Because it’s irrelevant. It’s a simple range question. You can stop trolling and building up strawmen to tear down at any point.

I’ve never seen any reasonably competent player lose money with aces in any position. If you’re losing money from any position with aces, then the issue extends far beyond AA


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Since you clearly refuse to acknowledge it, I’ll answer for you: yes, you do think AA is a profitable hand to play from EP. else, you would fold it.

So now let’s extend on to why? Well, the lazy analysis is that if you look in the database of any online player, you’d see AA makes money in all positions. This has been reinforced by solvers as well. For more details: we have two powerful cards that gives our opponents less combos to fight back with. We always have an equity edge no matter what the scenario, too.

But you hate RIO. Fine. So you limp. But what does that accomplish? Whether you go 7 way limped or 7 way raised? You’re still in the exact same position, there’s just less $ in the pot.

So you’ll lose less when you lose, but you’ll also win less when you win. All you’ve done is change the magnitudes, with a hand that prefers the magnitudes to be changed. The RIO still exists. In fact, the RIO is worse, because hands you beat that could’ve been committed in 2 bets now require 3, so a lot less worse hands will put it in. But if someone out draws you, they are likely to put it in still.


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The truth is that even if you blindly shoved AI with your AA on any flop, you would still be plus EV with all 9 calling preflop.

Wondered about this.

You'd be shoving 95bb into 50bb. Assume opponents call with two pair plus and fold anything worse.

Odds of flopping two pair plus are ~5%, so I make it that we take it down uncontested about ~60% of the time.

If we're behind, we usually have outs. Let's assume an average of 3 outs, so we have ~12% equity when called. I'm ignoring cases where we get two or more callers but think they would generally increase our overall $ equity.

So EV wise, assuming 5bb rake, we're getting (40x.6)+(135x.4x.12)+(-100*.4*.88) = - 5bb of total EV

So with the simplest possible postflop strategy and every possible assumption as negative as possible we're just EV-.

Doesn't look like it'd take much to flip that to EV+, given we've assumed opponents playing perfectly against us at the moment.

I get ~$9 +EV by looking at the weighted average of 7 flop types assuming we're against 9 random hands, assuming we never fold worse or get called by better and ignoring hands that have enough equity to call by aren't ahead of us in ranking.

Your approach is reasonable for a very rough estimate except that you're ignoring the times we flop a set and win the pot outright.

Again, this would be another path in which we reduce our RIO.

There are gray areas in this discussion that some of you do not seem to want to acknowledge.

Clearly from this post, I don't think we will come to an agreement given that you have a deep lack of understanding of the downside of any hands known as RIO.

Effective stacks and number of players in the hand are both irrelevant, as long as you have AA?

Do you read your own posts?

In other words, you will never lose money with AA in any position, for any stack size, against any number of players?

Not sure why anyone ever post HH with position, reads, effective stacks, or anything except what Hero is dealt.

How do you implement weighted average in this scenario?

You mean he didn't include such scenario in the 60% of the times where A is on the flop and everyone else folded, or are you saying that he missed the scenarios in which H flops set over set?

I am not sure you are fully comprehending how Bloobird is approaching the calculation, let alone challenging it.

No, you’re just purely a troll that refuses to address anything else


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Do you think AA has a positive expected value from any position? The fact that you’re not even bothering to answer this is indicative of trolling.

Try doing math. It’s fun.

And try not to blatantly spin what I said. We work in averages and expectancy. RIO is actually escalated by reducing the initial size of the pot, so you’re arguing jibberish.


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Here’s a real tricky concept: We get to choose exactly one combo to play as an UTG open and the rest of the table can choose any other combo except for ours and call at their leisure - we get to do this every dealt hand for eternity. Whatcha got? AA? Well, if it ‘isn’t always a +EV open’, then what is? If nothing is, go home. Sure it s a multi street game, but starting w the nuts in a poker format so ridiculously high card and pair heavy biased is gonna print.

http://www.openproblemgarden.org/

Depends on effective stack size, number of players involved, and skill level of those players.

Been repeating this over and over. Poker is not tic-tac-toe.

I know this tactic. You ignore math and tell other people to do math. Do feel free to use math when discussing any HH. I'll be happy to provide my opinion backed by math.

Blatantly spin? You're the one suggesting that AA is +EV under any circumstance.

Here is what's average and expected of poker players: they lose. Perhaps some lose less with AA or even win with it, but overall, they lose.

Sure, but you are still missing the point. You reduce the size of initial pot by the size of your open. The bigger the open, the fewer the number of opponents will call, and lower the IO at the same time.

EV is maximized by finding that perfect balance of IO and RIO.

GG was right.

There appears to be a lot more to the question than first meets the eye.

Even if you disagree with any of the other posters from time to time.

Would this not apply to every hand in a poker database that rates as a winner? So basically, if you have an "above average hand" (I'm not sure where the line would be drawn, I mean I'm guessing 88/AQ+ would all easily be in there and probably lots of other ones), does that mean our most EV line is raising UTG for 5% of our stack and going 10way to the flop?

GcluelessNLnoobG


Also Bloobird / etc.

All this shows is that going 10way to the flop for 5% of our stack is likely profitable.

I've never argued it isn't.

I'm simply asking if you think it's the most profitable result (in a roundabout way by asking how many callers you'd like to have).

GcluelessNLnoobG


So long as we're always going 10way, I would argue some sort of medium pair would probably be more profitable (as it simply very rarely going to make any postflop mistakes that AA is going to make quite often).

*But*, even if you do answer AA (which you are free to do), that still doesn't mean that going 10ways for 5% of your stack preflop (while likely EV) is still the most profitable result.

GcluelessNLnoobG

I said this before and I'll iterate again using above example.

The expected value of medium pairs such as 88 vs AA with more than 5 player is likely higher OOP, because of two factors:

1. Implied odds (IO).

2. Reversed implied odds (RIO).

88 has much higher IO than AA because when it does hit, it is usually on a much drier board than AA. The position also matters a bit less because the strength of the hand is so strong that we can afford to give free card(s) or allow more people in the hand on turn and river.

88 also has far less RIO than AA for the simple fact that it is a hit or fold hand. If you miss the board, you have very little incentive to continue when there are more than 5 players involved in the hand.

AA on the other hand, the IO almost doesn't exist unless it is in a set over set situation, or some sort of FH over straight/flush scenario. LLSNL players are also very ABC, so the idea that you have tremendous amount of IO by getting your opponents to call with TP or worse for fat value is farfetched.

And when you do end up getting involved deeper with your opponents with unimproved AA, chances are that your opponent(s) have better hand. The simple fact that most of us would happily call 5bb with 100bb effective with 88 and hope the raiser has KK+ is indicative of the underlying premise that AA carries a lot of RIO in LLSNL.

Again, all of this depends on your ability as a player and your opponents' ability not to play their hands faced up.

I am merely suggesting that the notion that if you have AA UTG and you want as many players involved as possible *could* be flawed and presenting my rationale as to why.

The problem is that most people in this thread (and GG is usually guilty of this in most of his posts) are arguing 2 mutually exclusive things. If 88 has IO on K82, then so does AA. Either we are getting called by TP or we are not. If we are not, our actual holding matters very little. However, if 88 has to wait to flop a set AND have someone else flop 2 pair or better, well, that's the kind of IO I wouldn't bother factoring into my calculations.

Thanks for that, making my point for me.

Yeah, see above, you will barely outrun the 15 you put in preflop every time. However, this is the best example of exactly what people ITT are accusing you of, GG, trying to minimize your losses in every situation.

And what is our plan on 678, 789, 89T, 689, 578, etc? Less RIO, possibly, but a better hand to have? At least on boards like K72, AA is still actually best ~60% of the time (although if we are not getting called by TP then 23 is as good as 88 and AA).

Just some of my thoughts, and I have treated y'all's statements seriously despite the fact that I think anyone who is arguing that a mid pair is better than AA in this situation is mostly just trolling, or speaking of a beginner strat designed to lose the least amount of money (and as Bloobird proved, just shoving is a simpler one).

I am a bit surprised that I would need to argue how 88 has more IO than AA on K82 board, but here it is.

AA on K82 flop has a diminishing value as the pot gets bigger or if more players enter the hand.

88 on K82 flop maintains its value with a higher cap.

Should I be explaining to you what IO means?

Not sure what point you think you are making...please do elaborate.

Sounds like you are jumbling up the concepts of IO and RIO.

Any hands in which we hit the set on the flop (except set over set situation), RIO is minimum for the simple fact that we can improve to be the best hand.

This is where IO neutralizes the RIO...I mean, 15 outs? If you would like me to explain equity calculation and implied odds further, please let me know.

In the specific context of 88 vs AA, Bloobird' calculation is basically an equity-based simplified calculation. What hand would you rather have if you can only have a single option of raise-pre and shove flop.

Clearly...and very obviously that AA > 88.

If you think this entire discussion boils down to whether AA has more equity than 88, then I am sorry buddy, you have wasted your time reading. This might just be a tad more advance than which hand has more equity.

Also to iterate again that EV comes down to current pot size + IO - RIO.

Bigger the current pot relative to remaining effective stack sizes, lower the available IO and RIO. Simple example:

$1000 + $200 - $100

vs

$120 + $400 - $280

@ Buster

- comparing IO vs RIO for AA vs 88 on a K82 flop ain't completely the same
- yes, if 88 has some IO on K82 then AA does too, that's fair enough
- and UI AA will always have a TP underpair to get IO from, whereas UI 88 won't always have that; that's fair enough too
- but on that flop, 88 only has RIO against KK; AA has RIO against KK/88/22
- setwise, 88 has more IO than AA (i.e. much easier to generate action with a set that has one or two overcards on board than it is with top set that can't possibly have overcards on board)

- it's not about "minimizing losses"
- I mean, imagine a hand where you only get in 5% of your stack preflop (which already gets you breakeven+ UI given that you got 9:1 immediate odds in the 10way pot) and more-or-less the only time you get in the remaining 95% of money postflop is when you're ahead; that's a pretty good hand, right?

- even in the worse-case scenarios with 88 behind on 876/etc., we're not getting in our money too horribly bad; we're only a 2:1 dog and almost-kinda getting close to that thanks to the huge dead money
- AA gets it's money in as a much more massive dog far more often

GcluelessNLnoobG

Sure, but you are still missing the point. You reduce the size of initial pot by the size of your open. The bigger the open, the fewer the number of opponents will call, and lower the IO at the same time.

EV is maximized by finding that perfect balance of IO and RIO.[/QUOTE]


I’m not missing the point and you’re still arguing in bad faith. The ratios are fundamentally unchanged between whatever strategy we elect. It doesn’t affect your calculation at all. If anything, reducing the amount of money to play for relative to the size of the pot reduces RIO concerns

Yes someone is more likely to “stack off bad” with AA than with 55, and I’m not sure why we need to dwell on this. The times AA just gets to win more than makes up for this. Because it’s hard to make a hand that beats AA.


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Also prove to the class that AA isn’t +EV under any preflop circumstance.

And how about you actually abide by the question: it folds to us, is it profitable to play AA?

These are simple questions.


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This 5% of stack thing you keep bringing up is an obsession. Stop it. It’s the foundation of the strawman you build up.

We really don’t care what the result of our preflop action is. We don’t know how people are going to respond to our action. Yes, 44 is going to perform better if we raise utg and get the entire table to call than AQo will. But we don’t know if the entire table will call. Given the average action, AQo is probably going to win us money and 44 is probably going to lose us money.

Really if you’re raising UTG and getting every person at the table to call routinely, the question you need to ask yourself is how to best exploit this. And one good answer is to tighten up and raise to a bigger amount. Example: you raise AA to 10 bb and everyone calls. 100 bb pot, 90 bb in stack. It’s now very, very easy to play AA for maximum profit.

If you’re worried about RIO, the better solution (rather than not punishing people for calling too wide) is to check broadly on numerous board textures. Like if the board comes T87tt and someone bets and someone calls, you can just fold and it’s not a big deal (since 10 ways it’s likely one has you beat).


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Let's just take a simple definition and use that.

Implied Odds. Where pot odds take into consideration the money that's in the pot right now, implied odds is an estimation on how much money you CAN win from the bet if you hit one of your outs.

Now, what you are saying is that when 88 hits it's out it will make more on average than when AA hits it's out. Yeah, you would have to prove that to me. AA may get paid less often by one pair when there is an A OTF than 88 would when their is an 8 OTF, but as you say

So, I guess we can disregard that one pair situation.

So, let's define RIO.

Reverse implied odds are the opposite of implied odds. With implied odds you estimate how much you expect to win after making a draw, but with reverse implied odds you estimate how much you expect to lose if you complete your draw but your opponent still holds a better hand.

So, it is your contention that AA on an AKQ flop loses more than 88 on a 678 flop. Again you would have to prove this to me. I might argue that with more str8 possibilities, 88 has more chance to be behind.

Since AA and 88 will flop a set at the exact same frequency and win and lose thereafter at the exact same frequency and are just as likely to win the same amount of money each time (unless you somehow expect more callers to have 2 pair plus when their is an 8 OTB, a patently ridiculous statement), these cases can be eliminated from consideration.

Therefore, your argument boils down to this. You are saying 88 has more IO and less RIO than AA when neither of them flop a set.

Of course, 88 has 0 IO and 0 RIO.

AA quite obviously has some IO, therefore AA has more IO than 88. It also has some RIO, therefore 88 has less RIO than AA. However, given that AA is still best OTF ~60% of the time, it should be be obvious that even simple strategies (bet 150 and fold to any aggression, for example) will result in a positive expectation for AA, while 88 remains at 0. (In the games that I play in, of course, AA will get called by all sorts of hands TP and any draws, making shoving a very + EV play)

@GG I obviously disagree that AA has to get it's money in as a much more massive dog, see above.