AA OOP: My first objective is to not lose a big pot.
Hand 1: Massive re-raise for me. I'd probably raise it right up to $75. Even raising up to $55 is giving good implied odds to the $1.1k stack who has a PP here.
Hand 2: I'm happy to flat call here sometimes- and raise his flop bet or even turn bet if you think he'll fire again. Alternatively re-raise but control the pot size, e.g. bet flop, c/c turn, bet (or c/c) river.
Never be disappointed to win small pots with AA
WRONG.
- With what hands does your objective become to win a big pot?
1) Making it $75 gives him better implied odds if he holds a pocket pair ducy? Because you now can be put on exactly AA and the bigger pot is going to be harder for you to get away from postflop;
2) Ya, the concepts of 3 betting preflop and value betting postflop are WAAAAAAAAY overrated;
Sorry, I'm just learning the game. Thanks for the tips.
Just to clarify though; charging him
more gives him
better implied odds? So if, say, we pushed all-in, he'd be getting a great price then?
Also, if you don't mind helping me figure this out, if by charging him $75 pre-flop it only gives him just over 6/1 (or 7/1 if we only consider the additional $64 that we are charging) to flop a set
and to remain ahead by the river how does he have sufficient odds when he really needs ~10/1?
As a complete novice I'm probably wrong [again] here, but it strikes me that your advice is better suited to 6-max play- and that you probably don't play a lot of $1/$2 full ring online. Along those same lines, in my very limited experience, I've always found that a 6-max style of play applied to full-ring is one of the quickest ways to get stacked regularly.
Thanks in advance for any help you can offer me.
Of course his implied odds in terms of the rest of the money are effectively worse the bigger you raise preflop; however - the bigger you make it preflop the more certain he can be of taking the rest of the loot if he is holding 44 and the flop is 4xx. Because if you go $75 here your range is like, exactly AA. And if he has a lower pocket pair he can figure that you are going to stuggle to escape from a $190 pot postflop if he sets up on the flop. Particularly if he knows that you are going to c bet for at least $120 most of the time.
There can be the rest of the money left to go in which amounts to your theoretical implied odds - but there will always be a varying likelyhood that the rest of that money can go in on a later street. This will vary as per the situation. So:
- If you make it $75 his effective implied odds decrease; but the percentage chance that he gets paid off in full for the rest the times he hits gin significantly increase;
- If you make it $55 his effective implied odds decrease; but the percentage chance that you always go the full way when he hits gin decrease;
As such, the extreme of pushing in provides him with no implied odds obviously - but he can be absolutely certain of the gamble he is taking and what his expectation from the hand will be if he continues anyway.
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Now, there is also the flipside of the coin - which is what do we want to make from the hand? I mean, yeah, we can make it $100 preflop satisfied that he has the incorrect implied odds to setmine and knowing that we either win what is in the middle if he folds or have played preflop unexploitably if he calls. That is unquestionably a winning play from our perspective. However, we will never win more than the $ he puts in preflop unless we are beat postflop or he is a complete and utter idiot. Or we set over set him.
So we are making an unexploitably profitable play - but we are not maximising our potential from the hand.
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If we make it $55, firstly we widen his perceptions of what we might have here (it is also important for us to actually make it $55 with things other than AA here for that reason). It becomes more likely that we will get a caller. And we do want a caller after all.
When he calls the pot will be smaller and there will be more money behind. So yes, in theory his implied odds are better if he flops gin - but we are hoping that we can play good enough postflop to fold at least some of the time that we get outflopped. And it will certaintly be easier for us to do that if there is $40 less in there going to the flop. But he may think of his bigger theoretical implied odds so now he:
- calls with a wider range of hands - making the mistake of calling some AJ+ hands; some connecting hands; some junk he finds pretty;
- becomes more likely to put money into the pot postflop when he is beat. Because he isn't exclusively setmining us; he may just talk us into having hands that suit him postflop and which he could beat on the basis of what he hits beacuse we don't always have AA here;
So, while our play is less unexploitable because we raised to a smaller amount preflop - and we may open ourselves to getting stacked with a greater frequency - we also create the opportunity to win big pots off our opponent and stack them with a greater frequency!! So our expectation in terms of the overall money we will win from this type of spot in the long haul rises significantly.
Think of it like this: Assume 200 BB stacks. If you always just shoved all - in preflop when you got AA you would definitely show a profit over the long run. It would possibly be the lowest risk play you could make in poker. But while it would carry a very low risk; it would also carry a relatively low expectation in terms of chips won.
If you choose to raise 3x the BB instead, your risk increases significantly. But at the same time your expectation in terms of chips you will win from your opponent also rises. Your hand strength is such that you will always have a positive expectation in terms of chips with AA. And taking a flop headsup or three handed carries an element of risk. But we are gambling at the end of the day. Lets not fool ourselves. What we want to do is try and push the edges to maximise our expected winrate. Then just play an absolute load so that the variance we incur gets a chance to even itself out.
My ranges and perception of ranges may be off because I only play fullring cash live against drunks and droolers - but your mentallity and approach to situations doesn't really change because of the game format (or at least it shouldn't). You want to win money. And in order to do that you need to be willing to gamble (with an edge) and incur risk upon yourself.
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