Stop and Go with AK

[fnurt]

This is a very interesting thread. What strikes me is that we've been discussing the stop-and-go for years in this forum and some of the basic concepts still elude people. For those with the patience to read through this thread - which unfortunately doesn't include the "DIE THREAD DIE" crowd - there's a lot to be learned.

One belief that was prevalent back in the day, and is still kicking around now, is that the SNG works best with a hand like 99. People love it when they can push 99 on the flop and deny the opponent those last two cards! Only they fail to realize that they actually want a call, because even if the opponent gets to see two more cards, the vast majority of the time he won't hit and you want his entire stack rather than just a part of it. 99 is one of the worst hands for a SNG because your opponent, without knowing it, is almost forced to play correctly on the flop; most of the time he calls with a pair and folds without one.

One of the reasons these discussions sometimes go nowhere is that there is some kind of psychological syndrome affecting this forum where people always act like their cards are face up. Oh, if an ace or a king comes on the flop, that's scary, he's folding! Otherwise, it's not scary, you're never going to get him off a hand! It doesn't really work like that, although it's true that the worse your hand gets, the better the SNG looks as an option.

This thread is different from the typical SNG because your flop bet is far too small to threaten any reasonable player. So the question is, in the oddball scenario where he actually considers folding, is he ever folding a hand that should call? I think it's obvious that he will, on occasion, particularly if his holding is something like 87.

If he calls on the flop, regardless of whether the call is correct or incorrect mathematically, you've transposed to the variation where you push preflop, so it makes no difference. The only issue is whether he will sometimes fold correctly and avoid the loss of his few remaining chips, and as others have noted, there are so few situations where you're that huge a favorite on the flop that it has no real effect on the decision.

The loss from those variations is so minimal, compared to the alternative scenario where he has something like six outs twice on the flop and folds incorrectly, that it has to be right to use the SNG here. The vast majority of the time it will make no difference, but it's effectively a freeroll, and players who consistent spot these situations and take advantage of them will make more money in the long run.

[betgo]

[ QUOTE ]
DIE THREAD DIE!!!

[/ QUOTE ]
Didn't happen. You really need to work on your incantation skills.

[nath]

Rockin, are you familiar with the Fundamental Theorem of Poker?

[rockin]

[ QUOTE ]
Rockin, are you familiar with the Fundamental Theorem of Poker?

[/ QUOTE ]

Only what has been discussed in this forum.

[nath]

ahem.

"Every time you play a hand differently from the way you would have played it if you could see all your opponents' cards, they gain; and every time you play your hand the same way you would have played it if you could see all their cards, they lose. Conversely, every time opponents play their hands differently from the way they would have if they could see all your cards, you gain; and every time they play their hands the same way they would have played if they could see all your cards, you lose."

So when we're discussing making an opponent incorrectly fold, we are discussing inducing a fold that would be incorrect if he knew what we had. If we have AK and the flop is AAK and he doesn't have a royal flush draw, he's drawing dead. So if we get him to put any money into the pot, he is making a mistake-- 9-to-1 odds are irrelevant with 0 outs.
If we have AK and the flop is JT9 and we get him to fold 55, he is making a mistake because he is still ahead and is getting 9-to-1 odds. If he folds 76s here, he is making a mistake because he is not a 9-to-1 dog to win the hand.

Does this clear things up?

[stevepa]

[ QUOTE ]
I think there's a problem in this logic. The SNG does indeed allow opponent to make FTOP mistakes that he would not be able to make had we pushed preflop. However, it also allows opponent to make correct FTOP decisions that he could not make preflop. The scenario that's between presented, wherein villain folds only when an A or K flops and he doesn't have a piece of it, illustrates this. Villain would have called with 55 had we raised preflop, but now he folds on the AJ8 flop. In both cases he makes correct decisions by the FTOP, yet the results are marginally different.

[/ QUOTE ]

The point is that the mistakes he makes are enormous when compared to the lost equity when he makes a correct fold. e.g. if he folds 55 on a QJ9 flop, he's losing FAR more than he gains when he folds 55 on an AJ9 flop.

[ QUOTE ]
The question I ask is whether it's realistic for villain to fold only when an ace or king flops and it doesn't hit him. I believe that most villains willing to fold 55 when AJ8 flops would also fold 55 when Q96 flops. The reason I believe this is that I think there's a correlation between players who'd willingly fold when getting ridiculous odds and players who don't understand the difference between lower and higher overcards.

[/ QUOTE ]

Agreed.

Steve

[AceLuby]

What are we hypothesizing about? 99.9999999999% of the time villain has already decided to call/push on the flop anyway, so saying the SNG (or a push) is a better move is arguing that one is +.000000000000000000001 cEV than the other. If there were different stacks, then sure, this would be relavant, but villain planned on pushing on any flop anyway, who wouldn't? Even at your beginning (I know most can't remember) stages you knew if you put 3/4 of your stack in you might as well put it all in. Really, now say he does get an unfavorable flop (AKQ w/ 55). He's still likely to just say 'dammit' and call about 95% of the time. I really think there are very very very few situations where we are going to make him make a mistake on the flop (maybe calling AAK, AAA, KKK, TJQ), fact is is that he is going to call nearly all the time, no matter what flops.

Re: DIE THREAD DIE
it was a joke |-) sometimes I think everyone is taking this a little too seriously.

[rockin]

Sorry, but now I'm confused. With the exception of my errant 2nd post or whatever in this thread, which I sort of retracted, I haven't said anything to the contrary of what you just quoted. Have I?

My statement about the opponent believing he had proper odds to call (even though he doesn't know he is drawing dead) is the same. I assume we are talking about the sidebar discussion concerning odds or not odds for villain to call (and not the stopngo vs push discussion).

Maybe I'm a little slow today, but can you clarify which post of mine that this is in regards to.

[NoahSD]

Ace,
I agree that there's not much of an EV difference between stop and going here and pushing (although you seem to think it's much closer than it actually is. I've gotten folds on this stop and go a few times, and I haven't played much poker.). However, a stop and go IS better, so it's the play you should make, and more importantly, this play is a good example of a few concepts in poker.

[rockin]

[ QUOTE ]
Ace,
I agree that there's not much of an EV difference between stop and going here and pushing (although you seem to think it's much closer than it actually is. I've gotten folds on this stop and go a few times, and I haven't played much poker.). However, a stop and go IS better, so it's the play you should make, and more importantly, this play is a good example of a few concepts in poker.

[/ QUOTE ]


I'm still not clear as to why a stopngo is better when we are probably better than 60/40 against villain's range.