blackmagicz;213090 wrote...
I know myself personally I have had to lay down AK in situations knowing very well another player had AA because there was a re-raise and he min-raised the re-raise (i know very situational etc..blah blah) but mathematically it was correct for me to shove, but based on my read of the situation I laid it down and they flipped AQ vs AA. In this case I took into consideration where we were in the tournament, chips stacks, what the players looked like, the way their chips were stacked, how they were sitting etc....all psychological tells that are small but in a live game can mean life or death at the table.
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Weird definition of mathematics.
It is only mathematically correct to push (or call off) with AK vs. AA if you're getting sufficient pot odds to balance the ~ 1% chance of winning (e.g. running Kings, broadway straight, a flush to either the K or A, as long as the K isn't dominated by an A of the same suit, etc).
I think any serious poker player would agree that you put your opponent on a range FIRST, and then do some math. If you do math based on your opponent having ATC - since they were dealt a random hand - and ignore all other variables, then you're doing it wrong. If you can put your opponent on AA, then the math is pretty simple. Once you take into account your opponent's playing style (which can be defined mathematically; that's what poker software does), factor in the stage of the tournament (near the bubble, effective stacks, betting patterns, ICM, any visual reads you can pick up, etc.), and then you calculate whether or not you are getting sufficient odds to make a play correctly.
I recently laid down AK pre-flop in a tournament vs. the LAGest player I know. And it was early (in fact, nobody had busted out yet). Why? He raised UTG (which he does 100% of the time - means nothing), I 3-bet behind him (the first hand I'd played, outside of the blinds; around an hour into the tourney), insta-called behind me by a LP(pre-)/LAG(post-flop) player, folded around to the original raiser... and he min-4-bet.
I'd never seen him 4-bet before. He always called my 3-bets to see if he could out-flop me, but I'd never seen him re-raise. And I know that he knows that I'm the tightest player at the table, and he knows that I know that he's the loosest player at the table. Ordinarily, he would expect me to assume that my starting hand is vastly superior to his. So what could he possibly have that he thinks is better than a hand I would 3-bet with, to the point that he would reopen betting, presumably hoping I'd shove into him? I've seen him bluff literally 100s of times, and this wasn't consistent with any of his bluffs.
I thought for a moment, worked out his range to be QQ+ (and much more likely KK or AA), and folded my AK. The player behind me thought for even longer, then folded. I showed my AK ('cause I like to brag about my folds, right or wrong). The LP/LAG said he folded 66. The LAG original raiser couldn't take his eyes off my AK for what seemed like forever; then showed his AA.
I folded AK 'cause the math told me to.