Posted Tue Dec 23, 2003 10:33 am GMT by Sundance
OK, I don't like to rant about taking a bad beat because they happen to all of us, but this time I make an exception. I was playing in the Poker Stars 1000 player NL freeroll last night and doing just alright, staying in at about the average TC the entire tournament, surviving a few all-ins, etc..
Well here is the story, 11 players reamaining, 2 tables, final 9 get a free entry to another tourney.. I am about 90k TC, currently in 8 place and set to finish and get a free entry. Cards are dealt to 5 players at my table, I am BB, get AA, one caller and the SB calls, the pot is only $15k, I decide to go ahead and steal just to assure my 9th or better finish, push all in, one fold and SB calls (as he has about 250k in TC) he has KK. Feeling alright. Flop rag, rag, K....rag, rag.. I almost put my fist through my monitor. Finished 11th, after 4 hours for nothing. If I fold the AA or just limp in I probably win a seat to next tourney.. The power of AA can be blinding at times...
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Posted Tue Dec 23, 2003 11:15 am GMT by Poker_Vendetta
Well I believe when you have an overpair to an underpair you are about a 3-1 or 80% favorite so that is definitely a tough tough break. Recently I saw an interview where a player who did well in the WSOP made a good good point. (This was from Dutch Boyd on Rakefree.com/, I do not know anything about plagarism or what not, ha, so I'll just tell it's origin."
Roughly he said that if you go all-in with Aces 3 times against three underpairs you are actually just a 55% favorite to win all THREE times and still stay alive in the tourny. I am no where as genius as he is in the mathematical area so I can't explain but I have no reason to not believe that.
Sorry, that really didn't help did it? My bad. I actually like your move really, you weren't greedy trying to limp in or endanger yourself like the KK did. I suppose he was hoping for a limp-raise but that is kinda stupid and fancy here. Especially considering how huge is stack is there. That was a good old fashioned bad beat and I am sorry. You played it pretty well and even if you did just raise it to 20K or so you probably still would have gone all-in...only instinct can save you when you have Aces and the board looks so weak.
Oh, but back to the Dutch Boyd thing. He went on to say that is why Chan, Lederer, Hellmuth do so well in tournaments. They do not go all-in recklessly against the odds you know? He said that he was only all-in 1 time...and the same for Moneymaker, against him. (I assume he meant all-in with all of your chips at risk, with the possibility to get knocked out.) Well there is a pretty dumb lecture for you...good luck in your tournies.
Posted Tue Dec 23, 2003 2:08 pm GMT by Dave B
The best advice I ever heard after finishing 23rd in a satalite where the top 21 advanced was that if you are on the fringe-just fold. Dont even look at your cards.
If you have nothing to gain, meaning the top 9 all get the same prize, let the big stacks and blinds clean out the small stacks and skate through.
The satalite where I finished 23, it was for a $1000 buy in to the Fall Poker Classic at Canterbury Downs in MN (over $100K purse). I had 14K w/ blinds of 8000/4000 after posting my small blind. I had J 10 and all the players folded, I called the big and he went all in. I folded, but that 4K that I called put me down so that I was only able to see the next 9 hands instead of the next 19. We were down to 28 players w/ over 10 on life support (under 12k). So I likely would have skated through and earned a $1000 seat if I just didnt even look at my cards. DONT EVEN PICK THEM UP!
Posted Tue Dec 23, 2003 2:20 pm GMT by Sundance
Sure Dave, that is what I thought all night as I could not sleep.. 'just fold the AA and you would have finished in the top 9' ... I guess I just thought if I could steal $15k -with everyone folding of course, then I would definitely supplant myself in that last table.. I definitely agree with your statement and I even requested more time to make my decision to let others drop out at the other table - hopefully.. but I guess my mind was made up.. I had lost very few showdowns the entire night and was very confident, plus the guy with the large stack had been calling everybody while I was at that table. And here's the irony, I had told myself that I was only going to play AA the rest of the way in until the final 9 was reached... I guess the Poker gods heard me....
Posted Tue Dec 23, 2003 3:08 pm GMT by Sente
I agree with this.
I've started playing 3 weeks ago and browsed a few boards. I got a little tired of reading bad beat stories, especially in tournaments. Yeah, I know bad beats are awful, and I've been getting hammered them lately and its been getting me pretty steamed.
Back to the point, it led me to ran the math for surviving all-ins, and coincidentally used an 80% figure.
If you go all-in with an 80% chance to win the hand (4 to 1 favorite), you will win 80% of the time and get busted 20% of the time.
If you go all-in twice with an 80% chance of winning each time, the odds of winning both times is .8 * .8 = .64 or 64%, leaving a 36% of losing at least once.
And if you go all-in three times with an 80% chance of winning each time, the odds of winning all three times is .8 * .8 * .8 = .512 or 51.2%, with a 48.8% chance of losing at least once.
The actual figure for AA beating an underpair is close to 82% (I computed 81.7% but might be off slightly), so playing it all-in 3 times (.82 * .82 * .82 = .551368) leaves about a 55% chance of survival. That accounts for the difference in the exact numbers, the story is the same.
So, yes going all-in 3 times with "dominant hands" (80% of winning the showdown) your survival becomes a coin flip. Also applying that logic to longer tournaments, if you do it 6 times, you are down to a one in four chance of survival, and so forth. If you go all-in 3 times being a 2 to 1 favorite (66.67% chance of winning), you will survive (2/3 * 2/3 * 2/3 = .296) just under 30% of the time.
The more often you go all-in, the more likely that bad beat will come that will knock you out of the tourney.
That's why I agree the advice about limiting the number of times you put all of your chips at risk (unless you've got the nuts). I am of the opinion that most people go all-in too often.
Back to the original hand. You can't blame the person for playing KK and you got unlucky. The 18% chance hit you then. All-in was a bit too much especially given that your goal was to outlast 2 people, not win outright.
A more experienced player than myself would probably have a better idea what to wager here, my personal guess would be to make a pot size raise ($15k).
Edit: A more experienced player already chimed in while I was writing this up and computing some numbers. See above.
Posted Tue Dec 23, 2003 3:28 pm GMT by Sundance
If I make the pot size raise, which I considered, he would have just called with KK, and then catch his set K on the flop, my guess is that he would have slow played, small bet or check, I would check or call, maybe raise, next card rag, he would do the same, I would follow or probably make a sizeable raise to see where I am at. Then he would have called my raise or went over the top and I would have called my remaining chips or folded with little remaining. The play was to call pre flop and then fold, or go all in. I know now that I should have folded.
Posted Tue Jan 06, 2004 9:32 pm GMT by texasmike
I agree. A small raise would NOT be the way to go. It would either be all in to steal, or fold (hard to fold AA in the pocket!!!) and let the blinds take out the short stacks so you finish in the money.
By the way, why would the player with KK call? He was already in the money....so why jeopordize any chips ... except for the chance to take out one more player.
As for going all-in multiple times, obviously the more times you go all-in the more likely that you will get a bad beat. But, the fact remains, on any particular hand, your odds are still 4 to 1.
Posted Thu Jan 22, 2004 10:11 am GMT by JimTheBullet
I think all in before the flop was the right move - you are overwhelming favourite to win the hand whatever cards your opponent has (unless he has AA too in which case it will be split unless 4 suited cards come off). I am saying that from the point of view of my own tournement experience though, and I haven't really got anywhere in a satellite so I haven't been in the position you were which is clearly different.
As I say, I have not had much experience of satellites, and I can see why folding without looking could be an option if the prize is the same for everybody. I suppose it comes down to one thing I read in one of Sklansky's books. What is important to you, winning the tournament or winning as much money as possible? I suppose that in a satellite the answer is the latter (since it is equivalent to finishing as high as possible and in a satellite you just need to finish in the top X places) so maybe you should have only gone all in only if you made the set.
The only time I have ever heard an overwhelming case to fold AA pre flop was a (theoretical) situation in a Sklansky book. It goes about like this:
you are in a tournament that is down to 8 players. You have the short stack with 20,000, one player has 40,000 and the other six all have about a million each. Everybody is in the money already but the incrememts are fairly steep so if you could just outlast the other short stack it would be worth it. On the other hand you have no chance of winning unless you double through pronto. The hands are dealt and you are in late position. The other short stack acts first and raises all in. The player to his left raises all in himself and 2 of the other massive stacks call.
Now, lets recap. You are in 8th chip position and are critical. The money for 7th is significantly better than 8th and 6th is better than 7th etc. You are guaranteed to finish no worse than 8th. You have a chance to quadruple your stack plus the blinds (assuming they fold after you) which could put you in a position where if you get lucky for a bit you could be back in contention for the first prize. If you call in you will be the most likely player to win the pot. BUT, if you call all in and lose you will finish 8th - the other short stack having more chips than you at the start of the hand. Moreover, with 4 other players, your AA may not even be a better than 50% chance, depending on what the others have.
If you fold then you can reasonably expect 3 other players at the table to be either out or on life support. Realistically at least one, probably two and hopefully 3 other players will be knocked out and you will have moved up in the money. Even if nobody is knocked out, at least two stacks will be in a critical position (the other short stack would have moved up to 160,000 + but two of the big stacks are now critical). The only way this play can go wrong is if the small stack has the best hand and the three big stacks split the side pot 3 ways. Obviously this last is extrememly unlikely.
Even with all of that evidence in front of me though, I would still find it very hard to lay down the rockets before the flop!!
Posted Thu Jan 22, 2004 5:00 pm GMT by thepheonix
The statement about the 52% chance of going all-in 3 times and winning all three times with an 80% chance per hand is true. One thing I must add to this, however, is that each hand is what is called an independent event in statistics. Therefore you must look at it like this.
For Example:
The chance of winning one coin flip is 50%. The chance of winning 5 concecutive coin flips is 1 divided by 2 to the fifth power or 3%. Therefore it is not to good to bet that you would win five consecutive coin flips. If, however, you had just won five consecutive coin flips, and a man comes up to you and bets you with 3:1 odds that you won't win the next one, you should take that bet. The previous events have no effect on your percentage to win this coin flip; it is an independent event. Your odds of winning are 50%.
What I am getting at is: if you win 2 times in a row going all-in on Aces, when you get them again and go All-In your odds are still fantastic. You cannot say, "Well I won twice already with them being All-In and because of that I only have a 52% chance of winning." You still have an 80% chance of winning so it is not a mistake to go all-in.
I must agree with you others who posted saying that going All-In as few times as possible is a smarter play in tournements. I hate to get ousted from a tournement because some guy beat my KK with 3 5 offsuit. As far as real money play outside of tournement goes, I believe that if you know that the odds are in your favor you should try to win as much as possible. Therefore, if I am in a no-limit table and get AA (eventhough I have won the last 2 times with it) I have no hesitation going All-In because my odds of winning this time are no worse because I have already won 2 times in a row.
Posted Thu Jan 22, 2004 5:08 pm GMT by Sundance
Phoenix, I totally agree that the statistics are based on the one event, each hand has it's own statistics once dealt. Thanks for the good response.
Posted Thu Jan 22, 2004 10:28 pm GMT by FatJoe
| Quote: | | What I am getting at is: if you win 2 times in a row going all-in on Aces, when you get them again and go All-In your odds are still fantastic. You cannot say, "Well I won twice already with them being All-In and because of that I only have a 52% chance of winning." You still have an 80% chance of winning so it is not a mistake to go all-in. |
nobody was suggesting that your odds of winning the next time go down if you win once. the point was simply that if you take the 80% shot allin too many times it's hard to win.
obviously in a cash game getting it all in with aces is never a bad move, but in a tournament (especially a satellite where you're close to winning a spot) it's not worth the 20% chance of death to double up.
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