KK and the Preflop Laydown

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Comments

  • Any player at any level can tell you I thought or I knew they had hand X.

    1) People tend to say that all the time and they are wrong most of the time,yet they only recall the times they are correct. Selective memory. It's the same issue that causes our brains to attempt to associate random events into a pattern.

    2) By the time they realise that they are up against monsters, they're likely pot comitted anyway.

    3) You assume your opponents are trying to play good poker too. People play a whole lot of hands like they would play rockets. If you are up against one of these players who raises 10/20/100% of the time, are you seriously gonna fold KK cuz that taco you ate for lunch is giving you an upset stomach?

    4) Worrying about folding KK gets you into a great mindset of weak-tight poker that will kill you in the long run.
    Please help me understand why probability and odds are the only way to make poker decisions.

    Because I don't believe in shaking chicken bones at my opponent or reading tea leaves in order to play poker. I think that is almost all situations, against typical agressive opponents, you push with it. 95% of the time the guy is a big underdog. 5% of the time you are a a 20% dog. Sounds like an awesome situation to me.

    I also don't believe that making 'big laydowns' are what we should be aspiring to as poker players, yet everyone talks about them like the guy that folds the most wins.
  • BBC Z wrote:
    1) People tend to say that all the time and they are wrong most of the time,yet they only recall the times they are correct. Selective memory. It's the same issue that causes our brains to attempt to associate random events into a pattern.

    2) By the time they realise that they are up against monsters, they're likely pot comitted anyway.

    3) You assume your opponents are trying to play good poker too. People play a whole lot of hands like they would play rockets. If you are up against one of these players who raises 10/20/100% of the time, are you seriously gonna fold KK cuz that taco you ate for lunch is giving you an upset stomach?

    4) Worrying about folding KK gets you into a great mindset of weak-tight poker that will kill you in the long run.



    Because I don't believe in shaking chicken bones at my opponent or reading tea leaves in order to play poker. I think that is almost all situations, against typical agressive opponents, you push with it. 95% of the time the guy is a big underdog. 5% of the time you are a a 20% dog. Sounds like an awesome situation to me.

    I also don't believe that making 'big laydowns' are what we should be aspiring to as poker players, yet everyone talks about them like the guy that folds the most wins.
    Repeat after me .... he was talking about tournament poker and no limit at that.

    I think in tournament poker you have to respect the fact that sometimes making the big laydown is what makes all the difference. In a ring game i'm not laying down KK pre-flop unless i'm 99% sure that the other guy has aces, and i'm never that sure.

    In a tournament i've layed down queens a bunch and kings only for other considerations (position usually in sats ... ie the exception to the rule)

    Tournament poker isn't only about making a +EV move. If the guy move all in and accidently showed me AK for example and i had QQ, if it was for all my chips i fold even if i'm a favourite. Why because i'm staking it all on a small edge. I want to find situations where i have others dominated.
  • Repeat after me .... he was talking about tournament poker and no limit at that.

    Read my post again. Don't just read the last line. Everything applies to NL and tournaments.
    kings only for other considerations (position usually in sats ... ie the exception to the rule)

    Thanks. Thats the point i'm trying to make.
    Tournament poker isn't only about making a +EV move. If the guy move all in and accidently showed me AK for example and i had QQ, if it was for all my chips i fold even if i'm a favourite. Why because i'm staking it all on a small edge. I want to find situations where i have others dominated.

    Great point but completely off topic. We're talking about folding KK's when sniffing for aces. When you hold cowboys, AQ is the likely overcard hand to come at you. Big difference.
  • tell danny or tj or gus that 'reading' people is b.s.

    those guys are experts at knowing when they have someone dominated. is it not also possible they are able to detect when they are dominated?

    for the average bonus whore, probabilities are more than sufficient. there's much more to the game than that, however. i daresay few major tourneys are won by pros unable to 'read' opponents.
  • Just answer my own question, and in case anyone is interested...
    The odds of being dealt Kings(or any specific pair): 4/52 times 3/51 = approx 0.45 or 220 to 1

    Now, if I have a pair of Kings, there are 50 cards left. For someone else to be holding a pair of Aces would be 4/50 times 3/49 or about 208 to 1?

    BUT, before hand the odds of two players holding one pair each would 0.45 times 0.45 roughly 0.2025 or 1 in 500.

    Corrections anyone?

    In any case, so rare, that I would almost never fold Kings, unless I SAW the other guy had aces....
  • Paraphrasing TJ Cloutier:

    "A re-raise is often aces, but a re-re-raise is A-A, pure as the driven snow."

    Sometimes you do know that he has A-A. When you do, fold.

    A lot of the discussion here is probably based upon tournaments where the chips are not very deep. In those cases it is VERY difficult to escape your K-K. When the chips are deep, it's not THAT hard.
  • torontoguy wrote:
    Now, if I have a pair of Kings, there are 50 cards left. For someone else to be holding a pair of Aces would be 4/50 times 3/49 or about 208 to 1?
    That sounds about right for a specific person. Remember to factor in the number of people at the table.
  • tell danny or tj or gus that 'reading' people is b.s.

    How did I get off your ignore? Finger slip? I was enjoying the silence from you.

    Please remember in the future that when I talk, I'm not talking about pros and the WSOP and TJ and the boys. I don't really care anything about them. My advice is rooted from a low limit background and is geared for the rest of us low limit players, playing online and live small tourney poker.

    So attempting to counter my points my reciting the names of pros is a waste of time. I don't bother watching poker on TV, nor do I keep up with whoever the golden boy of the hour is.

    So Dave is right. Deep chips, sure toss it away you've got like 17 hours of poker ahead of you anyway.

    In the future, I'll try and stay away from posts for advice in Dave's section...

    Anyway, I still think my 4 points are valid.
  • Okay, so instead of trying to push my game beyond the limits that you accept as YOUR max is unacceptable because YOU don’t care? I agree that at low limit online Hold’em reads are near impossible to pick-up and the same is true for a lot of online games. As far as any live play I couldn’t disagree more. I started an interesting discussion of folding KK to AA. Now that being an obvious extreme case I was also thinking about the many other times I put my money in the middle way behind. If KK is an automatic push regardless of other information, where do you draw the line? Do you call off your stack when you make a nut straight even though there is a three suited board? Do you call off your stack when you hit your set when the board shows a straight or a flush? How far do you take two pair or even TPTK for that matter? Maybe I play too much based on my reads but I know I am far from weak/tight play. I do not think that is possible keep pushing your game further if you’re ignoring information that is given to you. I’m comfortable at putting players on range of cards and sometimes I can even put an opponent on two cards. When I do pick up a read I do not feel that I fold when I know they have beat me and that I can not make them fold. To often I find myself in a situation where I have all my money in the middle when it is near dead. Folding does not = success. Folding when you know you have lost does.

    As side for BBC...You have basically stated you have no interest on improving your game or at least moving beyond low limit poker. My question is then why do you spend so much time studying the game? You obviously have strong understanding of low-limit poker and are a winning player (I think it was 2BB/100 hands). What drives you to keep up with extra curricular poker? For me it is betterment and entertainment. Do I want to be a World Class Pro...No not really...do I want to be able to beat the best games...Yes...it may or may not happen but I see nothing wrong with shooting for the best. I do only play for mostly low stakes but I see nothing wrong with driving to be the best and for me that includes incorporating ever piece of information at the table at all times.
  • Corrections anyone?

    By my math:

    Total # pocket hands possible: 4c2 * 12 + 1 (the other pair of kings) = 73

    Total # other hands possible 50c2 = 1225

    % probability at least one other pocket out there (assuming 9 other players).

    1 - ((1225 - 73)/1225)^9 = 42.48%

    This seems high, but I'm pretty sure my math looks right...

    Comments?
  • ScoobyD wrote:
    % probability at least one other pocket out there (assuming 9 other players).

    1 - ((1225 - 73)/1225)^9 = 42.48%
    That DID seem a bit high. I looked at it from another way. I figure if you can come up with the same answer 2 different ways, you can't be too far off!

    There are 78 (or 13 * 4c2) ways you can get a pocket pair out of 1326 (or 52c2) different 2-card combinations. So your odds of being dealt any pocket pair are 1 in 17. (Can also get this by 52/52 * 3/51) If you have a pocket pair, another player has roughly the same chances of having a pocket pair. (I prefer simple math but like to know how the big equations work, too! I guess the real number is closer to 1 in 18 since your pair is no longer available and it is much harder for someone else to have the SAME pair...)

    Factoring in 9 other players are the table (again simple math rather than the big stuff) the chances are roughly 9 in 18 there is another pocket pair somewhere out there. (I know the probabilities are not additive but this is an approximation.) So somewhere between 40 and 50% DOES seem about right. That is huge but it is a factor of the number of players at the table more than anything.

    Another good reason not to be so proud of 22-77! I guess there's about a 20% chance of someone having a higher pair at the table with 9 opponents. I wish I had done this calculation last night before my 99 got busted by TT!

    Looking at your calculation, you are taking the complement of the odds that 9 opponents do not have a pair in the range of possible hands (allowing for your pair)? That makes sense to me. Thanks for showing your calculation. It's all coming back to me now...
  • I want to say first off i agree with most of what BBC posted, when playing low limit LH. In that context his advise is totally bang on.

    BBC what you need to see is that we don't all play the game through the same prism you do. I don't have the patience, discipline and more importantly desire to grind it out at 1/2. I say that for those that can, you have the utmost respect, because you are able to successfully do something that i am not able to do.

    Some people play or in my case TRY to play poker for the mental challenge. For me that's the moments where i've perfectly executed a strategy, or made a dead on read.
  • I'm not exactly sure where the idea that I said 'All reads are useless' came from. I know going back and reading my posts, I didnt say it.

    Everyone wants to diss me for talking probabilities and math, but here is the thing that I think everyone has overlooked. You still use your reads to determine what the final number is! If mr 100% raise goes all-in, then your odds of him having aces are 5% at best. If mr 0% raise goes all-in, then his odds of him having aces has increased significantly from that 5% base to almost 100%. So yes, you still observe your opponents play and his range of hands to figure out what he's really got.

    My point is that most players you'll encounter play such a wide range of hands for all-ins that the fact he's all-in gives you little indication of his actual hand.

    Do you call off your stack when you make a nut straight even though there is a three suited board? Do you call off your stack when you hit your set when the board shows a straight or a flush? How far do you take two pair or even TPTK for that matter?

    These are all awesome points! Those scenarios are far more valid to talk about than KK vs AA because they'll occur far more frequently than this one specific pocketpair showdown.. If we really want to talk about improving play, lets talk about frequent situations where constant mistakes can kill us.
    You have basically stated you have no interest on improving your game or at least moving beyond low limit poker.

    It's not quite that.. for a long time it was all about clearing bonuses so yes, your statement was true. But now that I have an adequate bankroll and a few more re-reads of Miller I'm in the process of moving up out of the micro world. Which is why I've been pushing agression in my recent posts because I believe it works.
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