Pocket Aces -vs- anything you want
Lets say your playing heads up, both you and your opponent can rig the deck to give yourselves any holes cards.
Your opponent naturally selects AA every time. :ac :ad to be exact.
What two hole cards would you select to have the best chance of "winning" every time.
Hint: the other two Aces is not the answer I'm looking for. This will only decrease you chances of loosing, by increasing your chances of a tie. Think of only your chances of winning, and loosing or tying doesn't count.
btw, I don't have any absolute right answer, I'm just curious to see how some of the greater poker minds think.
My answer is in white:
I would pick 10,9 suited in spades or hearts. The only way I can win is to catch 2 pair, three of a kind, a straight, or flush (and highly unlikely 4 of a kind, straight flush). I wouldn't select any other pocket pair to go up againts this hand even KK, because this makes getting 2 pair useless against the aces, and hitting 3 of a kind is a two outer. With a pocket pair, I make my odds of getting a straight or flush get harder. I could pick a higher two connected cards, but anything higher require an Ace to make the straight. I would want to avoid this not because an Ace showing up gives my opponent 3 of kind, but because he has two aces already. It means there's only 2 availble in the deck anyway to make my striaght.
Your opponent naturally selects AA every time. :ac :ad to be exact.
What two hole cards would you select to have the best chance of "winning" every time.
Hint: the other two Aces is not the answer I'm looking for. This will only decrease you chances of loosing, by increasing your chances of a tie. Think of only your chances of winning, and loosing or tying doesn't count.
btw, I don't have any absolute right answer, I'm just curious to see how some of the greater poker minds think.
My answer is in white:
I would pick 10,9 suited in spades or hearts. The only way I can win is to catch 2 pair, three of a kind, a straight, or flush (and highly unlikely 4 of a kind, straight flush). I wouldn't select any other pocket pair to go up againts this hand even KK, because this makes getting 2 pair useless against the aces, and hitting 3 of a kind is a two outer. With a pocket pair, I make my odds of getting a straight or flush get harder. I could pick a higher two connected cards, but anything higher require an Ace to make the straight. I would want to avoid this not because an Ace showing up gives my opponent 3 of kind, but because he has two aces already. It means there's only 2 availble in the deck anyway to make my striaght.
Comments
I would choose either 78s or J10s. I have found that suited connectors have a very decent chance of busting up rockets more so than most other two hole cards. Any other pocket pair would reduce your outs to only two, yet suited connectors open up a world of other possibilities.
Mid suited connectors are your best bet.
So if the flop is X K Q - you need a 9 or A to complete your st8 - but two of your Aces are already gone.
Given this situation you would want your cards to be either both Hearts or Spades.
I have always heard that 10-Js was your best bet against AA - but I have never appreciated how 10J was any better than any two other suited connecting lower cards.
J-10 seems nice but if you hit the J-10 you're still giving the Aces guy the chance for a straight if a K-Q follows it.
This reminds me of a hand when there was a series of raises pre-flop. It became apparent to all the players in the table that one of the re-raisers had A-A. The last-to-act player called the all-ins and proudly turned over 5-6 soooted. When everybody looked at him funny, I asked him why he called knowing he was up against a monster. He proudly proclaimed that 5-6 suited has the "best" chance of cracking pocket aces. He is correct, but failed to realize that he would still lose 3 out of 4 times. He busted out, and triumphantly walked out, thinking that he made the right call with six-high. :redface:
So with TheBusDriver's theoretical situation, both players should choose A-A. Choosing any other hand means that you will LOSE at least 3 out of 4 times. By also choosing A-A, your chances of losing is only 2.17%.
Mark
LOL good one mark, and I assume your going to watch 25 hours of star wars next.....
Here are the results from pokerstove
equity win tie pots won pots tied
Hand 0: 78.351% 78.14% 00.21% 1338060 3550.50 { AcAd }
Hand 1: 21.649% 21.44% 00.21% 367143 3550.50 { 5s4s }
equity win tie pots won pots tied
Hand 0: 76.944% 76.76% 00.19% 1314307 3207.50 { AcAd }
Hand 1: 23.056% 22.87% 00.19% 391582 3207.50 { 6s5s }
equity win tie pots won pots tied
Hand 0: 76.967% 76.81% 00.16% 1315168 2749.50 { AcAd }
Hand 1: 23.033% 22.87% 00.16% 391637 2749.50 { 7s6s }
equity win tie pots won pots tied
Hand 0: 76.979% 76.83% 00.15% 1315602 2515.00 { AcAd }
Hand 1: 23.021% 22.87% 00.15% 391672 2515.00 { 8s7s }
equity win tie pots won pots tied
Hand 0: 77.377% 77.22% 00.15% 1322321 2607.50 { AcAd }
Hand 1: 22.623% 22.47% 00.15% 384768 2607.50 { 9s8s }
equity win tie pots won pots tied
Hand 0: 77.235% 77.07% 00.16% 1319754 2740.50 { AcAd }
Hand 1: 22.765% 22.61% 00.16% 387069 2740.50 { Ts9s }
equity win tie pots won pots tied
Hand 0: 78.283% 78.12% 00.17% 1337569 2878.50 { AcAd }
Hand 1: 21.717% 21.55% 00.17% 368978 2878.50 { JsTs }
equity win tie pots won pots tied
Hand 0: 81.255% 81.06% 00.19% 1388072 3269.00 { AcAd }
Hand 1: 18.745% 18.55% 00.19% 317694 3269.00 { KhKs }
So going back to my original post:
The difference between 0.051 and 0.021 isn't worth anything in my opinion. Notice the KK is in worse trouble.
Can someone run pokerstove on AcAd vs 9s9h? Pretty please?
/g2
My guess is 18.795%, slightly higher than the KK because if you make a str8 it is far enough away from AA that it can't make a higher str8.
Man if we're down to these slight differences for it to make a difference, our reads must be really improving.
Just for you greg.....
equity win tie pots won pots tied
Hand 0: 80.194% 80.05% 00.14% 1370736 2422.00 { AcAd }
Hand 1: 19.806% 19.66% 00.14% 336724 2422.00 { 9h9s }
LOL you mean you can't determine 0.005% of a difference with your reads? You must be getting old Jeff
You still need to play poker.
Assume the following:
1) NL poker with deep stacks around 50BB or more
2) opponent does not know the starting hands are rigged
3) you cannot rig the flop turn or river -- that's random
I would prefer a pocket pair like 55. My risk/reward ratio is the greatest for a pocket pair. I know immediately on the flop if I'm a favourite and when I hit my set I'm a huge favourite. If my opponent hits their set, I can still go for the straight -- assuming they might want to let me see some cards for free -- since they hit their set.
With suited connectors, I may be a favourite on the flop with a straight + a flush draw, but it's only a small favourite. And to hit my flush on the flop is around 117 to 1 and just a little smaller for a straight. So with suited connecters the best I can hope for, most of the time is to get my money in as a small favourite on the flop -- and I have to risk my whole stack going all-in to ensure I can see two cards.
Set's much better disguised and I can extract the most while paying the least.
Now if we're short stacked around 20BB and we likely get all money in pre-flop -- then suited connector is slightly better.
Cheers
Magi
Unless ho loves AA even after showing my to pair and go all in and he gets runner runner for the flush.
it put me out of the tournament
Prophet 22
Just that the Aces take away one of your straights
I was under the assumption you had to choose. Like a Columbian Drug Lord had your virgin daughter and said pick and two cards to beat my hand and she goes free...
Aside from that - if I know my opponent has Aces and the stacks arent deep, as suggested by Lou - the correct move is to fold.