[edit: Moved from the absurd thread]

All in on a 9S 9C 10S board when player a has JQ spades opponent has 22.

Player a hits a straight player b gets mad yells at player a he sucked out. Player a says he was ahead. Player b calls him a moron and says a made hand is always ahead.

He's right, you know. About being ahead, not the moron part.

Uh sir, Player A is saying 22 is ahead here. You're saying he is correct about that?

I find it especially hilarious when people say this in PLO about a "made hand" like tptk being "ahead" of a massive wrap/fd.

The donkery is real.

22 is ahead but it's also a 7 to 3 dog. You can be "ahead" and not be favored to win.

Humm... we're using different definitions of ahead then.

I don't think having the current best hand means you are ahead because there is always going to be a turn and river dealt out.

So I'd only consider the hand that is the equity favorite to be the hand that is ahead. And that is JQss in this case.

The guy with 22 :

Stop. This is a poker forum.

Being ahead and being favourite are completely different things

Not when all the money is in the middle imo.

Or if it still is even then, then it's just semantics.

No one who actually understands how math works would ever choose to hold the hand that is ahead if they could be holding the hand that is the favorite.

Maybe where you're from!

what he means is that in say a 3 handed pot you could be ahead, but the other two hands combined are still a favorite to beat you together

Exactly.

A It depends on what the meaning of the word "is" is.

Poker is not dead.

They're the same? Obviously I'm not as familiar with poker terms and the English language as I thought.

Let's say you have 22 on a 789 board vs 62,52, JQ,AK and 34. Are you favourite? Of course not, you need runner runner. Are you ahead, absolutely.

Jack just stop.

If Usain Bolt and I were running a 100 meter race, and he gave me a 20 meter headstart, one second after the gun went off, I would be ahead, but not the favorite. Just sayin'.

Oh, so my friend was ahead in Nebraska Ract'um?

You must be a bad shot.

Maybe the game where the guy with 22 thought he was ahead was the same game with 47 dueces?



The guy with 22 said he was "ahead" was ahead on the turn. Sure he wasn't a favorite, but at the time of him saying that he held a pair while his opponent held Jack high. So in his mind he was pissed the other dude called with a draw I'm guessing.

If you are not the favorite you are not ahead in heads up.

Guy claimed that you can be ahead while being a 7:3 underdog earlier in the thread and that's all I am refuting.

In a made up game with 112 deuces 6 queens and 6 kings in the deck, you aren't the favorite if you flop quad kings and your opponent flops 2's full. Would he argue the person with kings is "ahead"? The person with kings is not ahead.

Then again, maybe I'm crazy.

It semantics, but I don't really agree with you.

To me, being ahead means "ahead right now". i.e. you do not need to improve in order to win.

In most hold 'em games, if you're heads up and you're ahead, then the odds are good that you're also the favorite to win at the end, because the very biggest draws are still <50%. But against the field multi-way, or in non-holdem games like omaha or big O, you might be dodging more than half the deck still. Theoretically, in my definition you can still be ahead even if you're dodging 44 of the 45 remaining cards.

The favorite, on the other hand, is the one with the highest probability to win by the end of the hand. Sometimes (most times, really) that is the person who is currently ahead. Sometimes it is not, if an opponent has a particularly strong draw with many cards to come. You might also be the favorite to win, but not be a favorite to the field - i.e. you have a plurality chance to win, but not a majority chance.

Ahead just means winning at that point. Is not a comment on who will win the hand.