UTG raises to £15. In the last five hands it's been made clear he has little to no experience playing poker ("does 3 of a kind beat a straight" was asked last hand, and there wasn't even a straight on the board ). He has £100 behind. In this situation I can assure you that he has a monster...the shaking hands and just his general demeanour have made me 100% certain of this. I'm also certain that no matter what the flop, he's pushing with his KK/AA. So with 6 players to act behind me, what can I call with?

If he has AA/KK, and you know this for certain. Nothing.

You are behind, plain and simple. Why bother putting your money in if you are behind and are going to have to play a shove when you are hitting a flop 1/3 of the time?

Any hand that will flop you ahead of, and hold until the river, of AA/KK 15/115 times (without accounting for other calls, or blinds).

You are wrong.

Al Gore invented a little something called implied odds to help us in situations like this.

LOL the poker gods were generous the day they gave us Al Gore

Isn't it any hand that will give you better than 115:85 odds of winning 15/115 times? But how do you work out what range of hands that actually is?

Umm... that's a little more complicated, and I'm not even sure if my initial numbers were 100% correct. They're close, but I took 2 seconds to do it.

In reality, the biggest problem with this hand is that there are 6 people to act behind us, which basically decides our odds. I'd be far more likely to call with a wider range, if we're closing the action. In this hand, I actually probably would fold almost every thing, unless we know that no one will reraise behind us, and, it's more likely that they'll call, thus increasing our odds.

For the sake of the theory, let's take a look at a situation where we are in fact closing the action. Also, let's say the blinds 2/5, since it wasn't stated in the OP.

UTG raises to $15, with $100 left behind. We've got him covered, on the button. Meanwhile, the blinds folded out of turn (to make this easier).

Basically, $15 to us, and the pot is $22. We're getting ~1.47:1 immediately. Now, since we know he'll shove every flop, our implied odds are easy to calculate. Since we're calling $15, we get $100/$15:1, or 6.67:1. Add those up, and our complete odds, once implied are factored in, are 8.14:1.

So, the conclusion we can make from that, is that we need to hit the flop, ahead of AA, 1/9.14, or 10.9% of the time. We would also need to factor in times we outflop AA, but still lose at showdown. So really, we'd need the two conditions to apply: 1) Hit the flop hard enough (2 pair, sets, monster draws) AND 2) be ahead at showdown 10.9% of the time. In other words, we'd need to hit the flop higher than 11% of the time, to account for getting sucked out on once we flop strong. 2 pair, for example, is still going to lose ~25% of the time vs AA. I'm not exactly sure how to calculate that.

The most difficult part is deciding what range of hands we can call with. Once we figure out the exact percentage we need to win, we can probably mess around with PokerStove and find a range that works out to that.

blah, I just noticed it's .5/1 blinds, so the odds are off a bit, but the point is the same.

It's allegedly .5/1 and it's stated in the OP thread title.

Technically, if you're gonna get 8-1 implied on any flop, you can call with any pocket pair and go set mining. In reality though, with so many to act behind you, folding most hands in probably right by a wide margin here.

If you flop a set, you're a 4:1 favourite (we aren't folding if it's set over set).



Technically we can't call with any hand other than AA.



Question:

Do you fold KK here?

/thread

Unless more people get in this pot, I don't know that you can go head to head with AA / KK. You have to hit the flop and hold through turn and river.

If you flop a set against someone with an overpair. Assuming that they have no redraws, they're usually about 8%, which is like 11.5-1.

Yes, but are you folding a set on an ace or king high flop when villain has AA/KK? If not then it makes no difference. You only win 80% of the time you hit a set.

I'm not even a little bit sad, or mad, or any other negative feeling just because of the awesomeness of that reply.

So with a lower pair you have a 12.25% chance of flopping a set, but AA also has 12.25% chance of flopping a set, so the chance of you flopping a set and the villian not flopping a set is

0.1225* (1 - 0.1225) = 0.1075.

Depending on the flop, the villian has about a 8-10% chance of winning on the turn or river, let's make it 9% for simplicity. So the chances that we will flop a set, villian will not flop a set and will not catch up on the turn or river are.

0.1225*(1 - 0.1225)*(1 - 0.09) = 0.0975.

So if you can win more than about 10X what you have to call preflop then calling with a lower pair is ok. In this case we can't, villian would have to be about 150BB deep.

This is if we are sure he has AA, but if his range is AA or KK then I'm not really sure how to do it. If you flop a set and a K comes on the flop also, would you give the villian a 50% chance of having a set?



How deep does the villian have to be before we can call with any two cards?

The 5/10 rule distills the math for use at the table.

When the amount we have to call is less than 5% of the amount we can win, then generally draw.
When the amount we have to call is more than 10% of the amount we can win, then don't draw.

For values in between, consider other factors that affect your EV and make a judgment.

No, it's less than that. The chances of him having KK go down when we know where one of the kings is.

There are then 3 choose 2 = 3 ways for him to have KK but still 4 choose 2 = 6 ways for him to have AA. So he's only 33% to have a set.

Sooo... when we factor in rake this is always a fold unless we hold K-K / A-A?

And no, I'm never folding K-K here. If he's as stupid as not understanding hand rankings I'd actually give him JJ+ in his range. Just because his hands are shaking doesn't mean he's not dumb enough to think Jacks are the nuts

So, if Simo's numbers are right, it turns out you were actually right, but for the wrong reasons, I think.

Apparently the implied odds just weren't enough, this time. I didn't look that closely before coming up with my awesome reply.

level 1 thinking



cmon now... explain to me how the villain holding his hand face up vs you is a bad thing, even if it's with "ACES!"



i call w/ ATC if i'm deep stacked, plain & simple... i'd prefer pairs & suited connectors for obv reasons...


you know what you have to beat... all he has is a pair of aces or kings, which get tricky on alot of flops (say 4s 5s 6c w/ AhAd or KcKh)



give me 33 or 5h6h vs this player in a multi way pot plz...






*EDIT*

ok i'm a donkey.. i didn't take into acct stack sizes or position in above response, i was just thinking "he raises preflop, & you KNOW he has AA / KK & you KNOW he's going all in on any flop" in which case the above arguement stands, as long as i'm deep enough where the amt of money i can win IF i hit is good, then yes i'm calling w/ ATC & hoping to flop big, granted i'd rather have 67ss than Js2c for OBV reasons...



w/ 6 people to act behind me, shyt i dont know, i'd probably let it go... it sucks to just call here & have 2 other people call (making you feel better) and then the azzhole on the button ships in the rest of his $220 stack on top & you have to fold or flip for stacks lolz...



i probably fold almost everything in OP scenario, 15 BB is so huge, 6 to act behind you is equally as huge,


his stack only being roughly $115, meh, i probably fold most holdings...


i just didn't like the "YOU KNOW HE HAS AA OR KK SO YOU HAVE TO FOLD!" approach to it, that's stupid, even though it's poker it's still gambling, & you have to gamble to win... i'm down to run bottom two pair vs AA (or any over pair) any day... you should be happy he's so ready to get it all in w/ one big pair, he's probably doing the same thing w/ A K on every single A high board...


i like these players, & at the same time hate them lolz...