Archive for aa
June 11, 2008 at 11:38 am · Filed under 88, aa, aj, ak, all in, call, cash game, chance, exit strategy, hands, holdem, informational raise, late position, monster, odds, overcards, overpair, pair, poker, poker hand analysis, position, pot, preflop, raise, range, sit-n-go, sng, strategy, tight, tip, tournament, tourney, Uncategorized, underpair ·Tagged all in, chips, fold, odds, pot odds, raise, tight
I’ve said it before and I’m saying it again ….. All in is NOT an informational raise!
I’m trying to save you some cash here guys! – Time after time I see people going all in with hands preflop that they could have got away from, only to get called by a monster!
Take last night’s sit n go for example – 8 players left, I’m sitting there in late position with AA (hoping that someone gets excited!) – Blinds are currently only 50/100 and I have 2650 – a guy in middle position goes all in for 2300 and naturally after a nanosecond I decide to call 😀
he turns over 88 and I’m 80% / 20% to win (which I do) 😛
Let’s re-run it from that guys POV ,seeing how else he could have played it – No one has entered the pot and he decides to raise it 3xBB (300) – it gets folded round to me who can do one of two things: Call or Raise – Definite raise here me thinks – Lets say that I crank it up to 1600 . When it gets back to him he has a decision:
Total pot = 1600 + 300 + 150 (blinds) = 2050
He has to call 1300 more – he is getting odds of 1.58/1
Scenario 1: He folds and still has 2000 in chips to fight another day and is still very well placed in the tourney.
Scenario 2: He calls the 1.58/1 odds and is out of position on the flop.
Scenario 3: He now moves all in for his extra 700 hoping that I will fold (very unlikely! :P) or have an under pair
Some odds: He is 7.5/1 against hitting a set on the flop
He is 3.5/1 against to see a flop of all undercards
With him holding 88 he can say that I will be holding a range of hands. We’ll say that he puts me on holding either a Pair ranging from AA-TT or on high cards ranging from AK-AJ (and he’d be right! :D). Putting me on these hands I have a 38% chance of holding a pair, that therefore leaves me with a 62% chance of holding the overcards.
If I’m holding an overpair he is likely to win 20%
If I’m holding two overcards he is likely to win 55% (we’ll say for the ease that it’s 50%)
Poker Hand Analysis: The sums: 0.38(0.20) + 0.62(0.50) = 0.39
So he has a 39% chance of winning which is 1.61/1 (therefore making either his call or moving all in a bad move)
Overall it’s not looking great and I would say that the best policy would be to lay them down gracefully – You have a player (me) who has been pretty tight and solid up until now suddenly re-raising! It’s unlikely that it’s an underpair so you are either a 20% dog or are in a coin flip scenario. Do you want to risk your tournament on these odds?! I wouldn’t.
You have stated that you have a good hand … I’ve stated that mine is better … get over it and move onto the next one, get your chips in when you have the best of it 😀
cheers
(Life Lesson: Always try to leave yourself an exit strategy. Don’t blindly devote everything you have to a cause without assessing all the facts first).
Permalink
May 27, 2008 at 9:46 am · Filed under aa, aces, chances, dealing, dealt, holdem, likely, pocket aces, pocket rockets, poker, probability
A simple post for today: How likely are you to have pocket aces?
With 52 cards in the deck, the chance of being dealt one of four aces in the deck is 4÷52. For your second hole card, the chance of being dealt one of the three remaining aces is 3÷51.
Because one event is dependent on the other, we multiply these probabilities together to give us:
(4÷52) × (3÷51) = 0.004525
Multiply this by 100 to give a percentage and we get 0.4525…% chance of being dealt pocket aces.
This is equates to being dealt aces once every 221 hands or as a ratio 1:220.
So there you have it. It’s not that often you will be dealt pocket aces, or indeed any specific pocket pair, so play them wisely when you have them.
Permalink
May 8, 2008 at 10:39 pm · Filed under aa, ace, big stack, blinds, bully, call, cash game, ev, fold, freezeout, game, hold em, likely, live game, lose, mtt, no limit, nuts, on the button, online, opponent, player, poker, pre-flop, raise, short stack, strategy, texas holdem, Tip of the Day, tournament, utg, when, win
I see it time and time again when I play poker. More often than not in MTT’s. Don’t ask me why. Maybe it’s because there is a lot more action on these tables than your standard SNG. Maybe because the players are weak. Or stupid.
To explain a little more what I am on about I shall paint you a picture.
Its a $50 Saturday night MTT. Out of 300 entries, you are down to the last 2 tables. 18 players left. Top 9 get paid. Blinds are 250/500. You are seated UTG+1 with average chips, the short stack is on the BB with 5,000 and the big stack is on the button with 100,000. You are dealt 83u and choose to fold. A wise move here. The table folds to the button who puts in a standard button raise making it 2,000 to go. Small blind pushes all in and the button folds.
WTF?
Why does the big stack fold? Who knows. In any situation where you are playing the big stack and someone goes all in preflop – if it costs you 10% or less of your stack you should CALL with any two cards. Even more so if it is a bounty tournament.
You are never a ten to one underdog in any situation. Even if you are holding 72u and they have AA, you will still win 12.5% of the time. And thats the WORST possible outcome.
Negative EV? Yes. But if calling is hardly going to damage your stack then its worth a pop to take out another player at the table. Even if you lose you get to flip over rags which should secure you a little more action next time you hold the nuts.
With playing a big stack comes big responsibility. Use it wisely and don’t throw your bullying power away.
Permalink
September 18, 2007 at 4:59 pm · Filed under aa, aggression, aggressive, beginners, bet, betting, bully, cards, cash game, chips, draw, example, fold, freezeout, gambling, hand, hand selection, hands, hold em, home game, important, information, mistakes, money, no limit, online, player, players, poker, position, post-flop, pot, pot odds, pre-flop, raise, sit-n-go, small blind, starting requirements, steal, strategy, texas holdem, tournament, winning
Over the last couple of weeks we have covered many different topics. You should now know how to calculate poker pot odds and how to play good hands from a good position. You are already streets ahead of many other poker players out there. However the key that strings all of these strategies together is to be aggressive with your poker.
Far too many players still limp into pots – they are not willing to raise the bet before seeing a flop. To win at poker you must be prepared to put your chips in when you have got a good chance of winning – you should be raising and re-raiseing when you are dealt good cards.
A raise serves several purposes. It might be enough to make you opponent(s) fold their hand(s) when they would otherwise have outdrawn you or outright beaten you. Raising also puts more money into the pot. If you are playing correctly with good hands from good position, you will win these bigger raised pots more often. Raising will also give you information about your opponent’s hand. For example if you put in a pre-flop raise and another player re-raises, you can be fairly confident they hold a very strong hand as they are prepared to raise even though another player at the table has shown strength.
You must remember that each time you fail to raise with good cards, you are allowing the big blind to see a flop for free. You should always raise premium hands, even aces in order to put more money in the pot and reduce the playing field. Even 72u beats AA sometimes if they see enough free flops.
If the table has folded to you and you are sat in late position, you should be raising in order to steal the blinds. This can be done with almost any hand. If you get re-raised you can (and should) get away from the hand, but most of the time you should be picking up the blinds from weaker players that do not defend them.
Permalink
May 11, 2007 at 10:42 am · Filed under aa, ace, aggressive, bad beat, bazzyg, big stack, chips, dan harrington, duff, fold, freezeout, kk, live game, no limit, pocket pairs, poker, position, pre-flop, Public Appearances, raise, short stack, small blind, strategy, suited, tournament
Vster, Duff and BazzyG from the StoneColdBluff crew head on down to Sovereigns Poker club in North Camp last week for the £100 freeze-out. This was to be our biggest buy-in to date and we were rather excited. This is the kind of level that we feel we are up to at the moment – after all, you can only learn so much from playing with monkeys 😀 – We felt that this was the next step up after our £40 and £50 efforts of late.
There were only about 16 runners in total and so were split on two tables of 8. I (Duff) was placed on a table with BazzyG and Vster was on his own over the other side. It was a fairly deep-stacked tournament, which is certainly to my liking. Everyone started with 6,000 in chips with 30 minute blinds; starting off at 25/50. We started off working out the table and checking out a few players with a few bluffs here and there etc – I personally had only ever played with one of the players on my table who I knew to be very loose aggressive. He was the first one to go once we reached the 2nd level and it was now down to some serious poker. I had been dabbling with a few players to see how far I could push them etc. I had a player to my left whom I had done a stone cold bluff on a few hands previous when my hand of doom came into play.
The blinds at this point were now 50/100 and I had been playing a tightish game. I look down in Mid Pos to find AA – lovely – I elect to make it 400 to go – The guy to my left flat calls, as does the SB and there are three players to the flop. The board brings down Jd 8d 2s – the SB checks and I bet out 1,000 into a 1,200 pot – the guy to my left raises me another 2,000 and the SB folds – I sat and had a ponder for a few moments …… if he had pocket jacks would he not have reraised preflop? … I know that I would certainly like to know where I stand with my jacks preflop! … could he have J8? .. I had seen from other hands that he had turned over that it was very unlikely that he had called a raise with such a weak holding. … pocket 88 was a possibility but he didn’t look over comfortable with his hand and so I discounted that ….. 22 even seemed unlikely for reasons just said. … he’s either got to be on a high pair, Ace jack or on a high holding of diamonds and hoping on the flush …. if he was on the flush, would he raise me when he knows that I’m a tight aggressive player and he could see the next card for cheap? – so after all of this thinking I figured that he must be either bluffing or on the high pair or AJ. I decided to raise all in another 4,500 (he had very similar in chips!) – He announced “nice bet” and proceeded to think through the hand, most probably going through the same motions that I had. After a while he said “I can’t lay them down” and called my all in – He turned over KK and I happily turned over my AA. I think you all know what I’m going to say next! Yes indeed as you predicted, the turn brought a K and the river was a dud – I was down to 100 in chips and that was pretty much my tournament sown up! – I’m not going to blabber on about “bad beat” stories as that doesn’t actually qualify for one, however I will say that I was rather stunned and numb – these things happen and it is horrible when it is to you. Oh well, at least I know that the next time that happens it “shouldn’t” happen to me again – hehe – also on the plus side is the fact that I went through the motions of the hand and worked it all out correctly, so I can trust my workings, which is certainly a good thing.(Even Dan Harrington would be proud!) Unfortunately, not even “a chip and a chair” could help me and that was it.
Vster and BazzyG were still going strong and had been sitting fairly average stacked for most of it until the blinds started to shoot up. The both knew their inflection points and used them to great success as they both got down to the final table.
It was still touch and go and was really anyone’s game – Baz did get rather excited with a King with Queen kicker only to lose most of his chips to someone with AK! ouch – He ended up in 5th.
Only top 3 were getting paid and Vster was left with the task of trying to get into the money and not becoming the bubble. The moment it was down to 4 players V had shouted for a deal for 4th place getting their money back. Everyone agreed and so they were all in the money. His chips were surviving but were in no way was he the big stack – he was always on an inflection point and so was moving all in or all out. There was a raise from the big stack in early position and V said that he hoped “this better be good” – BazzyG and I were standing behind him when he lifted the first card to reveal a Ten – the second card was also a Ten – the chips all went in and the guy called and flipped over KJu – V was sitting pretty all the way until the river when a Jack hit – My heart sank and I really did feel like it just wasn’t our night – If he’d have won that he would have been right up there with the chips and as luck would have it one hand after V was gone, so was 3rd place. We came very close to getting all our money back and then some. This one should be filed under “You can’t win them all” – we had played a good tournament and proved that we could certainly hold our own and do well in a bigger money (for us) poker tournament. Here’s to the next few. Hehe
I’m sure that V and Baz will be on here to tell you their side of the events – any comments welcome
cheers
Duff
Permalink
April 21, 2007 at 1:06 pm · Filed under aa, ace, big stack, bully, chips, fold, gambling, live game, no limit, odds, online, outs, poker, short stack, sit-n-go, strategy, Tip of the Day, tournament
Rummaging around in my archived inbox, I came across this little gem from none other than Simon Davis:
Do you have the discipline to fold pocket aces before the flop?
Imagine the scenario. You’re playing Texas hold’em poker in a single table sit-and-go tournament. It’s getting towards the latter stages, five players are left and you can smell an in-the-money finish. But you need to get in to the top three and stay there – while your chip stack would be nice if it was bigger. The blinds are becoming significant and you know you’ll have to make your move soon.
Out come the cards – miracles of miracles, you look down at your cards and see the magic AA looking back at you. Now, surely this means it’s you right to win the hand. Announce “I’m all-in” and become the chip leader.
Now, under most circumstances there’s no doubt that you should either push in a tasty raise or even all-in with those big aces. Although remarkable as it may seem, there are times to fold those “pocket rockets” and not see a flop. It takes discipline to do and is all about risk versus reward.
If you’re playing single table sit and go tournaments you must finish in the first three to get a return on your entry fee. We all know that the great starting hands don’t come along too often and when they do, a lot of players become married to the hand and can’t put it down under any circumstances.
The savy player knows when to fold. And that includes folding AA pre-flop. Here’s when to consider very carefully when to muck those aces before the flop.
Back to the scenario. Five players left, you’re in fourth place with those Aces screaming at you to push your chips in. But you have the advantage being in last position to act. Two players with bigger stacks than you throw enough chips in the pot to force you all-in if you decide to play. And now the small stack in fifth place takes his chances and goes all-in.
The action is now on you. The urge to splash your chips in to the middle is irresistible. But before you do – thnk about it for a moment. As things stand, you can fold your aces now with the chance of moving in to third place and a money finish without risk.
If the player in the hand with the biggest stack wins it, he’ll take out the other two with smaller stacks and you instantly get bumped up to third place and guaranteed money without. And without risking any of your chips which you still have to fight with.
Risk = zero. Reward = third place at least and a guaranteed prize money.
That’s when to fold anything pre-flop, not just aces. Throw anything away at any stage if it means you can move in to the money without risk.
– Simon
Permalink
Stone Cold Blog 