No, actually they aren't all that different. But I'm not going to argue because it will just go back and forth.

This argument of AA vs how many players has been brought up many times. The math and the study behind it does not lie. Maybe Venice will post a link to the thread he was talking about. I dont claim to be a poker math expert, and when I first saw the AA argument I was actually blown away and kind of upset. I wanted to punch the author in the face. I was like, "Brah everything I have learned about playing AA has taught me get it HU or 2 players, what the eff is this EV stuff!!!!" But then it made some sense.

Do I go looking for 9 handed pots with AA (unless people wanna flip for $100 a time 100 times )? Not really (and I doubt it will ever happen). But when I do raise with it I dont mind each caller. I mean it used to bug me when I would raise and all of a sudden people lined up to call, but it doesnt any more. I actually get very happy and say to myself, "Oh baby here we go!!!"

I know you are thinking 3 streets at a time, but if you look at most posts here that deal with AA a lot of them have a OTF decision and for the most part many people say shove shove shove never fold. Its not to often we go multiple streets with AA, and if we do the decisions generally get simpler because of board texture and stack sizes.

Uber calling stations on crack. Pls send table location and I won't ever post a strat question again


Thanks for the math.

I think some of the fighting here is the result of people addressing different questions, then arguing why others' have a different answer. Different questions should have different answers.

Question #1: If everyone at the table is all in PF, and I wake up in the BB with AA, should I call?

Yes, because calling is +EV.

Question #2: If I am UTG and I raise to 12BB, does my equity go up for each caller?

Yes, your equity goes up for each caller. In this sense, you "want" more callers.

Question #3: If I am UTG and I raise to 12BB, should I be mad or happy if the whole table calls?

Being happy or mad is illogical.

Question #4: If I am UTG and I raise to 12BB, will the hand be more difficult to play if I get 8 callers, or if I get 2 callers?

Playing against 8 callers is more difficult because ranges are far more difficult to determine when playing against so many players. On the other hand, there is more money to be won against 8 callers.

Question #5: What should I do if I get AA UTG?

Anytime you are faced with a decision you should focus on the following:

How can I win the most when ahead, but lose the least when behind?

This answer to this question will determine how much you should raise to, or if you should L/RR.

Question #6: What is the correct amount to raise to UTG with aces?

Everyone has a different style of play. More than one style can result in a positive win-rate. The amount you raise to will depend on the style you play and the table dynamics, which includes the table's PR%, average pot size, average # of players to the flop, ect.

There is no correct way to play anything. Eventually we learn that we have to balance our lines. For this reason, we can't play AA the same every time we have them UTG, or anywhere else.

Question #7: What is my EV if I raise PF to 5BB with AA and get 4 callers? 8 callers? What if I raise to 3BB?

When you are AI, you can calculate your EV. If you are not AI, you don't have an EV in the same sense.

For example, if you raise AI with JJ PF, and I call you with 72, you have +EV. In this spot, over the long run, it is a mathematical fact that you will show a profit.

On the other hand, if we are 200BB deep, and you raise to 5BB with JJ PF, and I call you with 72, you don't have +EV in the same sense.

You can say your equity is 80%, and that you have an EV of +3BB, but you are not guaranteed that profit.

In this case, you are seeing a flop, but you won't know where you stand. You won't win every time you out flop me, and you won't lose every time I out flop you. Sometimes we will bluff each other out of the pot.

You might not even get to see the turn or the river.

So, it isn't correct to compare this case with the AI case in terms of EV.

So in this spot, despite the fact that you raised PF with JJ, and I called with worse, you are not guaranteed over the long run to show a profit even though some say you made a +EV decision and I made a -EV decision. To show the profit, you will have to out play me post flop. And that is the larger point...How will be out play our opponent post flop?

Fair enough.

The thread was over a year ago and I'm too lazy to find it. It was discussing Schoonmaker's book. I do remember that I screwed up the math in it and said that the BE point was 8 players when it is really larger than that.

The AA example is really just support for one of his major themes of that book. Winning at poker is unnatural. Most people lose. You have to break a lot of habits and actions that feel right, but are actually wrong to be a winning player. I certainly understand that when you have AA, you want to win with it every time. The unnatural portion of it is to finally realize that you want to maximize how much money you can win with it in the long term vs. trying to make sure you win with it this time.

In a super deep game like cbarton's second example (everyone at 500BB), then AA is still a great hand, but you need to treat it differently than in a 50BB game. At those levels, the guy open folding AK pf UTG is making a good play, as Bobby Hoff mentioned in the interview in HOC. You're almost at the point you'd rather have 76s on the button than AA UTG.

Welcome to NL cash. The way you win is to out play your opponents post flop.

What was the point of this post?

I'm attempting to answer an elementary question...sorry if in doing so I have to state elementary facts...this is a forum where most posters are beginners playing $1-2, or still stuck at $1-2.

I see a lot of posters commenting on the quality of your contributions. But to me, you've been trolling a lot more than anything else.

I really don't see the point of that post.

Sigh.

OK, the longer answer.

You wrote a very long post looking at AA and a lot of callers. However, it only looks at it from a PF point of view. Even with this point of view, there are some, let's not call it wrong, but say answers that are costing you money.

Q1: It depends. From a theoretical point of view, with essentially unlimited bankroll, the answer is yes. However, suppose you have for some reason put your entire bankroll on the line and won't be able to ever play poker again if you lose. At some point, you may have an edge, but the loss is too great to be worth the gamble. There's a good story where Benny Binion was watching a craps game going at his Horseshoe casino. The Horseshoe was famous for having uncapped betting. The roller was doing well enough that he decided to make a bet such that if he doubled it a couple times, he'd bankrupt Benny. Benny walked over and prevented him from placing the bet. The guy protested, "But I thought you had no limits." Benny responded, "I did too, until now."

Q2: Correct.

Q3: People play poker for many reasons, often unrelated to money. However, the "score" is kept in terms of money (we'll skip for now whether money even exists or not). 2+2 is an organization dedicated to helping people maximize their winnings. Posters in this forum should be assuming that if someone posts a hand, they want to know what is the best response to maximize their winnings. If someone posted a hand and said, "How do I get the best adrenaline rush," my answer will be different than that of making the most money. Playing better and maximizing my winnings makes me happy at a poker table. Occasionally, I'll have other goals at the poker table, but not for stakes I care about. Making poor plays makes me angry. To argue that it makes no sense that a situation can develop that makes me happier or angrier just isn't how most people feel and that frankly is illogical.

Q4: You answered correctly. Mpethy (the micro forum mod) told a story a while back about some free coaching he got from some high stakes players. They were sweating him and he made a raise in a situation. They asked him why and he responded that it made the hand easier to play. They shot back at him, "That's true, but is the goal to make the decision easier or to make the play to make the most money?"

Q5: This part of your answer bothers me pf: "How can I win the most when ahead, but lose the least when behind?" These are in conflict with each other. Other than having AA pf and the nuts afterward, there is always a chance you are behind. There's only a couple of percent boards possible where a set is the nuts on the river. There's always the chance you're beat. If you play trying to minimize your loss, you'll always be losing value to the vast number of other hands in their range that you beat. What you have to do is understand that if you can beat 55% of his calling range, you're betting, even though 45% of the time you're beat and lose more money. Sometimes, you should be sticking your stack in even if you are going to lose the majority of the time. TBH, I'll guess that you lose a lot of value by checking down rivers.

Q6: This is wrong: "For this reason, we can't play AA the same every time we have them UTG, or anywhere else." I know Action Dan doesn't believe this either, but it is a leak. The way you balance it is by playing other hands exactly the same way. Or you play based on the action before you and likely action after. You need AA in your raising range because there is so much other stuff that isn't that good in your raising range to balance it.

Q7: You don't understand EV. EV takes into account whether there is no further betting or lots of further betting. Just as someone might hit a set against AA, AA can often run up against Ax and crush it.

Despite all this, the real point is that NL cash is a post flop game. The trinity of poker is Skill, Cards, and Position. If you hold two of the three of them, you're in a good position to win the hand. You can't do anything about the cards. Your starting hand and the board will be what it will be. At a table, some times you'll have position and sometimes you won't. You can improve the odds of having position by playing more hands late than early, but you can't fold everything in EP.

The last element is skill. I can give a player a starting hand guide, with directions of what to do based on the betting and position. Even the flop play can be made fairly straight forward. The real skill in NL is after that. Mistakes are magnified on the turn and river because the bet sizes become so much bigger. Frankly in today's capped game, playing AA is fairly trivial post flop if 8 people call your 5BB raise pf. The pot is about 40BB and you have 145BB left. There's no flop you aren't committed to stacking off, for the reason that TP and smaller OP are also just as committed. Now if you are in a 600BB game, it changes. You're able to walk away from a bunch of pressure from an ABC player. You might raise smaller to keep the potential SPR over 13 in EP.

If you don't have a skill advantage over your opponents, poker is going to come down to things you don't have any real control over. You're going to end up over time a losing player, because of the rake. Therefore, my big problem with your post was your last statement. If you are asking how to beat your opponents post flop, you are playing in too tough a game. NL poker is about out playing your opponents post flop. That is the only edge you have. When I sit at a table, I'm not staying if I don't think I'm at least equal to the best other players there. I don't care about the situation. If you have just realize that now, then you've only just started on your poker journey.

PS. If you haven't read limon's 2000th post thread, you need to. While I love to quote one paragraph, his conclusion that you need to treat poker hands like billiards flicked a switch for me. It will probably take me a couple of more years to fully understand the implications of that simple statement.

At first I was impressed by your post. You took the time to give your opinion on each of the questions I brought up. Then I came to this part:

Normally I would be annoyed by this, but tonight I shipped a $2400 pot, so I'm not.

I am a college professor. I teach math. EV is a trivial matter that I learned many years ago. I do understand EV. I am going to address the other parts of your post, but first I'd like to settle this matter.

Consider the following two scenarios.

Case #1. We are playing HU4ROLLZ and we are 1000BB deep. You raise AI PF with AA. I call with 72. In this case your EV is well defined, and we can calculate it as follows.

Referring to pokerstove, we find that you win 88.977%, lose 11.023%, and tie 00.24%.

EV is defined to be,

EV = px - qy,

Where p is the probability you win, q is the probability you lose, x is the amount you win if you win, and y is the amount you lose, if you lose.

Thus, in this case, your EV is:

EV = px - qy = 0.88977*1000 - 0.11023*1000 = 779.54.

Your EV is +779.54.

Case #2: We are playing HU4ROLLZ and we are 1000BB deep. You are dealt AA and elect to raise to 3BB. I call with 72. At this point, a railbird asks you, "Venice, what is your EV here?".

If you were to respond:

EV = px - qy = 0.88977*3 - 0.11023*3 = 2.34BB,

you would be wrong. And here is why:

p represents the probability that you win the hand. And that is not the same as the probability that AA beats 72 when five cards are run, and a showdown takes place. This is the case because there will be times each of us wins with the worst hand due to what is refereed to as "bluffing".

Furthermore, x represents the amount of money you win, if you win the hand. Which is unknown ATM because the bet-sizing OTF, OTT, and OTR has not yet been selected.

In this case, your EV is not well defined. We can discuss your potential EV, or your general equity going to the flop, but you do not have a value that you can expect to earn over the long run. To extract value, you have to play a poker hand.

This case is very different than flipping a coin, or rolling dice.

Okay, now let's talk about rest of your otherwise good post:

For the record, Q1 was: "If everyone at the table is all in PF, and I wake up in the BB with AA, should I call?"

Finding a reason to disagree with the simple answer of "yes" indicates that you might just be overly eager to find a reason to disagree with me. I believe that is the case here.

Obviously the answer to Q1 is simply "yes". The fact that: you might not be rolled for calling, or that you are cross-cross-reverse-cross booked, or that wining the first hand (if this is the first hand) is known to be bad luck, should be understood to be irrelevant for the general answer here.

Now, later you say,

I'm not arguing that a situation can not develop that would make you happy or angry. I know that there are situations that make you happy, and some that make you angry.

What I'm telling you is that, IMHO, emotions are illogical.

Later you say,
Of course these two conflict each other. That's the whole point.

Later on,

I find that balancing my lines and ranges is necessary to beat the regulars I play with each night. Many of these players are very clever, and unless I mix things up, they will use their hand reading skills, combined with my repeated lines, to find ways to out play me.

And that is something I can not allow to happen, sir.

I never want anyone to be able to take certain hands out of my range, or be correctly confident that my range is narrow. The more a player can narrow my range, the better they can play against me.

Repeatedly taking the same lines with certain hands is exploitable. That might not be an issue at $1-2, but it is as the games get bigger.

This completes my post.

Here is the link.
http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/78...s-book-636825/

Strawman argument.

If I had enough measurements, and the time to calculate all of the potential scenarios for each street, someone (not me) would be able to calculate an exact measurement. However, the equation you give is not the correct equation of EV for the above situation.

What I am saying is not that you don't understand how to calculate EV when the cards are exposed and there is no more betting. What you appear to not understand is that in poker it is never an exact number, but occupies a range of values based on the unknowns involved. This goes well beyond the cards, and includes position and the relative skill of the two players involved at that moment. One of the mods on the micro forum has millions of hands in his DB after working with lots of players coaching. He can tell you on average what a player makes with AA overall and the range of values he's seen. Therefore, even if I can't derive the formula, measuring results can give a good approximation of the EV should be in this and another situations.

To be fair, it is quite possible for a player to be in a negative EV situation if they have AA and 7 other players are in the hand. Their skill level could be too weak to profit from the situation because they'll tend to over play AA in certain deep situations. As a temporary measure, one could (and probably should) sacrifice some potential EV to make the decision making easier. However, the real solution is to learn how to play so that one can profit from the situation, not shy away from it.

As for having to vary your play, nothing I write will convince you otherwise, but you should go through to the exercise of calculating how long it will take before you can show you are capable of repeatedly playing AA in EP unconventionally.

Sorry mods, I'm done derailing the thread.

It's not a SM argument because I used the word "if". If I said,

Then I would have made a SM argument. But to be fair, you never said a player's EV in that spot is 2.34BB.

The reason I created that example is because other posters seem to think it is +2.34BB because they keep referring to AI equity.

This is exactly the point that I have been trying to make. The probability that a player wins with AA, and the amount they win, are unknown going to the flop when both players still have chips left.

For this reason, it is incorrect to talk about their "EV" in the same sense that we can talk about a player's EV in the game of roulette.

In fact, even if a player has a million hand DB, and finds that historically they averaged +2.85BB in the above example, that would not constitute an EV. For an EV to exist, is must reflect future results guaranteed by the law of large numbers. And that doesn't apply because this player with such a large DB is not guaranteed to be able to out play his opponents as s/he has in the past.

The data is historical and is not a guarantee of future results. Maybe his/her opponents will adjust to his/her play, and over the next 1 million hands s/he will only average 2.13BB.

You're not using the term "EV" correctly, as it is defined mathematically.

Many people have high jacked the term +EV to simply mean "good decision". It is understandable why this has occurred, but "good decision" and "+EV" are not the same thing.

I don't always play it unconventionally. Sometime I L/RR, sometimes I raise to 4bb, sometimes I raise to 20BB, sometimes I open shove.

I appreciate all the answers and the, um, vigorous discussion. I'll try to pull this back to noob territory. Putting aside the theoretical discussions of a 9-way shove and the debate of playing three streets vs. running-it, it seems pretty clear that the common wisdom on how to play AA is very wrong . . . right?

I understand the idea that a very small raise might lead to too many callers which would be very hard to play post-flop. That being said, you need to invite some action here ... otherwise you are just leaving money on the table. In short, the common wisdom on results (win a lot of small pots and lose a few big pots) is a direct result of the common wisdom on how to play pocket aces (as well as the inability to lay it down). If I invite more callers I should be playing bigger pots. Instead of winning small pots 80-90% of the time, maybe I'll end up winning much larger pots 60-70% of the time. I'd have to assume that the optimal number of callers would really depend upon the skill level of the hero vs. skill level of the potential villians.

So far, most of the discussion has focused on the hero making the initial raise since the basic question was how many callers do you want. Let's assume our hero is on the button and someone from middle position has raised to 5BB and gotten two callers (assume stacks of 100-150BB). Here we already have 3 opponents. We can ignore metagame considerations and just focus on the most +EV in a complete vacuum. What's your optimal play here?

The most optimal play is going to be to maximize your value which is to make a raise that will invite all of those players into the pot. I am assuming every one else besides these 3 have either already folded or will fold. You need to take into consideration the type of players they are. Are they nits? Are they gambling types? Are they your common casino limp too much, call raises too much type of players? Figure that out then decide what number best fits. You also want to maximize the best chance of stacking someone, so you will have to consider stack sizes also. It's going to be very table/player dependent. It's all about maximizing your long term profits, not your short term.

Yeah, I realized I was going to get the ubiquitous "it depends" answer but appreciate that the correct answer is the same as the answer to the initial question (make a raise that will invite all of those players into the pot).

I'm probably flogging a dead horse here and have gotten answers to my intial question so thanks to all.

/close thread . . . book'em Dano/

I think you are missing a real basic point here.

You might win the blinds 80/85/%.

Small pots 60/65%.

Big pots 25/35%. Not scientific, just guessing. In baseball a batter that fails 70% of the time gets into The Baseball Hall of Fame.

Are you willing and happy to lose with AA 70% of the time? There is a psychological element here too.

Yeah it's pretty much the same answer to: Why do live players raise so much pre flop? The answer is: value. ldo. Thats another thread another day though.

I know I am going to be mercilessly tortured for this post and hate to be the one that sounds all ridiculous, but I feel like much of what is being said here is straight up wrong (I stand behind pretty much everything from Princess Azula). And yes, if you can somehow get all your chips in the middle pre, you want a million-billion callers.

Any basic poker book (Harrington on Holdem/cash games) will tell you to maximize mathematically correct plays for yourself while maximizing mathematical mistakes by your opponents. While increasing the number of callers of your bet will increase your immediate EV, it also improves the implicit value of hands for subsequent callers. Somehow, over the course of this thread the idea implied odds have disappeared entirely, which is ridiculous. There is a reason you call it common wisdom.

Here is a somewhat contrived Example (I'm using stoved values w/ reasonable hands):
All stacks 100bb
You have AA.
You have four choices-Limp,raise to 5bb, raise to 10bb, shove
This is game dependent, if 100% call, shove. If 100% fold to a raise, limp. Reality, don't do either, raise to 5bb you get 4 callers(one pair, two big cards, one suited connector, one idiot), 10bb you get one(pair). Either you invest 5 to win 20 or you invest 10 to win 10. raise to 5bb=5.7bb return, raise to 10bb=5.8bb return. Seems close right? Not even remotely. In a 5-way pot top pair on the flop is winning about 40%. 2-way it's about 80%. It is far more likely that you will get called or bet into by a worse hand 2-way than 5-way. Moreover, if you theoretically can play perfectly, it is still better to be against one player who has situational understanding (hand strength versus # of players in pot). While these numbers are hard to quantify, they need to be incredibly thin to justify this logic, and they aren't thin.

Yes, but I would make the argument that inducing callers preflop is, in fact, maximizing opponent mistakes since they are putting their money in significantly behind. I am putting aside the more hypothetical examples in which everyone calls ... in that instance, the last few callers aren't making a mathematical mistake since they have proper odds to call with ATC. In the more realistic examples, though, where we are inducing 3-4 callers with a more moderate raise, all the math presented thus far indicates this is the mathematically correct play. I know this ignores implied odds, but how do you calculate that - - it is completely situation/player dependent. Even with the larger raise and only one caller, that caller may be making the correct call based on implied odds (obv heavily dependent upon hero, villian & stack size).

I wouldn't characterize it as a situation where one side or the other is wrong ... they have just taken different approaches. From a purely mathematical pre-flop standpoint, you want more callers ... I don't think anyone has really disputed that. Princess Azula seemed to be making more of a playability argument which can be valid too (and is hero dependent). For me, I'll take 2 or 3 opponents. If I get 4 callers, so be it ... I'd rather have that than just take down the blinds.

My basic issue is that everyone tells you you don't want multiple opponents ... and they aren't simply arguing against playing vs. the entire table, they mean you want to be HU. This just seems flat out wrong. More than any other hand, aces holds up well against multiple opponents. How many you want really depends upon the situation (e.g., my skill level vs. the table), but I just can't see that you want to isolate it. And, how do you isolate it down one opponent? You make what looks like a typical "big hand" raise. Now, I am not only minimizing my winnings, I am presenting a very narrow range. I really think players who take this approach make it much easier for opponents to crack their aces. If I you have a PP and are facing someone you can put on a really narrow range like QQ+/AK, I think you can profitably play the thin side of the 5/10 rule ... but that's a topic for another thread.

I think you've ignored the fact that the larger raise is going to just take down the blinds+limpers a fairly high percentage of the time. You don't get 1 caller you probably average .3 - .5 callers.

I respectfully disagree with this as a generalization. In the 2-way hand, you have represented greater strength and there is less likelihood that the flop will connect for your single opponent. Playing a 4-5 way hand I think you are fairly likely to get action from TPTK/TPGK type hands and from worse overpairs (possibly from multiple players) since:
1 - you haven't represented anything of greater strength than your usual x% range for a "standard" pfr
2 - the ratio of the pot size vs. the initial bet size makes it a tempting target (just another variant on the represented hand strength but this time encompassing all players)
3 - more players means a greater chance of the flop connecting for an opponent (good or bad depending upon how hard it hits them)

FWIW, my response isn't meant to flame you. I just find this a very interesting area for discussion. I, for one, really don't understand the logic behind wanting to play aces HU. I can understand the argument against inviting the whole table into the pot but there's a lot of space between here and there.

No, I think I get it and personally, I am willing to lose more pots if it means I make more money over the long haul. As to the %'s you've listed, they seem a little dire but I guess it depends upon how you judge pot size. I was assuming what I see as typical for $1-2 ... stacks ~100BB and figuring you are making raises/reraises targeting 2-4 callers. I'd foresee a typical situation of flop pots like 25BB where you lead and maybe 40BB where you moderately reraise (e.g. firing 12BB into 4-5 opps in at 3BB). So, I'm thinking these would be medium sized pots which you probably ship ~60% of the time. And I think you win big pots a larger % of time too . . . maybe 30-40% (let's say a large pot is 75+% of the stack). If you have a pot of say 25-40BB OTF and haven't represented great hand strength, don't you think you are going to sometimes get a cowboy to raise all-in with TPTK or worse overpairs?

Either way, I want to be clear that I am not advocating trying to get the entire table into the pot . . . I know I don't have the skill to play that. I do think you can reasonably increase the action you get with your aces to take down a avg pot probably 3x's larger than you would otherwise by decreasing your win rate from say 80% to 60%.

Complete vacuum, I think you need to raise this all day long. Hes made it 5BB to go, so with 15BB in the pot, that is 10% of the largest stack. So if they fold were hedged, and if they have a hand, TA-DA, we get all our money in way ahead.

But I will say, if the first raiser is 'wild' and you know it I see a call here, because we have position. Even more so if the original callers are nits, because unless someone flops a set, we can make more on the flop with the lag tard c betting 90% of the time. That all said, maybe still raise anyway.