Sat down at my casino last night. Senior looks like his early 70s beside me. As soon as I sit down he asks me personal questions which is all right with me. I’m not a sunglasses earphones kind of person.

“Where did you go to school” comes up. I reply honestly.. I went to xxxxxx high school in Toronto.

He flips out and bursts with laughter .. he says he used to be a teacher at my high school. I now feel a little awkward. I hated high school and all the horrible teachers there.

He’s got 40 dollars in front, the minimum buy in.

In the very first couple of hands, I get dealt ace queen. I raise to 12 dollars and teach over here calls. Flop comes Ace- 9-2. I bet out 28 dollars and he snap calls. He turns over 6-2 offsuit as he loses and reloads.

I ask this guy.. “by the way” what subject did you teach?

“Math” he responds.

^ epic. As someone who loves math, one of the biggest tragedies to me is that people who go on to teach high school math tend to be terrible at it.

Been told by two different people (USA and abroad) that folding AA in a tournament to several all ins very early was a viable strategy because you can get knocked out early and not realize your EV.

I'm sure something like this is somewhere in this thread but just in case...

Personally even if 9 all ins on first hand I am never folding but maybe I am wrong?

It depends. Yes, it's -EV to fold there... But if it's a true donkament then it's probably not a good idea to take such a high variance line. Like I play in a weekly pub tourney. Literally the worst group of poker players I've ever met. Just terrible. The only times I don't cash is when I commit to a big hand pre and lose that 60/40 or 80/20 race.

I'm still never folding AA, but I do know in that specific game if multiple guys went all in and I look down at AA then I would be would likely cash 3/4 of the time if I folded vs race against a bunch of JT and 96s combos.

Agreed though that it's absurd thinking to ever fold AA pre.

I work this question into the fold a lot if the table starts to get dull ...

WSOP ME ($10K) ... You're in the BB and everyone goes all-in ahead of you on the first hand ... It's probably the only time you'll ever play the ME ... You look down at AA ... Do you call or fold? Bust (Sorry Honey, but I had AA!) or have a Day 2 chip stack after only one hand?

There's also a clip of 'The Big Game' where a Player looks down at AA with only 6 hands to go (of 150) and reluctantly folds in an effort to lock up a $100K+ win. Phil Laak ends up playing 66 and Flopping quads!! There's no telling how the hand plays out if 'Hero' raises instead of folds, but more than likely Phil sees a Flop. GL

Bellagio 2/5 yesterday.

On a board of 44578 with two s I bet 30 on the river and guy calls with 23 and said “I didn’t think you had anything”.

To be fair he was pretty drunk.

He must've meant that literally. He thought you didn't even have two cards it seems.

A couple of years ago, I had a spot on something like 753 where I shoved over a check raise with KK for value because the other guy was quite spazzy.

He tank folds, showing the nuts and explained to me that he put me on a set and was worried he'd be drawing dead if the board paired.

I've seen this manifest itself in many, many ways.

My ideal response is, "And neither did you...", but I don't want to educate the phish and elect to keep my mouth shut, even though I want to scream in their face when they river me via-witchcraft.

Edit: Err... I just noticed you said that the action was on the river. LOL

Playing in a home game Friday night.

.25c .50c PLO

3 way all in on the flop.

79xx
79xx
TJQk

On a board of 79Q rainbow.

Board runs out complete the straight draw.
1 of the guys holding 79xx snaps and starts complaing how he is getting run over and this was a 1 outer...

Most people dont say anything but the guy who won does and starts defending himself saying he had lots of outs, Blah Blah, Blah.

I later give him crap for saying anything after he won.

Cmon people. Dont coach the fish when they have "1" out.

so this guy calls off a bunch pre with K9s and then stacks off on the QJ8 flop, because he "knew the other guy had aces, and he wasn't going to fold after hitting the flop". All told they get $300 in over two streets. The other guy, a complete nit, did have aces, and the ten came swiftly. The nit exclaimed "WHAT?!" when he saw the other guys hand. Little does he know these guys are doing this **** all day every day. What a game.

I don’t know if this is the most absurd thinking but the comment on AA reminded me of it.

A few weeks ago I’m playing and there’s this man in his 70s or 80s playing. Definitely not OMC as he’s calling every single hand preflop unless there’s a big raise and sometimes even then.

He moved to sit beside me and talks about poker.

He told me that A-K suited is a better starting hand than AA.

I asked him why and he said because you can win with a pair of aces, a pair of kings, a straight and a flush but with AA you can only win with a pair.

I hope you said something like "Interesting, I never knew that".

Smile and nod, smile and nod.
Presumably AKo is best, ‘cos that means two flush draws.

Correction: T5o is best because you can make all straights in addition to 2 flushes.

Dude has a point about AK.
more ways to win

I have a saying when there's a major suck-out ... like when AQ beats QQ and similar ...

... "It's always good to have your opponents outs!"

Obviously it's meant for the QQ guy PF, but it always seems that the AQ guy chimes in that they agree (after the Axx Flop). GL

When I first started playing poker and was totally ignorant of the math behind it I'd often wonder if I had AK if I'd rather be up KK where I hope to spike the ace and then reduce his chance of hitting a set or QQ in which case even if I spiked a pair then "he had a greater chance to hit a set"

It was something I thought about with regularity spurred on by anecdotal evidence swaying the argument from one side to the other

This was the same year I was crushing AP statistics... Never even began to think about applying what I was learning in class to the real world

I also thought a hand like KTo was a premium holding... I kind of miss those days, to be honest game was a lot more fun and win rate was arguably higher than today

Game has changed dramatically

“Man, I woulda flopped _____!”

No. If you hadn’t folded, we’d be in a different universe, there’s no telling what the flop would be there.

This is extra annoying because the person who says this stuff will say it hand after hand until he’s told to stop.

Huh?

Quantum theory:

The cards dealt on the flop are undetermined until they’re observed. They have the potential to be any remaining, unobserved cards in the deck.

Multiverse theory:

You’re dealt a hand and you have a decision to fold/call/raise, so there are three potential universes waiting on your decision. The chances that the flops in all three will be the same are pretty small, I’d guess.

That's tryin' a bit hard to be intellectual there, bud.

It’s not incorrect. I keep forgetting knowledge is a negative in today’s America

Especially when the flops are like K83 and he's crying about folding 83 pf.

Except you blew both theories.

E.g. for the multiverse theory EVERY flop is paired with all three choices.