i was trying some stuff on a poker calculator and found a funny situation:
obviously it’s common knowledge AA is the best possible hand in poker by far because it has a big domination on each and every other possible hand.
it’s also common knowledge that this equity decreases when more people are in the pot.
but it can become literally the worst possible hand when the right combination of opponent will come along. even more so, it’s not just the worst hand, it’s almost 3% below the second worst, which is HUGE on a full ring table. this just proves even more so why it’s extremely important to narrow down your opponents preflop when you hold a big hand.
not sure if a thread like this already came here because i vaguely remember something like that, if thats the case feel free to erase it if you like, if not have fun on the content
So… something is very wrong about that odds calculator. How can 33 hold a 13.69% probability to win, while AA only has 5.22%? That makes no sense. Why would KK have 9.43% to win, and 22 have 11.98%?
I’d recommend running this scenario on several odds calculators and see if they agree. I think we’re looking at a bugged calculator.
Edit: OK, I can see why. Because the cards that improve AA are held by othe rplayers: AK and A4. So AA holds no outs here. While 22 and 33 have the other 2 cards of their rank still in the deck somewhere, so can hit trips or quads with those hands. That makes sense.
Interesting. The hand I find oddest is that the 6d-5d is more likely to win than the KK, even with one K remaining available. The only way for the AA to win is if four hearts or clubs turn on board. And, even then, if the board pairs, the 2s, 3s, or Ks could catch a full house.
i’ve also read your edit but double checked it anyway just to be 100% sure. and indeeed the calculator is right, they might vary a few 0,0X % but in big lines they are telling the same (this one the one being the most specific)
true, but it might also win by none of them improving to more then a pair
i’ve found another way to make the equity even a lot worse:
lol, i agree slowplaying AA is rarely a good idea (the exception might be when you know someone raises every hand if you play passive) but on the otehr hand, like u said open shoving AA is usually wasting chips as well.
so try the middle way instead. the basic line is to raise 3BB’s +1 for each limper. however you might increase this if the table has bad players. on a good table you get on average about 1 calller, sometimes 2. so if you often get more callers then this on a 3BB raise you know you are playing vs bad players, so try increasing the betsizing every time you decide to play a hand until you get 1-2 callers on average. that way you know how much to raise on your table, so you get the same amount of players and the possibility to win a lot more then usual.
if you know they are bad players that like to call (way) too much, then you don’t just only increase you betsizing on AA, but you do this on every hand in your value range.
