3-betting so much that its outside of optimal play.

Also, NLHE is a frequencies-based game, and any two cards are a vacuum profitable open on the button, just not every two cards. If you're opening 85% of buttons against me, it is quite likely I'm adjusting so much to your deviation from optimal play that your A2o opens are becoming unprofitable, but if you were opening A2o as part of a 60% range, it would be fine and probably impossible for me to exploit.

The estimate is a bit rosier if we stay true to the strategies you assigned the SB and BB instead of the 33% frequencies. The BTN faces a 3-bet 27.75% of the time (not accounting for the BB squeezing at a different frequency than he 3-bets a single-raiser).

-2.5*0.2775 + 1.5*0.3175 + 0.8*0.3825 + -0.625*0.0225 = 0.07443 (~7.5 bb/100).

The fourth term is for when you get flatted twice. I'm pessimistically (I think) assuming you have an EV of 0.25*pot when that occurs. I don't know what a good estimate would be, tbh.

What you said about rake still applies, though.

For A6 it's a bit under 2%, which makes the estimate at least a couple of bb/100 more favorable.

dont think its even close.

any ace has to be a buttonopen. there may be special circumstances where you expect not to see a flop often enough, which might make you want to fold some bad Ax.

anyway. you have position postflop. which allows you to see atleast 4 cards and potcontrol.
Ax will be ahead of BBs calling range by quite a bit... most ppl fold bb 30 to 50% in todays games!
->all the good stuff. so play your Ax

is it 2008?

Some additional perspectives:

1. punter11235 has the ability to solve two-player NLHE hedged to 3/4ths pot-sized betting postflop -- preflop isn't 100%, though. He includes all Ax in his BTN-opening range (~50% 2.5x).

2. sauce123, in a RunItOnce video, open-folded A2o from the BTN at $10/$20. N.b. he was 3x-ing. The blinds were solid regs, not particularly overactive. He didn't think the decision mattered too much EV-wise, iirc.

i think it's closer than you think. the whole point of this question was to examine the "special circumstances" which I think occur more and more often nowadays.

I don't know why you say you can always see 4 cards just because you have position. are you telling me you've seen every turn card in your life on the button? i mean...you can see all 5 if you really want to I guess also. the fact is you are gonna cbet when you miss and get xr (and have to fold), you will cbet when you hit and get xr (and have to fold), you will get donked into, and you will flop so bad you can see 10 cards and it won't matter.

and yes A6 is way ahead of QJ K8 T5s...but if you're not going to see a flop enough it might be a fold...or if the blinds are extremely good and aggro postflop I suppose that could sway it to a fold also.

anyway I do agree it's an open a LOT. I'm always questioning myself in even "standard" spots...so wanted to hear some other people's thoughts.

@Rei Ayanami: if sauce is folding A2o to non-overactive regs and saying it was close...then I would assume (if you don't want to 4 bet bluff) vs overactive regs it's more of a clearer fold. not sure if you can take that logic leap.

also re punter11235 solving hu. I really dunno who that is and I def agree it's prob optimal to open all aces. but if you have a decent sample size of stats and you know you won't see a flop enough, why ignore that and open just for the sake of being balanced?

and btw people who say they solve stuff and this and that is an open...aren't they also assuming you play perfectly postflop?

This part is confusing. I was presenting other people's qualified perspectives. Nothing more. It's not possible for me to take a logic leap because there was no other underlying point.

I'm not sure who said, or even implied, that we should ignore relevant info "for the sake of being balanced". Punter certainly didn't.

sry my post didn't come across right...lack of sleep lately

I meant by you taking a leap of logic, "one" taking a leap in logic...not specifically you.

meaning can one infer if sauce folds A2o to regular blinds and says it's close, that vs over-aggro blinds it is a clear fold. and I guess I'd want to know what that threshold would be.

Ok, all good.

I think what he means is that you have the option of checking behind and seeing a turn as a worst case EV scenario providing that OOP doesn't have a HU leading strategy (90% of regs do not). Your points are kind of wrong because you made strategic choices to bet fold your bluffs and your top pairs, presumably because you thought they were +EV plays and superior to the alternative of checking back or bet calling.

You shouldn't assume you'll play perfectly, but you should at the very least assume that you will realize a significant amount of your equity in position with a lot of stack behind against a very trashy call range which probably can't include TT+ AQ+.

As to your other thoughts, you shouldn't open A2o in unprofitable conditions for the sake of balance, but just understand that such conditions are rare. You need not only to be getting 3-bet a large amount of the time (very large, >30%), you need also not to have a profitable 4-bet bluffing counter. This basically means that people need to be deviating greatly from optimal play with their 3-betting and 5-betting strategies. And in that case, honestly theres a case for open limping the button, especially with the stronger Ax hands like A6o. We can quibble with A2o all day, but A6o is pretty damn high in your range and most probably a profitable open limp even against the craziest blind combo.

good point for sure re picking +EV spots to cbet. and yes you will be lead into prob <10% of the time...maybe less than 8%...but that's still something - and Axo is not going to be a great pure float or bluff raise hand a lot of the time.

re not having a profitable 4bet bluff counter and being 3 bet >30% of the time...this is exactly what I'm talking about. there are plenty (not the majority...but plenty) of times I look up and see SB 3 bets 14-16% vs btn open and folds to 45-50% of 4 bets, BB 3 bets 18-20% vs btn open and folds to 50% of 4 bets. (this doesn't count squeezes either). so honestly you are not going to have a slam dunk 4 bet bluff spot unless they are calling a lot of 4 bets and fold a lot post (I think this is rare but becoming somewhat more common nowadays). I don't think you need to be 4 bet bluffing with offsuit aces here a ton. I feel like I would rather just open tighter and have a lower fold to 3 bet. so maybe 4 bet bluff the occasional K5s and half of my suites Ax type hands...and just way expand my 4 bet for value range...and call a bunch more 3 bets (unless it's some sicko beast postflop or something).

limping is an interesting option

what dump of a casino do you play at?

You gotta steal loads n you don't get a better blocker than an A

You could probably tighten your range and or lower your open from the button to maintain similar risk vs reward. Probably all dependent on the blinds though too.

The blocking effect is quite a small % of what gives A2+ its value in steal situations. In fact, A2 specifically is only a teensy bit superior to napkins wrt blocking (literal napkins -- not 72o). Think about what the 2 does.

Probably a good idea to avoid the currently in vogue error of trying to reduce every decision to blockers (and then doing it wrong).