Folding AA

Jaden

I know that maths made sense, but folding AA pre-flop - Never. My brain would go "fold, fold, fold", but by the time it regained control of my hands, the chips would be in there.

AA stands for Automatic Action. I'm never playing a 5 STT again, just in case I might come across this situation. Folding AA pre-flop would just hurt too much. I did it with KK a month ago (turned out to be the correct choice), but I haven't played since. Left, a bad, bad taste.

Interesting topic though.

NickyOD

henbane wrote:

Who is this pro you mentioned? Someone you know or did you email paul phillips?

I don't want to disclose his name but he's a friend of mine who plays on the WPT. Not Paul Phillips.

RoundTower

NickyOD wrote:

For example in a HU where the stacks are 75% and 25%. Assuming equal ability. Player A has 66% chance of winning and Player be has 33%. I can't find the god damn equation for this but I read it on Andy Bloch's site.

Suppose both players are so equally skilful that they both stick it all in every hand. Then Player B has a 50% chance of surviving the first hand and doubling up, and a 50% chance of winning the tournament if he does, so he has a 25% chance of winning.

I'm not surprised you couldn't find an equation that made up some other numbers.

If you have x% of the chips, and all players are playing to win the tournament, and all players are of equal skill, and the blinds are inconsequential, you should have x% chance to win the tournament.

Of course those 3 conditions are unlikely to be met, but this is a good approximation. I agree exactly with Nicky's "pro" maths, and exactly with henbane's maths up until the point where you go crazy and forget to add in some numbers, so I got:

EV(calling) = P(230) where P is the chance that you win the pot if you call, and

EV(folding) = 147.50.

If P>64.1 and you are exactly as skilful as your opponents you should call. Therefore you should probably fold.

RoundTower

Actually there's one other possibility - that the third player to go all in is not a moron, or that he is a moron who is lucky enough to have been dealt AA.

Then you still have only (probably) about a 60% chance to win the hand, but you will only be winning half the pot. I make your EV here $125, as compared to $147.50 by folding. This brings it from a marginal fold to a clear fold.

NickyOD

There's one thing that was forgotten and that's that if you call and lose, assuming all stacks are equal its a 3 way split for 3rd of $33. If you have slightly more then your equity increases quite a bit which means the equity in calling and folding are actually very close indeed.

Hectorjelly

I have used Andy Wards EV calculater for the EV calculations. Its not perfect but its roughly the same as the CEV calculater used by 2+2. You can download it here http://www.pokersoft.co.uk/freeware.htm


I assumed that it was a $25 stt, with first prize of $75, and a second of $50. Third gets nothing which makes the calculations easy. If there is some other prize structure let me know.

Calling and winning leaves 2 players, you will have 8000 chips and 2nd place locked up. This gives you a EV of $70.
Calling and losing leaves you with an EV of 0 as there is no third prize.

Folding leaves you with 3 players, you have 2000 chips and an EV of $33.

Using poker stove and some hand range guesses, your equity is around 60%.

Text results appended to pokerstove.txt

5,521,264,672 games 19.954 secs 276,699,642 games/sec

Board:
Dead:

equity (%) win (%) / tie (%)

Hand 1: 14.1454 % [ 00.14 00.00 ] { AA-22, AKs-A9s, KQs-KTs, QJs, AKo-A9o, KQo-KTo, QJo }
Hand 2: 14.0763 % [ 00.14 00.00 ] { AA-22, AKs-ATs, KQs, AKo-ATo, KQo }
Hand 3: 12.0091 % [ 00.11 00.01 ] { AA-77, AKs-ATs, AKo-ATo }
Hand 4: 59.7692 % [ 00.59 00.01 ] { AA }



So that means that the true equity of calling is 60% of $70, and 40% of $0. This is $42 which is greater than the equity of folding, which is $33.

RoundTower

Yes, good point, in that case it entirely depends on whether you have slightly more than the other players who have gone all in (even an extra $5) or slightly less. Let's assume you have probability P of winning the pot, the pot will not be split, and they all have an equal chance of drawing out on you.

If you call and win, this is more or less irrelevant, although one player may have a tiny chance of getting back into the game from a miniscule stack. If you call and lose:

If you cover everyone then you are guaranteed third place, so you have an added EV of (1-P)100. About $40.

If you cover only two of them, however, for you to finish third the slightly bigger stack has to win the pot, so you have added third-place equity of (1-P)33. About $13, and probably not enough to change from a clear fold to a marginal call (especially when there's a good chance the third player has AA)

If you cover only one of them you cannot finish third.

It now looks to me like if you have the biggest stack, you should call, and if you have the smaller stack, you should fold.

RoundTower

That was in response to Nicky. Hector, the payout structure is completely different from the one you assumed.

Here are my complete calculations:

Fold:
stacks 6000, 2000, 2000.
EV = 250(4/20) + 150(7/20) + 100(9/20)
EV = $147.50

Call and win:
stacks 8000, 2000. Prizes $250 and $150.
EV= 250(4/5) + 150(1/5) = $230.

Call and lose:
EV = 0. (may not be correct depending on exact stack sizes)

Call and split: Prizes $250, $150, $100.
stacks 4000, 4000, 2000
EV = 250(8/20) + 150(7.5/20) + 100(4.5/20)
EV = $179.

Suppose you win the pot P% of the time and don't split it.
Call: EV = P($2.30). If P is greater than 64, you should call.

Suppose you split the pot S% of the time and never win it outright.
Call: EV = S($1.79). If S is greater than 82, you should call.

Using Hector's results from pokerstove, you should fold in this case. However it is important to know the exact stack sizes, because you may have some chance of calling, losing, and finishing third.

NickyOD

Hectorjelly wrote:

equity (%) win (%) / tie (%)

Hand 1: 14.1454 % [ 00.14 00.00 ] { AA-22, AKs-A9s, KQs-KTs, QJs, AKo-A9o, KQo-KTo, QJo }
Hand 2: 14.0763 % [ 00.14 00.00 ] { AA-22, AKs-ATs, KQs, AKo-ATo, KQo }
Hand 3: 12.0091 % [ 00.11 00.01 ] { AA-77, AKs-ATs, AKo-ATo }
Hand 4: 59.7692 % [ 00.59 00.01 ] { AA }

lol. We could be here all day.
Personally I think these ranges are too high.
Player 3 is only going to be calling there with AK/KK/AA/QQ possibly JJ/TT

Hectorjelly

NickyOD wrote:

lol. We could be here all day.
Personally I think these ranges are too high.
Player 3 is only going to be calling there with AK/KK/AA/QQ possibly JJ/TT

Player 3 should only call with AA or KK, but then in any game where somebody open pushes in level 1 and gets 2 callers I would suspect that they arent the tightest or best players around. Also tightening up player 3 hand range makes very little difference to AA's equity.