Laying down AK in a tournament from a Poker Pro Magazine Article

[Sherman]

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I didn't say KQ and AT were in his range. I was trying to illustrate the fact that even with a relatively wide range as that you aren't exactly dominating with your 57% equity. Again unless you have a good read why do you have to get involved with Ace high at the moment? In fact why are we even bothering with strategy and a poker tournament at all? Why don't we just have a tournament where we flip a coin and the winner then moves on to the next round where the winners flip another coin etc...until we determine who got luckiest today. I try to minimize the amount of profits i expose myself to, when possible.

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FYP.

[BigAlK]

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I didn't say KQ and AT were in his range. I was trying to illustrate the fact that even with a relatively wide range as that you aren't exactly dominating with your 57% equity. Again unless you have a good read why do you have to get involved with Ace high at the moment? In fact why are we even bothering with strategy and a poker tournament at all? Why don't we just have a tournament where we flip a coin and the winner then moves on to the next round where the winners flip another coin etc...until we determine who got luckiest today. I try to minimize the amount of profits i expose myself to, when possible.

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FYP.

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QFT. Advocating folding with 57% equity is unbelievable. I'd advise reading two old threads linked in the anthology (at the top of this stack) on folding with small edges.

[supair]

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Beacause if you win this hand, you all but lock up the FT, and possibly 1-5.

You're not gonna be stealing that many blinds if the average stack is 9 blinds. There's gonna be lots of shorties pushing, and pretty soon you're gonna be an average stack.

The overlay alone with the blinds (and probably, although it doesnt say, antes) makes a coinflip +EV. But often it's not a coinflip...

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Super important oft overlooked point. Its sooo important to look forward and see just where the chips that will take you to the FT are going to come from.

If were going to be stealing from shorties, theres likely going to be a few hands where we are forced into making calls of shoves where we are behind but getting odds to call. Why flip when we are behind a few times when we can call this shove pretty much knowing that were either way ahead or a slight underdog?

There is definately an argument for folding AK preflop in many situations, but not here if we have the foresight to look past the current situation which looks favourable but really isnt.

[Dave D]

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In fact why are we even bothering with strategy and a poker tournament at all? Why don't we just have a tournament where we flip a coin and the winner then moves on to the next round where the winners flip another coin etc...

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It's called a FLIPAMENT duh. Go post in BB4L they'll tell you all about it.

[gvegas]

One last point. If i knew for sure my equity was 57% thats one thing. But I don't. I could easily be much worse than that. Anyways, i like to play all events like they are the main event. Thats how i get better. Finally, i'm glad we disagree, honestly. I have more of a Helmuth style where I avoid coin flips when i can and gamblers make me money. I cash alot and recently cashed for 3rd in the Bellagio Cup because some of my opponents couldn't fold their pretty Ace -high hands pre-flop when we got near the bubble. Cheers.

[Doofus]

I think full time live tourney pro's may have a smaller risk tolerance due to 1 tabling and variance factors which would lend them to be more results oriented hence the "possibly" weak tight folds.

You young guns have grown up 8 tabling and seeing more hands and results in a day than they do in a month PLUS you have a much broader education garnered from their experience and some brilliant math types.

[Sherman]

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One last point. If i knew for sure my equity was 57% thats one thing. But I don't. I could easily be much worse than that. Anyways, i like to play all events like they are the main event. Thats how i get better. Finally, i'm glad we disagree, honestly. I have more of a Helmuth style where I avoid coin flips when i can and gamblers make me money. I cash alot and recently cashed for 3rd in the Bellagio Cup because some of my opponents couldn't fold their pretty Ace -high hands pre-flop when we got near the bubble. Cheers.

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Show me a hand where you are absolutely certain that your edge is X%. Basically what you are saying is that because you don't know exactly what your opponent has, you are not sure you have 57% equity. Well guess what, AK doesn't have 57% equity against any single hand (that I can think of). But it does have 57% equity against a particular range of likely hands. The fact is, you almost never know exactly what your opponent has, but you can almost always estimate a reasonable range of hands and play against that.

Congratulations on your Bellagio Cup 3rd place. However, if you are trying to use that as evidence that you are correct, you couldn't be more results oriented.

[gvegas]

Of course the 57% is equity vs a range. Thats its equity vs 77+,AT+,KQ or the top 10% of hands. But against the top 5% of hands 99+,AQ+, i'm just under 50%. Which range should i assign to him? I prefer to be the aggressor instead of having to guess what someone has (which of course is difficult). And i only brought up the recent cash because i gained an enormous number of chips in spots where i thought my opponent should have folded but just couldn't find the fold button. Which is why i'm okay with people playing AK like its a made hand. Good luck.

[ChipSpeak]

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Of course the 57% is equity vs a range. Thats its equity vs 77+,AT+,KQ or the top 10% of hands. But against the top 5% of hands 99+,AQ+, i'm just under 50%. Which range should i assign to him? I prefer to be the aggressor instead of having to guess what someone has (which of course is difficult). And i only brought up the recent cash because i gained an enormous number of chips in spots where i thought my opponent should have folded but just couldn't find the fold button. Which is why i'm okay with people playing AK like its a made hand . Good luck.

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I think you are perhaps not emphasizing the situation as much as others. We are not sitting high on the hog with chips. As Dave mentioned, opportunities are going to be at a premium with the avg at 9bb's. This only increases the odds that
1: Many more pots will be opened before action gets to us when we have position.
2: We will be looked up/repopped light on steal attempts, thus reducing the advantage of being first in.

We are going to have to make a move sometime very soon, it will probly be with less holdings than this and we may very well not be first in the pot. This is not tossing a coin, this is well thought out.

We are going to have to chip up considerably to be positioned for a strong run at the win. Considering we have virtually eliminated the 2 hands that kill us, the possible hands that we are dominating our opponent and the situation we are in, I would say this is +$EV, and that is the bottom line.

[mikeJ]

I would call here. Only bad players make this huge overshove. And bad players will show up w/ AQ/worse often enough to make calling +cEV