Folding Pocket Aces in a tournament

[Lottery Larry]

Originally Posted by Unregistered

If you don't have what it takes to FOLD pocket aces in this situation then you probably don't have what it takes to win the WSOP.

If you're folding Aces in this situation, you won't ever have to worry about "having what it takes"

[Lottery Larry]

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Pocket aces are only 85% preflop when its heads up, against 4 players its like 35% preflop.

I thought it was 35% against 9 other players, not 4. I'll have to look that up later.

[Lottery Larry]

Originally Posted by maverick

uh, that theory makes perfect sense. sure you're a big leader going into the flop with pocket rockets, but so what? I rarely play any pocket pair all in due to the fact that I really only have :::::TWO::::: outs to improve my hand. Now, when 20 cards are delt preflop, you're telling me that my two outs haven't been compromised? I have 5 cards to make my 2 outs.. the odds of that are not in my favor.

someone with AJ/AQ/KQ even a suited connector has so many damn outs to bust me it's not worth the risk.

2 outs vs 20, which would you rather be?

i've seen aces go down to two pair, straights, and flushes all the time.. pocket rockets are ONLY effective in smaller games. a 10 player tourney will get you some callers, especially if people get married to hands... because we all know that those are the ones that get lucky the most.

This is why poker can still be profitable, when people think like this.

[Ace Mahoney]

With pocket Aces the odds are more against you the more players that are in. Thats why you raise big to try and thim the table. Your odds are better the less players in the hand. Personally I don't think very many people would fold pocket aces preflop. your ahead going in and you will beat any other one pair hand. But I guess it depends on the player.

[Lottery Larry]

Originally Posted by Ace Mahoney

With pocket Aces the odds are more against you the more players that are in. Thats why you raise big to try and thim the table. Your odds are better the less players in the hand. Personally I don't think very many people would fold pocket aces preflop. your ahead going in and you will beat any other one pair hand. But I guess it depends on the player.

...sigh. This is not that important, long-term.

[Ace Mahoney]

Originally Posted by Lottery Larry

...sigh. This is not that important, long-term.

Why are you sighing? And what do you deem not important? This is a good topic though.

[Lottery Larry]

Originally Posted by Ace Mahoney

Why are you sighing? And what do you deem not important? This is a good topic though.

First part, because you're repeating the same bad logic that others already used.

Second, see the bolded parts in my previous reply.

[Ace Mahoney]

Well first off I replied without reading every post in thread. Maybe I should have. And why is it bad logic just because you disagree with it? We all have opinions and views on things. Its not right or bad just because you say it is. I don't see how you could not call with rockets. unless like 6 others do ahead of you. BUt slim chane in that.

[Lottery Larry]

Originally Posted by Ace Mahoney

Well first off I replied without reading every post in thread. Maybe I should have. And why is it bad logic just because you disagree with it? We all have opinions and views on things. Its not right or bad just because you say it is. I don't see how you could not call with rockets. unless like 6 others do ahead of you. BUt slim chane in that.

To be clear- I have said before, and again in this thread, that you should be happy to call all-in preflop with Aces, on the first hand of the WSOP, no matter how many people are in.

If you pushed preflop on the first hand of the WSOP with Aces, you should want as many callers as possible.

It is not "logical" imo to think anyone can outplay enough players, in such a large field, that anyone can afford to throw away the pot odds overlay that they are getting, when they are at worst less than a 2:1 dog (if I remember my "Aces vs. 9 other hands" odds correctly).

Therefore, if you are not willing to get it all-in preflop, risking elimination, with a huge edge in equity.... you have no real chance in any big tournament.

If anyone wants to call this my opinion only, so be it.

[Ace Mahoney]

Originally Posted by Lottery Larry

To be clear- I have said before, and again in this thread, that you should be happy to call all-in preflop with Aces, on the first hand of the WSOP, no matter how many people are in.

If you pushed preflop on the first hand of the WSOP with Aces, you should want as many callers as possible.

It is not "logical" imo to think anyone can outplay enough players, in such a large field, that anyone can afford to throw away the pot odds overlay that they are getting, when they are at worst less than a 2:1 dog (if I remember my "Aces vs. 9 other hands" odds correctly).

Therefore, if you are not willing to get it all-in preflop, risking elimination, with a huge edge in equity.... you have no real chance in any big tournament.

If anyone wants to call this my opinion only, so be it.

I agree

[HPG ADMIN]

[quote=Lottery Larry;209616]If you pushed preflop on the first hand of the WSOP with Aces, you should want as many callers as possible./quote]

Although I don't particularly disagree. I would think that successful tourney players balance equity vs. staying alive. Although you would have a good chance at going from T10,000 to T100,000, there is also the fact that the chip leader on Day 1 has never won the tournament (I believe). I believe big chip leads in the middle and late end of the tournament are big advantages which allow you to run over other players. But a big chip lead early in the tournament doesn't seem to mean much.

In other words, should you look at the risk-adjusted equity (similar to stocks)? What if a good player feels that he could get up to T100,000 without taking that much risk? Could the answer therefore be . . .

- if a player is a +EV player than he should weigh the risk of elimination vs the odds of building up his stake otherwise

- if a player is a -EV player then he should take any positive equity opportunitity he is given

[Lottery Larry]

Originally Posted by HomePokerGames Admin

Although I don't particularly disagree. I would think that successful tourney players balance equity vs. staying alive. Although you would have a good chance at going from T10,000 to T100,000, there is also the fact that the chip leader on Day 1 has never won the tournament (I believe). I believe big chip leads in the middle and late end of the tournament are big advantages which allow you to run over other players. But a big chip lead early in the tournament doesn't seem to mean much.

That doesn't mean much. I don't think you can argue that starting with 100k in chips is better than 10k, regardless of how you do later.

That assumes, of course, that one can properly play a big stack, early in the WSOP

In other words, should you look at the risk-adjusted equity (similar to stocks)? What if a good player feels that he could get up to T100,000 without taking that much risk? Could the answer therefore be . . .

- if a player is a +EV player than he should weigh the risk of elimination vs the odds of building up his stake otherwise

- if a player is a -EV player then he should take any positive equity opportunitity he is given

I don't think, imo, that even the best players can ignore the equity value on the presumption that they can do as well later. I say this simply because Phil Ivey has to beat 5500+ in order to even make the money. Therefore, the chance of any player doing so successfully is now so low/unpredictable that you simply cannot afford to pass up so much equity early..... and one could argue that even in the middle rounds, the same thing could be said.

In short, even a +EV player is so -playing EV lifetime (in regards to getting to the last few tables), that their edge won't be able to overcome the random playing odds enough to justify throwing away Aces against several all-in players preflop.


As for 9 all-in players:
I don't have access to a NL simulator that includes betting, so I used Turbo Texas Hold'em for some limit betting simulations.

AA vs 9 random hands (no bet, no fold) was 33%. Against a betting lineup, however, pocket Aces won two-thirds of the time.

AcAd vs. the worse hand distribution I could think of quickly (worst for the Aces, without giving someone else Aces) was the following:

JJ Tc9c 4d4h AsKs Ah3s 3c3d 8h7d 9s8s KdQd

Running that hand distribution, Aces only won 11.5% of the time nofold'em.... but won 60% of the time against the betting lineup.

Of course, I don't think any of us could imagine players so bad that would call all-in on the first hand with 87o, A3o and threes... but to do a lineup of JJ KK QQ TT 99 KK QQ JT AK is both less likely to occur and probably better for the Aces anyway.


I can't think of any hand mix that would get 9 people to call all-in preflop ahead of your Aces, so this is a pointless argument anyway. If it would somehow happen, then based on the 11-15% range of chance of winning, I could advocate folding Aces if you were a top pro.

However, since at most you'd face 3-4 players all-in, I'll try to run that type of simulation some time and see what numbers I get.

Okay, I ran a no fold simulation with Aces vs four hands (KK, QQ, JJ, TT). The Aces won almost 39% of the time, or odds of 1.56:1. For that, you'd get pot odds of 4:1