22 is an underdog against 56 suited, but is the favorite against AK suited.

What gives? Are the up and down straight possibilities enough to give 56suited the edge over AK vs the small pair? J10suited is also a favorite. Is this one more reason to discount AK!!

There's plenty of reasons not to over play AK. Being up against pocket deuces isn't one of them.

And the answer is...

Everything is relative to every other thing!

And we can't know everything, or anything CLOSE to everything.

A better question is, "who has more equity in a 3 way pot preflop?"

From Cardplayer.com:

AhKh 41.5%

5s6s 33.3%

2c2d 25.3%

Now what does THAT tell you? 5s6s is EV neutral. I would theorize that his equity INCREASES as random dead hands (other loose calls that won't see the river) enter the pot. That equity increase is relative to what "fair odds should be." That is, while it's EV neutral in a 3 way pot, 5s6s should have more than 12.5% equity in an 8 way pot against 8 random hands.

If one of those random hands dominates 5s6s, then 5s6s is about 70/30 behind that one hand heads up, but still better off than the field in a multiway pot.

Returning to this example, AhKh has an equity ADVANTAGE over 22. All of AK's equity comes at the expense of 22. Even though 22 is ahead of AK equity-wise heads up, the fact that 56 is in the hand gives 22 more ways to lose. Therefore, 22 wants MORE people in the pot to have better odds to draw, or it wants to be heads up against two overcards to push it's 53/47 edge.

And, since AhKh has equity over THIS field, any raises preflop have IMMEDIATE value, since pot equity > fair odds.

So AhKh should be raising preflop against a field!

This stuff making sense yet?

great post TJ, very informative, also, love The Great Gatsby reference.

great post TJ, very informative, also, love The Great Gatsby reference.

[quote="TJ_Eckleburg"][quote=portcityplayer]
This stuff making sense yet?[/quote]

This is kind of a new concept for me.

I think I see what you're saying, since AKsuited has the greatest chance to win in a multi-way pot you should be raising with it since your EV will go up.... ?

A classic Mike Caro example is that

AKo is ahead of JTs is ahead of 44.... is ahead of AKo... is ahead of JTs...

and so on and so forth.

What that doesn't take into account is that it's implying each of those hands heads up vs. each other, and not each hand vs. the field of hands.

From limit hold'em, namely SSHE, we've learned that if your equity (% chance you'll have the best hand at showdown) is greater than 1/n, where n is the number of players in the hand, then any raise has immediate value.

So if there's a bet and 6 calls to you on the button with the nut flush draw on the flop, this is a wildly profitable raise, because you'll have a winner 35% of the time, and you're only putting in 1/7th of the money.

The difference between limit and no limit is that if Villain suddenly has a HUGE edge (like some huckle spikes a gutshot on you)... if he knows how to exploit it, bad players can win money or break even over a long period of time.

However, in no limit, preflop edges don't matter as much in cash games. It's all about taking someone's stack, from postflop play.

I guess the point of all this is that I'm trying to use the language of limit hold'em to explain no limit, and I really shouldn't do that. It makes things more confusing.

TJ, you raise an interesting point. Do you think that an argument can be made that pre-flop raises are less important in NL? Obviously, in Limit, you're pushing those pre-flop equity edges. However, in NL, you might not need to raise it up as often without seeing the flop texture (as long as you're competent post-flop), and it adds a certain amount of deception.

For example, I'll raise/re-raise AKo almost every time I get the chance in Limit, but I sometimes mix in some calls in NL.

Basically, I've seen a number of NL players that almost never raise pre-flop. I don't follow that school of thought, but some of them seem to do okay.

This was the theory behind my saying it's not necessarily appropriate to re-raise AKs in MP in the "AKs" thread.

If you're competent or better post flop and can release hands like AK instead of trying to be a hero, you'll be allright.

I've said plenty of times, "When I stopped overplaying AK I started making more money."

That's the truth.

yeh something i heard about Amarillo Slim is that he'd make proposition bets of $1000 to play hands hot and cold.
the other guy gets a choice of AKs, JTs and 22 and then slim picks one after.
so if the other guy picks ak, slim takes 22,
if the other guy picks 22, slim takes JTs
if the other guy picks JT, slim takes AKs

thats quite interesting in my opinion cos he always gets (at least) a small edge, but definitely in a real game where there can easily be mutliple opponents AKs is the obvious choice.

also i do agree that AK shouldnt always be played strong in NL when its been raised in cos the other guy could easily have AQ, AJ, KQ where you can get someone in a world of trouble. plus if u dont connect its a lot easier to fold. no shame in giving up on rag flops.

I think preflop raises in NL are important

a) to set up fold equity and bettability for later streets,
b) to play defense against trash hands that can beat our strong 1 pair

In limit, preflop raises are for those reasons AND the value is calculable. But I think that in NL it's not as important for immediate value so much as it is for the bettability later.

I think you can justify anything preflop in no limit, as long as your postflop skills are significantly better than your opponents down the road.

Very very good points

You are about the 3rd person in 5 years of this screen name to get that.

I thought I'd dropped enough hints everywhere about "seeing through his soul" comments about reads, lol.

My name is Stephen, by the way, everyone... but I'll still go by TJ too (: