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An unusual situation arose on Full Tilt Poker this morning, confirming my view that Sunday mornings UK time are now better than Saturday mornings. I had three loose-aggressive players on my right. And two of them were well up.
This last point shouldn't be much of a surprise. Laggy players either win or go bust quickly, as opposed to more pasive players who are guaranteed to go broke slowly. A not-too-bad looseish passive player in limit can lose little enough for the sum to be "sustainable" (i.e., he loses less than he is prepared to lose every month). LAGs, on the other hand, either win big or vanish. So, when you see a LAG still at the table, there is a good chance that he has been lucky, and that he will therefore be up. It often leads people to think that the laggy style is more successful than it really is, because, when you sit down, it's likely that you are replacing the unlucky LAG. This also explains the oft-quoted line "I don't get it, whenever I play like that, I do my pieces".
Anyway, three lags on your right can make for exciting times, which set me pondering a question.
It's really a rerun of the old Abdul "Aces" poser.
Which would you prefer with Aces, one opponent, or four opponents, two with random hands, two with hands ranked 4-to-8 on the Sklansky scale, and one with a group two hand? In other words, which has the greater EV in the long run?
Abdul's old calculations used Wilson software, I believe, and having looked at what the current software looks like, I reckon there are likely to be some serious questions about applying such software to real life. Basically, I think that people are likely to be less gung-ho against you than the software indicates.
There are other questions to ponder here besides the mathematics. If you have a greater "feel" for a heads-up situation (i.e., are less likely to make a serious mistake), then this has to be factored in. Even though the EV given correct play in a multi-player pot may be higher, and an EV given perfect play might be higher still (in comparison to correct and perfect play in the heads-up situation), it might still be correct for you to choose the heads-up option if you suck at multi-player situations.
But, let's imagine a couple of scenarios, and look at the theoretical EV. This is not an empirical analysis (for example, empirically it's important to think about the types of player at the table, making one move right at one type of table, while another move is right at a different type of table). It's just an attempt to get some kind of theoretical starting point on which the empiricism can be built.
AA v a group 2 hand will win 86% of the time. Let's assume that AA wins 40% with his flop bet, 30% with his turn bet, 10% with his river bet and 20% at showdown.
That gives a return of
0.4*2.5 big bets = 1
0.3*3.5 big bets = 1.05
0.1*5.5 big bets = 0.55
0.2*7.5 big bets = 1.50
for a total of 4.05.
However, we now multiply this by 0.86 and have to subtract a certain amount for when you lose. If you go into check-call mode when you lose, this is going to be 0.14*3.5, or thereabouts.
I make that a roughly anticipated gain of three big bets a hand. Looking at my Party stats, which tend to be heads-up battles more often than not, I see an average gain of 2.41 big bets a hand.
Now, what's the equity in a multi-wayer where you limp? Pokercalc puts your equity at 53% against four opponents with varying ranges, so your likely average gain would appear to be higher. You are going to lose your 3.5 bets about 47% of the time (say, 2 big bets between friends), But 53% of the time you are going to average, what? Well, that's the tough one. Say a couple of them fold the flop, one folds the turn and the other goes to the end.
That gives you not much more in the pot, surprsingly (because you limped pre-flop and some of the money in there is blind money, which would be in there anyway). Let's assume about 6BB on average. Which you win 53% of the time, or 3.5BB on average. On those numbers, limping with aces and letting in the blinds for free is not a clever move.
I have often felt this. limping with aces is, in effect, a slowplay. Now we all know that people often slowplay the flop when they are not strong enough so to do, but to slowplay pre-flop, when your opponents are never as far behind as you think they are, strikes me as madder than mad dog Jock McMad.
However, in certain circumstances, it can pay off. But it's very player dependent, not a move I think you should do as a matter of course.
This last point shouldn't be much of a surprise. Laggy players either win or go bust quickly, as opposed to more pasive players who are guaranteed to go broke slowly. A not-too-bad looseish passive player in limit can lose little enough for the sum to be "sustainable" (i.e., he loses less than he is prepared to lose every month). LAGs, on the other hand, either win big or vanish. So, when you see a LAG still at the table, there is a good chance that he has been lucky, and that he will therefore be up. It often leads people to think that the laggy style is more successful than it really is, because, when you sit down, it's likely that you are replacing the unlucky LAG. This also explains the oft-quoted line "I don't get it, whenever I play like that, I do my pieces".
Anyway, three lags on your right can make for exciting times, which set me pondering a question.
It's really a rerun of the old Abdul "Aces" poser.
Which would you prefer with Aces, one opponent, or four opponents, two with random hands, two with hands ranked 4-to-8 on the Sklansky scale, and one with a group two hand? In other words, which has the greater EV in the long run?
Abdul's old calculations used Wilson software, I believe, and having looked at what the current software looks like, I reckon there are likely to be some serious questions about applying such software to real life. Basically, I think that people are likely to be less gung-ho against you than the software indicates.
There are other questions to ponder here besides the mathematics. If you have a greater "feel" for a heads-up situation (i.e., are less likely to make a serious mistake), then this has to be factored in. Even though the EV given correct play in a multi-player pot may be higher, and an EV given perfect play might be higher still (in comparison to correct and perfect play in the heads-up situation), it might still be correct for you to choose the heads-up option if you suck at multi-player situations.
But, let's imagine a couple of scenarios, and look at the theoretical EV. This is not an empirical analysis (for example, empirically it's important to think about the types of player at the table, making one move right at one type of table, while another move is right at a different type of table). It's just an attempt to get some kind of theoretical starting point on which the empiricism can be built.
AA v a group 2 hand will win 86% of the time. Let's assume that AA wins 40% with his flop bet, 30% with his turn bet, 10% with his river bet and 20% at showdown.
That gives a return of
0.4*2.5 big bets = 1
0.3*3.5 big bets = 1.05
0.1*5.5 big bets = 0.55
0.2*7.5 big bets = 1.50
for a total of 4.05.
However, we now multiply this by 0.86 and have to subtract a certain amount for when you lose. If you go into check-call mode when you lose, this is going to be 0.14*3.5, or thereabouts.
I make that a roughly anticipated gain of three big bets a hand. Looking at my Party stats, which tend to be heads-up battles more often than not, I see an average gain of 2.41 big bets a hand.
Now, what's the equity in a multi-wayer where you limp? Pokercalc puts your equity at 53% against four opponents with varying ranges, so your likely average gain would appear to be higher. You are going to lose your 3.5 bets about 47% of the time (say, 2 big bets between friends), But 53% of the time you are going to average, what? Well, that's the tough one. Say a couple of them fold the flop, one folds the turn and the other goes to the end.
That gives you not much more in the pot, surprsingly (because you limped pre-flop and some of the money in there is blind money, which would be in there anyway). Let's assume about 6BB on average. Which you win 53% of the time, or 3.5BB on average. On those numbers, limping with aces and letting in the blinds for free is not a clever move.
I have often felt this. limping with aces is, in effect, a slowplay. Now we all know that people often slowplay the flop when they are not strong enough so to do, but to slowplay pre-flop, when your opponents are never as far behind as you think they are, strikes me as madder than mad dog Jock McMad.
However, in certain circumstances, it can pay off. But it's very player dependent, not a move I think you should do as a matter of course.
