AK is crappy multi-way all-in hand...

[bogey1]

In turbos you end up in quite a few situations with 2 people all in ahead of you (or you call an all-in and someone else comes in behind you).

I'd always figured AK wasn't that bad in a 3-way pot. If I dominate one Ace and I'm a coinflip with a small pair, that's not so bad, right? well, I just ran the numbers and to my suprise, AK barely wins 1/3rd of the time. You might as well fold.

cards %win %lose %tie EV
3c 3h 45.04 54.40 0.56 0.452
As Kh 32.17 64.22 3.60 0.339
Qs Ah 19.18 77.21 3.60 0.209

Even against 2 smaller pairs, AK is only about 38% (which is certainly worth doing, but it's not as close to a coinflip as I would have thought).

Anyway, I figured if this was a suprise to me, it might be to others as well.

Edit: AKs gets up to around 38% as well.

[yobbo]

38% is just over two to one to win, no? So with two all ins ahead of you, you get just the right pot odds vs these two hands. Only Kings and Aces have you smashed though, I think.

I think the question is though, do you want to take the ~1% (or whatever) edge with pot odds or wait till the maniacs bust each other out and attempt to outplay them later.

[erocplayer]

[ QUOTE ]

I think the question is though, do you want to take the ~1% (or whatever) edge with pot odds or wait till the maniacs bust each other out and attempt to outplay them later.

[/ QUOTE ]

big stack maniacs are hard to beat with few chips in a turbo tournament...sometimes ya just gotta cross your fingers =\

-eroc

[bogey1]

Well, calling all-in for 1% seems poor. Shoving and getting called, you'll take it since you might have just stolen the pot.

If 2 people are all-in in front of me (and have me covered) then I can bet one probably has a pair and I should fold and wait for a better than 1% edge.

[FortunaMaximus]

99.5% of players shouldn't pass up a 0.6% EV edge.

Try inputting a plausible range for your opponents 3-way, you start to get a better picture of how 3-way situations work.

Finding a specific 3-way scenario in where AK isn't a 1:1 in a situation where it only needs 2:1 on average is not going to make a plausible case.

[yobbo]

Yes I'd have to call unless I knew one had AA or KK, for the reasons posted by eroc and Fortuna above.

[bogey1]

[ QUOTE ]
Yes I'd have to call unless I knew one had AA or KK.

[/ QUOTE ]

You're not grasping the point of the numbers in the OP. ANY pair is bad for you in a 3-way all-in, not just KK/AA. You're crushed against AA/KK of course, but any pair puts you in a near break even spot. Better to wait and try for an all-in with an advantage.

[RiverDood]

Lots of good analysis -- let's take it one step further.

This is why it's hard these days in turbos to ring up an ROI of more than about 20% against non-idiotic opponents. (I miss the pre-Goodlatte days.) You don't have a ton of time to wait for perfect situations. You gotta take small edges like this, or end up too far behind to catch the big stacks without a miracle.

You'll make money pushing over the long haul. You just will make it more slowly and with more annoying bustouts than you'd like.

[Cornell Fiji]

This thread makes me sad.

I hope that when I open it again tomorrow someone will have pointed out some of the obvious flaws in the above posts.

-Steve

[FortunaMaximus]

Yup. Incremental edge * volume = profit. Variance's the price.

And that's something every tournament player must get used to if he or she has even a rational chance of becoming a successful player.

bogey,

You're defining a Hero with a skill edge over his opposition that rarely, if ever exists in tournaments with 300+ runners. Once you start trying to find better spots to double up with a bigger edge...

The bigger the field, the more you hurt your EV in the long term. And your edge would probably have to increase exponentially to overcome field sizes.

And practically anybody that thinks or assumes they do have that edge doesn't. Such a player doesn't exist.

Of course there are scenarios where you can fold AK, and no, you don't need to put your opponents on KK+ either to make your case. (FWIW, you're making a situational argument. Perhaps if you defined a specific situation, you'll make your point a little clearer?)

On pure maths, you have 33.9% EV, and when you examine 'stove calcs, you look at the EV metric, not the win % metric to assess what your equity is in the hand.

While it's true these days opponents have gotten better and this phenomenon has filtered down to the micros somewhat, there are still concepts and applications of those concepts they are clueless about and even solid, profitable players don't extract enough value from.

And that is superaggression and near-eidetic knowledge of ICM calcs in pushbotting phases of turbos.