Many questions about hands boil down to “should you play a pre-flop coin flip here?” Sounds simple…or is it? I’ve been using the phrase for years without thinking fully about what it means. The implication is that if we have a pair, we know our opponent has two overcards, or vice-versa. Reality is always more complicated.The truth is: we are talking about situations where our hand is 50% (give or take a few percent) against the entirety of our opponent’s range. Let’s use a sample hand from a recent thread posted in the Hand Advice forum, and walk through how to decide the “right” play.
The Hero is in the money in a tournament, and has an above-average chip stack (50k, blinds are 800/1600/200) – still only 32 big blinds. If you like, his Harrington “M” is only 12…by no means, a deep stack. Hero has been very aggressive from position, raising the last few pots he’s had the button, taking down the blinds & antes every time. This hand, the Hero has a pair of 8s and makes a raise from the button to 4000. The Big Blind shoves over the top with no hesitation for 38k total.
His shove is big enough where the temptation is to discount AA, KK, and QQ from the villain’s range. Many players will shove lesser hands in this spot, but try to “extract value” with a monster. For argument’s sake, and because you should keep betting consistency across your entire range, let’s keep QQ+ in the analysis.
This shove, for sure, doesn’t feel “tight”, especially since the Hero has taken his blind the last few orbits. There is a definite “get off of my Kool-Aid, bitch” angle going on here. So, let’s say his range is {QT+, K9+, A8+, 22+} – the top 20% of hands. To be honest, that’s not even close to the “any two cards” range that may be called for to slow down a very aggressive opponent. But we’ll go with top 20% for now.
Against that range, PokerStove says the Hero has 53.5% equity in the hand.
440,062,128 games 0.312 secs 1,410,455,538 games/sec
Board:
Dead:
EQUITY WIN TIE POTS WON POTS TIED
Hand 0: 53.479% 53.02% 00.46% 233302910 2039574.00 { 8c8d }
Hand 1: 46.521% 46.06% 00.46% 202680070 2039574.00 { 22+, A8s+, K9s+, QTs+, A8o+, K9o+, QTo+ }
There is 1800 + 1600 + 800 + 4000 + 38000 = 46200 in the pot, and the Hero needs to call 34000 more. So the Hero only needs to win 42.4% of the time from a pot odds perspective. It’s an obvious call…the Hero has over a 10% equity edge.
Running some additional simulations through PokerStove…here’s the kind of ranges the Hero has to be up against in order for 8-8 to not have 42.4% equity in the hand, and therefore be a fold:
{99+, ATs+, KQs, AJo+, KQo} – 88 has 41.9% equity
{77+, AJs+, AJo+} – 88 has 42.2% equity
{99+, A9s+, ATo+} – 88 has 42.2% equity
Those aren’t “I’m getting tired of this…lay off my blinds!” ranges. They’re closer to “Allen Kessler on the bubble of a satellite”. Those ranges are all only covering the top 8% of all hands. That’s incredibly tight.
To be honest, I’m not one of those who say you should take any edge, no matter when, no matter how small. The classic example, put forth by game theory practitioners, is this scenario:
It’s the first hand of a tournament. You raise with JJ. The player on your left shoves. As he checked his cards before shoving, you notice he has AK suited. You have a 52:48 edge. Do you call?
Some players, many of them much better than I, will respond, “Of course…I’m never passing up an edge.” And in my years of trying, I have not yet come up with a generic argument against that position. I just know, from my personal experience, I am not likely to win twice as much money in a tournament if I double up in its first hand. In a huge-field online tournament, I would have to outlast another couple hundred more players to double my winnings. Do I have enough +$EV with less-than-0.1% of the total chips in play added to my stack?
The Hero from the earlier hand, however, has no such philosophical debate to worry about. By the next level of the tournament, his “M” will be under 10, and he’ll be dangerously close to push-fold territory. If he doubles up at this point, his +$EV is incredibly high. The power of being the chip leader with 150 left in a tournament is MUCH better than just being an above-average stack.
A piece of advice I’ve been giving a lot recently says, “Poker is a tough enough game as it is…you’ll make yourself crazy if you overthink the easier decisions.” To be fair, the Hero’s spot is somewhat more complicated than most of the times I use that phrase. But with some practice, you can develop a fairly good feel for what the odds are with certain hands against tight and loose ranges. From there…you go with it. You make adjustments based on what range he has – not whether or not you “want to play a flip.”
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