So I was playing 1/2 NL live at my local casino and I was heads up vs villain. I had AQ and he was holding 96.

I made a big bet preflop and he called....

flop came 96Q

He pushed all in and I called (which I shouldn't have) and lost to his two pair.


When I came home I wanted to see what the Equity/Win % was for my AQ suited vs his 96 suited preflop so I checked Equilab and was surprised to see that

AQs wins 61.29%
96s wins 38.27%

So basically my AQs was only about a 1.6 to 1 favorite to win the hand preflop.

What surprised me more is that it appears that 96s can profitably call all in with odds as little as 2 to 1 (and even less) and be better then break even vs AQs or AKs!

So does this mean that if I am holding 96s on the button preflop with a $100 stack and a player in EP bets $100 all in and then a player from MP calls all in $100 (and its folded around to me) now having $200 in the pot, I can call all in with my $100 stack with my 96s since I am getting 2 to 1 on my money and still be better than break even in the long run vs AKs or AQs ???

Can someone please confirm if my numbers and example above are correct (as far as the math goes) or if I am misunderstanding something?

EDIT: My scenario above should read as follows:


So does this mean that if I am holding 96s on the button preflop with a $100 stack and there is $200 in the pot after a $100 bet I can call the $100 bet all in with my 96s since I am getting 2 to 1 on my money (calling $100 to win the $200) and still be better than break even in the long run vs AKs or AQs heads up preflop ???

You're not getting 2:1 unless some 3rd person also put $100 into the pot. True he bet $200 and it's temporarily in the main pot, but you'll only get to win $100 of it so you're only getting 1:1. Once you call, the pot will be $200 but half of that would be your own money which also doesn't count toward the odds you're getting.

Another issue is that you don't know he has AQ/AK. Big pairs are also in his range and your equity against them is significantly worse. Your overall equity is a weighted average against a range of hands (weighted by their relative likelihoods), and those overpairs bring your average down. I haven't tried Equilab yet but I'm sure you can type in a range of hands for your opponent.

Edit -- As for your own money not counting toward your odds, that statement applies to money you haven't put it yet. On the flop, if you guys weren't already all-in, and he bets the flop, then you do count the money you put in preflop as part of the current pot. (But again, not the money you'd have to put in to make the call.)

You probably were referring to his $200 anyway

In your original post, you included a 2nd bidder who makes the pot 200. Your pot odds are 2 to 1 but now you are facing 2 opponents, so the required-equity dynamics change. Yes, if you are all-in, you still need to win 1/3 of the time to break-even but that means you have to beat both opponents. One might argue that to beat both, you need equity against each of 0.33^0.5 = 0.574, but that assumes the same equity against each, which is not likely. Also, with different stack sizes for the players, if you are not the short stack, you may be playing all-in against one opponent and have more betting streets against another so side pots are involved. Multi-way EV analysis can get complicated.

Another reason 96s is worse that it seems is you often won't know you have the better hand, or if you do, you won't know until the river.

Only 6% of the time do you get a flush, but 17% of the time you'll end up with one pair and AQ will not pair. That's nearly half your winning hands that are too weak to bet, you'll either fold or win a small pot.

Or say you win with a set of 6's versus a pair of A's. Unless both 6's come to the board before the A, which happens only 40% of the time, you probably have to fold before showdown.

OP, Gus Hansen made a good living early on in his poker career by noticing things like you discovered.