STT - AA first hand

[slapdash]

Originally Posted by guesswest

The EV is the same heads up vs 5 way, to whoever said that - though obviously your chances of winning the hand aren't the same.

I may be misunderstanding what you're saying, but I don't think the EV is the same heads up as 5-way, is it?

If you're all-in with AA, then I'm pretty sure your EV is higher against more
players. That's certainly true against random hands. The figures will change
for the kinds of hands that might decide to go all-in or call your all-in, but I'd
be surprised if that overturned the EV advantage of having more players.

[stereoman]

LOL! Am playing a low-limit Dirty Dozen SNG over at Betfred and I get dealt AA 1st hand!



Raise it to 120, 2 callers. Bet 240 on the flop, both fold. Dangerous flop an' all, that. ;lol

[guesswest]

Originally Posted by slapdash

I may be misunderstanding what you're saying, but I don't think the EV is the same heads up as 5-way, is it?

If you're all-in with AA, then I'm pretty sure your EV is higher against more
players. That's certainly true against random hands. The figures will change
for the kinds of hands that might decide to go all-in or call your all-in, but I'd
be surprised if that overturned the EV advantage of having more players.

Sorry yes you're right, quick typing mixed with slow brain.

It's the all-in bit that's significant here I think. I meant that your EV remains constant if you were in for (say) 1000 against 5 players, or 5000 against 1. You have more +EV in this situation against multiple players only because it means the pot is bigger and you're spreading your existing positive expectation over a bigger bet.

I think that's right - am I wrong? Would appreciate clarification if so, I'm not very mathematically minded

[slapdash]

Originally Posted by guesswest

It's the all-in bit that's significant here I think. I meant that your EV remains constant if you were in for (say) 1000 against 5 players, or 5000 against 1. You have more +EV in this situation against multiple players only because it means the pot is bigger and you're spreading your existing positive expectation over a bigger bet.

I think that's right - am I wrong? Would appreciate clarification if so, I'm not very mathematically minded

I'm not quite sure I understand what you mean. Against random hands,
you have about an 85% chance of winning against one opponent and about
a 49% chance of winning against five opponents.

So in the first case, if you both have 5000 chips in the pot, then you have
an EV of about 8500 chips (or an expected profit of 3500 chips).

In the second case, if all six players have 1000 chips in the pot, then you
have an EV of about 2940 chips (or an expected profit of 1940 chips).


About whether it's the all-in bit that's important, I'm a bit confused myself.
I've been meaning to sit down and think through carefully WHY "aces play
better heads-up". I don't doubt it's true, and I have a vague idea why, but
I can't say I REALLY understand it. Certainly the arguments I've seen in
books have seemed very unconvincing to me.

[guesswest]

I stand corrected on the multi-way EV thing - I'd always assumed it remained (proportionally) the same. Big error on my part!


As far as aces heads up go though, I was thinking about this recently. My theory is something like this:

If you're not playing them heads up it's generally because you're not putting in a significant pre-flop raise. That means you're getting calls from suited connectors/medium pocket pairs etc. They're only going to continue to call you if they hit (and thus normally have you beat) - but they're easily thrown away when they miss. The maxim is something like 'you win less often but you win more' when people talk about playing aces multi-way, but I think you just win less often because in terms of the real dynamics of the game people aren't paying you when you're ahead. And even in situations where you are ahead and have some muppet calling you with an underpair or for the hell of it, unless you've hit a set or some such you can't really bet with enough confidence to get paid in such a way that it'd show the same kind of profitability as heads-up play.