Posted Fri Mar 02, 2007 11:43 am GMT by rshel12
I have a question regarding a hand that I played yesterday in Atlantic City playing in a 1 2 no limit game. Min 60.00 and Max 300 buy in. I had just rebought after losing with AA with a stupid all in bet after the turn. Oh well. I rebought for 300 and the dealer deals. I was second to act and look at KK. 1st position bets 12 and I make it 27 to go. 3rd position calls and 4th makes it 75. The rest of the players fold through the button and the blinds and 1st re-raises to 300. I'm at a loss here. I've not played with these guys but about fifteen minutes so don't know them. I can tell that the guy to my left is solid and he has 500 in front of him, but have I have a small read on the guy who raised me to 75. I know he cracked my aces with a gut shot 50.00 call and his hands were shaking like he just won the WSOP. So I'm pretty sure I have him with my kings, but I'm not sure he doesn't have AA. It's the guy under the gun I can't get a read on. He could easy have aa and even if he doesn't he's sure to have a pp. If i call the action is hot and the guy to my left who must have 99 1010 JJ or has AK or AQ will be sure to call just for the odds. This hand gave me bad dreams as i finally decided to muck my cowboys pre flop. Turns out that the guy to my left did in fact have AQ. The next player folds pocket Queens and first position takes the pot down pre flop with 10 10. Nice move on his part, but the whole hand plays different if I call. Then the action puts both guys behind me in and we look for 1200.00 winner. I was pretty sure (wrongly) that 1st psotion had aa. Even if I'm wrong I know any board ace beats me if he's silly enough to make that bet with AK. But, once we all play, I have to hit a set to win in my mind and I only have $27.00 in the thing. What should I have done?
Did you know that participating in a poker forum can help you improve your own game? Be it by sharing experiences or simply asking for help, participation in a forum helps you focus and keep 'on topic' which will help you improve your game. You can learn from other players feedback and from their experiences. Why the THP poker forums? We offer one of the best managed texas holdem poker forums available, and the community within is far more friendly than those typicaly found on other sites. We've made a 'lurkers edition' of the poker forum available here on Holdem Poker Online, but we encourage all visitors to register and join in on the conversations on TexasHoldem-Poker.com
Posted Fri Mar 02, 2007 11:50 am GMT by tame_deuces
150BB stacks and you don't have to worry about folding KK much. Based on the preflop action in that hand alone I'd wager that table wasn't a rock garden and there is an good chance of KK being good.
Sure it sucks to see AA with KK, but it happens and you'll be worse poker player worrying about it than you will be ignoring it.
Posted Fri Mar 02, 2007 11:58 am GMT by MasterShake
At a 10 handed table you'll see AA about once out of every 20 hands you get KK.
Posted Fri Mar 02, 2007 5:36 pm GMT by rshel12
It's your opinon, that cowboys never get mucked pre flop?
Posted Fri Mar 02, 2007 6:18 pm GMT by xDiamond_CutteRx
| rshel12 wrote: | | It's your opinon, that cowboys never get mucked pre flop? |
That certainly isn't my opinion. While I agree that KK should be folded preflop very rarely, sometimes you just have to. In the above situation, for example, if 3 of you get all your money in preflop, KK will win far less than you think it will. In fact, if you're up against Ax and an underpair, you need to dodge a lot of cards. And if one person does have Aces, you're in big trouble.
Without extra information, I think the above situation makes it an easy fold. Unless you REALLY have a good reason to believe these guys are just pushing with nothing, I'd advise mucking, and not feeling too bad about it.
The UTG player raises (strong)
You reraise (super-strong)
A third person calls (ordinarily very strong, but maybe a donkish play)
The NEXT player raises AGAIN (ultra-strong)
Then the original raiser RE-raises (super-duper-ultra strong)
Even among the most donkish players, that smells sooooo much like Aces that I wouldn't feel too bad about folding KK here. Against players with even a faint knowledge of the game, I don't see how he could have anything BUT Aces. Even if you throw away the best hand here, if these players are really that bad, chances are you will have plenty of shots at their money. Even if, in these circumstances, you have the best hand, I would not ordinarily expect to be ahead if I called.
Posted Fri Mar 02, 2007 7:16 pm GMT by rshel12
Thanks for that advice. I'm trying to get better at this game, but it's a little complicated sometimes. Your post makes great sense to me and my real fear was a four way all in. I couldn't figure the the odds on that one and my small contribution of less then 30 made it seem sensible. The table, on the other hand, as i allowed the dealer to tell my muck, thought I was nuts.
Posted Sat Mar 03, 2007 3:17 am GMT by Jauron
After 15 minutes and without any reads I am NEVER folding in this spot.
I challenge anyone to show me this is a mistake in a 1/2 casino game that is anything but a rock garden and without ANY reads.
Would you fold if the entire 10 man table moved in preflop starting from UTG to you in the BB with AA in a cash game if you had just purchased your chips?
Pretty sure you are a bigger dog with the AA hand than anything you could come up with 4 way that doesn't already have you beat preflop.
Posted Sat Mar 03, 2007 6:46 am GMT by rshel12
If I call the guy to my left also calls and I suspect he's on AK or AQ. If he has AK, then obviously he has one of my outs. Also, he's cutting his chips and I suspect he'll do whatever I do because of the pot size. I think the next guy is a donk, so even if he knows he's beat, he's going to call if we do or maybe not. He's one of those college kids that thinks he's good, but Ihave him marked to get my money back. As i said he called a fifty dollar pot bet into a heads up pot after the flop on a gut shot draw against my AA the hand before. The bastard hit it too. I expect him to show qq or jj. But, if the four of us are in and AA isn't turnd over (a big if in my mind), one player will have an ace. Therefore the dealer can't board 3 aces, 2 jacks or 2 queens.... which tell me that there are still 7 cards in the deck that beat me if, as I wrongly suspected, the guy doesn't have AA as a starter. That doesn't even deal with the straights and posible flushes. I'd get 4 to 1 on my money, but only have a small amount in there. I could have hit a home run, but was already down a buy in during the first fifteeen minutes and I don't usually play more than two. I thought there would be better places to take my chances. I really appreciate your view point as you must have been at the table because they all said EXACTLY what you said.
Posted Sat Mar 03, 2007 8:03 am GMT by snoogins47
Sacrificing a good chunk of value in a cash game because you're afraid of the risk, is generally not something that's going to sit well with folks while discussing poker strategy. Whether or not you should fold there because you don't want to put an entire buy-in into the pot with a good chance of losing it is a personal decision. However, all that we're concerned with in these sorts of discussions is what decision wins us the most money. That might not be the 'right' thing to do if you place more value on enjoyment/other things, but in essence, deviating from that ideal would be 'bad poker strategy.'
The strategy part though is really a matter of simple math, though it's so hard to really tell exactly what your winning chances are in multiway pots... basically when you start talking about large multiway all-ins and getting 4-1 or so on your stack, even a fairly small chance that you're significantly ahead in the hand is way more than enough, coupled with your suckout chances, that you absolutely must get involved. 4-way all in preflop with KK, even if you're up against AA your win percentage is still somewhere in the teens, compared to the 20% you need to break even getting 4 to 1.
Basically, think about it: pretend you're getting 4:1 on your stack...if the 4-way all in happens and somebody has AA, you're probably winning like 15% of the time, compared to the 20% which you would have needed to make it profitable. With the hands that WERE there, you would've been wining >50% of the time. When the times you're winning are massively profitable, and the times you're losing aren't that bad, generally do everything in your power to get involved, unless somebody shows you their hand.
That's generally one of the biggest things KK has that makes folding it preflop so hard/almostalwayswrong: there is only ONE hand in the deck that it is behind to, and it is WAY AHEAD of all others. That's basically what allows smaller pairs to be folded pretty easily (and what makes them so significantly weaker than AA and KK): with a smaller pair, there's not a whole lot of situations where you fold, and it makes you want to cry because you were a massive favorite. With KK, there's plenty of times that you're up against AK, QQ, JJ, AQ, where if you fold and find that out, it's puke-worthy.
Posted Sat Mar 03, 2007 2:53 pm GMT by supafrey
First person to answer the "would i call with AA if everyone moves in before me" gets a sad, sad look from me.
Posted Sat Mar 03, 2007 3:32 pm GMT by efram
supa wrote
| Quote: | | First person to answer the "would i call with AA if everyone moves in before me" gets a sad, sad look from me. |
I fold AA every time here.
Especially if I'm deep stacked vs all shorties.
waaaaaay waaaaaaaaaaaay +EV
Posted Mon Mar 05, 2007 12:15 am GMT by Jauron
| efram wrote: | supa wrote
| Quote: | | First person to answer the "would i call with AA if everyone moves in before me" gets a sad, sad look from me. |
I fold AA every time here.
Especially if I'm deep stacked vs all shorties.
waaaaaay waaaaaaaaaaaay +EV |
Looks pretty standard to me.
Posted Wed Mar 07, 2007 6:54 am GMT by jimmer
From a psycholgical point of view, if you've just lost a big pot with pocket Aces and only been at the table for 15 minutes, there must be a slight doubt in your mind to whether to play the hand or not. I can understand this.
However. looking at the big picture, without any reads on the other guys, you're gonna play this hand. Obviously you're chance of winning decreases with the amount of opponents you're facing.
At the very least, getting bummed out within 15 minutes with pocket Aces, then pocket Kings is just unlucky not weak play.
Posted Fri Mar 09, 2007 1:28 pm GMT by shorn7
| Quote: | Sacrificing a good chunk of value in a cash game because you're afraid of the risk, is generally not something that's going to sit well with folks while discussing poker strategy. Whether or not you should fold there because you don't want to put an entire buy-in into the pot with a good chance of losing it is a personal decision. However, all that we're concerned with in these sorts of discussions is what decision wins us the most money. That might not be the 'right' thing to do if you place more value on enjoyment/other things, but in essence, deviating from that ideal would be 'bad poker strategy.'
The strategy part though is really a matter of simple math, though it's so hard to really tell exactly what your winning chances are in multiway pots... basically when you start talking about large multiway all-ins and getting 4-1 or so on your stack, even a fairly small chance that you're significantly ahead in the hand is way more than enough, coupled with your suckout chances, that you absolutely must get involved. 4-way all in preflop with KK, even if you're up against AA your win percentage is still somewhere in the teens, compared to the 20% you need to break even getting 4 to 1.
Basically, think about it: pretend you're getting 4:1 on your stack...if the 4-way all in happens and somebody has AA, you're probably winning like 15% of the time, compared to the 20% which you would have needed to make it profitable. With the hands that WERE there, you would've been wining >50% of the time. When the times you're winning are massively profitable, and the times you're losing aren't that bad, generally do everything in your power to get involved, unless somebody shows you their hand.
That's generally one of the biggest things KK has that makes folding it preflop so hard/almostalwayswrong: there is only ONE hand in the deck that it is behind to, and it is WAY AHEAD of all others. That's basically what allows smaller pairs to be folded pretty easily (and what makes them so significantly weaker than AA and KK): with a smaller pair, there's not a whole lot of situations where you fold, and it makes you want to cry because you were a massive favorite. With KK, there's plenty of times that you're up against AK, QQ, JJ, AQ, where if you fold and find that out, it's puke-worthy.
|
That is the best discussion of this topic I have read anywhere. Great post snoog.
|
|
