Texas Holdem Hand Value

Rec.Gambling.Poker Posts

The Erroneous Ideas of "Plays Best" and "Losing Value"
MadKarma3 wrote...
> AQo plays best against a small number opponents, where one pair
> will often be the best hand. Raising from the blind will almost never
> narrow the field.

"Plays best" leads to some really rotten thinking. AA "plays best" in this situation, but we don't have it. We got what we got. We got this many opponents, not some other number. AQ versus a bunch of crap hands is easily, clearly, undoubtedly more profitable for two bets than for one bet. If these players were all sneaky, tight guys, that's different. If people are playing J9o, you are just throwing away money by not putting more money in the pot.

> I think the weaker the field the more you should raise...the tougher
> the field the more you should just call. Is that fair?

The game described featured loose, non-tricky players. In this situation a raise is the only way to go. Against a tougher field there might be reasons to occasionally not raise six limpers, but then there might be reasons to not open your front door when Jennifer Lopez comes knocking. Even if you have to be concerned about the first two limpers, the next four people are virtually 100% certain to be giving up pre-flop value to you. If they are generally strong players, a raise is even more called for here. They are trying to sneak in cheap... don't let them.

> I've also seen it first hand. We all have, I'm sure. AQo is more a
> one pair/two pair hand than a drawing hand. If it were suited,
> its a little different. 98s is more a straight hand/flush hand moreso
> than a one pair/two pair hand. They play best under opposite conditions.

Again, why are you talking about "best"? What does "best" have to do with it? Answer, nothing at all, and thinking it does is a major mistake.

So what if AQ does awesome against one random hand, and 98s does much less well against one opponent? So what if now 98s does much better against 7 randomish opponents than it did against one? This is truly not important in the least. What is important is that both AQ and 98s do well against six or seven randomish opponents. But AQo will win significantly *more* often than 98s. If you run a simple hot and cold simulation you can see that. Of course, that's not the whole story. How the hand's play counts. 98s is more of a flop dependent hand (wins less pots, but gets more post flop bets). Seeing the flop for half a bet in the small blind, out of position is a good thing. It's value becomes very good on a smallish number of flops. AQo however has it's value before the flop, against all those hands like 98s, 54o, J9o, etc, etc. You get more money in the pot NOW because you are not drawing for a small number of flops, you are drawing for a much larger number of flops than 54o or J9o or 98s.

AQo may be "best" against Q2, but that sure doesn't mean you don't put two bets in with AQo against Q3.

> AQo may be the highest ranking hand in a loose field of seven
> but it likely isn't the favorite to take the pot unless the others
> are playing nearly random hands, right?

Wrong thinking for a lot of reasons, but mostly, again, "best" is a worthless way to think. "Profitable" is how to think. Even if it's the second favorite among seven hands, that is terrific.

> Its speculative and should be played as such.

Speculative? Preflop, every hand but AA is "speculative". AKs is. KK is. You are speculating. Poker does have gambling in it. But you are speculating with AQ while opponents are speculating with J9. This is very, very cool.

> ["Best"] absolutely matters what situation you play all hands in.
> Indiscriminately playing hands the same way no matter the
> situation is utter foolishness.

That doesn't have anything to do with the concept of "best".

> Observant opponents or not. You must consider the situation every time with
> every hand and play accordingly. Do you ignore position now as well Badger?

Position is always a consideration. But what does that have to do with what we are talking about?

> Theoretically, you want to get as much money in the pot when you
> have the *best* of it, right? This situation isn't best for AQo...
> see the flop and use your skills there.

I'm not sure, but it really seems you are waaaaay misunderstanding what "the best of it" means. The concept has nothing to do with what is the ideal situation for a hand; the concept is about putting your money in play in situations that are mathematically profitable.

One one level, AQo absolutely has the best of it for a raise. BUT, AQo also has the best of the situation if it doesn't raise. Either way, playing the hand is profitable. Folding is the clear mistake. Either calling or raising will earn you money. The question then is which is generally better (assuming in some non-standard situations the alternate choice might be better).

Against too loose players, with a hand that will win a high percentage of showdowns but will get non-multiway action after the flop when it hits... you should commonly raise before the flop. THAT is the principal skill involved here: get the money in when you have the best of it.

> I play in many loose games, but I rarely run across games where players
> routinely play random hands.

I guess you don't play in California. But see below. It's not truly random hands, but it's weak cards.

> So judging the hand by how it plays against random hands can't dictate
> how it plays against weak players that have at least a little discrimination.

Like 98s, 54s, J9o. Add 33, KTo and A8o. We beat these hands bad, if we raise before the flop. It is a significant mistake to not raise with AQ against *these* hands before the flop.

> I think what is being forgotten is that you are in the blinds and
> are way out of position for the rest of the hand.

No, that again is a reason to raise NOW. We will be out of position. Get our profit NOW. If we were in position we could manipulate post-flop betting better. Out of position, get the clear value when you can.

> Is 98s being thrown up against random hands and a random number
> of players. Is 98s being played out of position or is it simulated in
> late position with many limpers ahead of you? This is its *best*
> situation and that is a VITAL when considering playing it.

Again, "best" is a worthless way to look at it. Look at when the hand is profitable. Play it when it is, muck it when it isn't. Caring whether it makes $8.74 in one situation, but only $7.12 in another makes no sense at all. I'll play it both times, and I'll muck it when it loses money.

> Certainly, in most games, AQo is playable in any position but raising
> with it just can not always be the best play. There are variables.
> A hand's ideal situation (position, number of players, skill of players, etc)
> absolutely must be taken into consideration you when
> decide to put more money into the pot than you have to.

A hand's ideal situation is never important. My ideal hand is against a guy who caps it on fourth street and mucks his cards as he caps it. Big deal. Totally worthless to think about. The only thing that counts is whether you have the "best of it", whether playing is mathematically/financially correct.

> I must misunderstand what you are trying to suggest. KJo is a
> very speculative hand too. Sometimes you dont want to put any
> money in the pot with it. Sometimes only only bet and almost never
> two or more bets. It depends it depends it depends. The more players
> you add the more speculative AQo becomes and the less I want to
> commit to it preflop. Its just not as robust a hand as AKs, AKo or even AQs.

By thinking this way you are handing money to players who are playing more speculative hands than yours. If you have 54s, do you want the AQo to raise or just call? If you say raise, why didn't you raise yourself? The answer should be clear, do to your opponents what you wouldn't want them to do to you.

> AQo is usually playable from any position so the checklist becomes
> a little shorter. But I am arguing that it is wrong to be indiscriminately
> aggressive with it.

You were arguing no such thing. And I never said anybody should be "indiscriminately aggressive" with any hand at any time. I did say that in the described situation not raising is terrible mistake, all the time. You should raise. And it is not "aggressive", it is just correct to get money in the pot before the flop with hands that win a higher percentage of the time but that usually can not extract river bets. You don't seem to be looking at the important issues.

> It is a good, semi-strong hand but definitely gets overplayed by many players.

The exact opposite is true. It is a good, strongish hand that is misplayed by many players. It is a very easy hand to play, but it is mangled by people who don't understand that a hand that wins 1/5 or 1/6 of the time when played against six opponents is a terrific hand. Holdem is all about small edges. You don't raise this hand in this situation, you give up most of your edge. You are playing bad. Choosing a path that makes you dime rather than a quarter is throwing 15 cents away as surely as flushing it down the toilet.

> Books certainly aren't the gospel of poker but I have read several
> and most have agreed that only the strongest hands are worth
> routinely raising with from the blinds. This approach seems to work
> best for me. AQo is good but is also very vulnerable.

This is a nonsense comment. The only hands you should raise with out of the blinds are those that have a positive expectation. The only hands that you should not raise with out of the blind are those without a positive expectation. (Tiny exceptions to both when you are mixing up your play or out to burn up some of the table's chips.) "Vulnerable" is not a consideration in the least.

> Generally, the best players even lose money overall from the blinds....

And the best players will lose less because they will play their hands properly. Players can disagree what is "properly", but that is all that counts.

Ken M wrote...
> I believe it [the concept of "losing value"] comes from the idea
> that Holdem players tend to play big cards. If you have big cards
> (like KQ), and a bunch of callers, there is more likely to be an AK,
> another KQ, etc., out than if you were head to head.

The game was described as loose and weak. I would presume that the cards are dealt randomly and that it is likely the players have a normal, random distribution of cards. If the game was described as tight, then sure, they are likely to have big cards, but if you are in a game with seven people commonly taking the flop, then you should just presume the seven or so best hands that were dealt are the ones being played, and that means you shouldn't presume a non-random amount of big cards are in play.

This "goes down in value" nonsense is just hot air. If you are on the button with KQo and face six limpers, if you muck the hand because you would *rather* that everyone had folded, you are just nuts. Comparing these things is not just worthless, it is very illogical. What matters, all that matters, is if the KQ has a positive value or not. Play it when it does, muck it when it doesn't, and raise it when that is better than calling.

If I'm in the big blind playing No Limit with KQo, and the guy under the gun moves all his chips in, and everybody folds, and then the guy shows me his K2o and dares me to call, I will call. Okay, that is one situation. Now suppose I am in the big blind again, and only this time the guy moves all in and shows me 72o. Should I be sitting there thinking "oh no, my KQo just WENT DOWN IN VALUE"? Of course not, it's nonsensical.

"Down in value" is a worse than worthless concept. It should never enter a sentence about how to play a hand. All that matters is if a situation is profitable or not, and what is most profitable (or least unprofitable).

Chas Friedman wrote...
> How about the following: A hand like KQo is better to have against
> a small number of opponents, and goes down in value if there are
> many players staying in the hand.

It's not true. You are saying KQo has some value divorced from circumstances. It doesn't. It's just two pieces of paper. Circumstances define whether it's value is positive or negative. Sometimes against one opponent it has great value; sometimes against one opponent it is in deep crap.

> In such a case a hand like JT s is probably better

Irrelevant. Is the hand a positive value or not? Saying it is more or less valuable than some other hand is non-sensible. Suppose you are on the button with three limpers. In one case you have AA, in another case you have KK. I'd rather have AA, but that is not helpful in the least. Both hands are profitable; both hands should be played; and both hands call for the same action (raise). It's irrelevant to the determination that you should raise that AA is worth $37.82 and KK worth $23.87. It just means nothing at all. Raise.

> since if you make a straight or flush with it, you may get paid off
> at favorable odds (compared with those of making the hand.)
> Heads up, KQo may be better over the long run. "Down in value"
> is just an evaluation of profitability, and the notion seems useful to me.

Well how so? What difference does it make to you if KQ is worth $12 in one situation and $8 in another? So you might prefer JTs. How is that relevant to whether, and how, to play KQo? It just doesn't matter at all.

Chas Friedman wrote...
> The point about "going down (or up) in value" is exactly that it
> depends on the circumstances. Of course, the hand has no intrinsic
> value in itself. I guess I first saw this notion in Sklansky's "Holdem Poker"
> On page 26 of the 1989 edition, he says:
> "The... principle is that certain hands change in value based on the number of
> opponents. High cards and high pairs do best against fewer opponents."

A hand's value is different in every situation. But the number of players is not the most critical determination of that, it's the type of hands they hold. That "High cards and high pairs do best against fewer opponents" sentence is poorly conceived, but that isn't the point of what I've written in this thread.

The point is that it doesn't matter *at all* what the ideal or best situation there is for a hand, only if it is profitable. "Do best" is again a totally worthless statement. Is a hand profitable in this situation, now? That is what should be calculated, not some ridiculous notion of how much less good a hand is in X situation as opposed to Y situation.

The KQo example is a perfect one. The situation might not be ideal, but it is totally useless to take that into consideration in what you do. THIS is the situation, now DO what is most profitable that you CAN do.

ProfeLub wrote...
> Can you elaborate on the following statement that you made?
> I don't think I truly understand your meaning here:
> >"The hand is not 'devalued', it is *valued* at the point it is your turn to act.
> > That's all. There is no point comparing it to some mythical situation.
> > Look at where you are."

I'll try one more time. The value of a hand is determined by a situation. Holding AJo on the button when two people have limped is a different situation from having it on the button when those same two people raised and reraised. If you looked at your cards before anyone acted, you could say that in the second example when it is your turn to act that your AJ "went down in value" from when you looked at before anybody acted. But that "down" should not ever be taken into consideration in your decision-making. That is where this thread started. The only thing that matters is: is AJ a profitable hand in this situation against these two players. It's silly in the extreme to be thinking about the *difference* in the value of the hand when people limp or when it is reraised and reraised. The *difference* is irrelevant -- it's exactly the same as basing your decision on whether you are playing with the blue deck or the red deck. It doesn't matter at all. What matters is the bottom line.

Back to the KQ. Some situations the hand may be worth $8.70. Some times it may be worth $7.32. What matters is the $7.32, *not* $1.38 difference between the two situations. Thinking about the $1.32 is worthless. The $7.32 hand did not go "down in value". It is a $7.32 hand, in this situation. That's it. Now act on your hand.

Whether you raise or call (or fold) will effect the $7.32 number. That is what can cause the hand to go up or down in value, not a comparison to other situations.

Tom Robertson wrote...
> How valuable a certain hand is in different situations is relevant to
> what to do in the situation that you're in. Let's say that hand X is
> more valuable with fewer players in the pot. Maybe, with no callers
> besides the blinds, it is worth 5Y. If there has been 1 caller, it's
> worth 3Y. If there have been 2 callers, it's worth Y. If there have
> been 3 callers, it's worth -Y. This helps you decide what to do,
> based on how many callers there have been. If there have been 3 or
> more callers, I don't see anything wrong with saying that hand X has
> gone down so much in value compared to what value it would have had
> had there not been any callers that it's now better to fold. To say
> that only the situation you're in should be evaluated and that the
> value of different situations shouldn't be compared implies that
> comparing different situations is of no help in evaluating the
> situation you're in, for which I see no justification.

What you are advocating is not valuable. If the hand is worth 5Y in this situation, then act accordingly. If it's worth Y, then act accordingly. If it's worth -Y, again act accordingly. The fact a hand that could be worth 5Y sometimes is only worth Y now is utterly irrelevant to what you do with the hand. It is worth Y. Now act.

That down in value idea just makes no sense. If someone wants to say that a hand is now a *negative* value when sometimes it is positive, well then fold. But the reason you are folding is not the difference in value. What I see many people doing is parroting a meaningless phrase in a way that implies that this decrease in value makes the hand now negative in value. There is no such correlation, necessarily. Coincidentally there may be.

There are a limited number of poker actions. When it comes to you, often your only choices are raise, call or fold. If raising is worth 5Y in some other situation, but is only worth 4Y here -- while calling is worth 1Y and folding is worth a -Y -- then you raise. You don't be concerned about some "down in value" nonsense. You do the best you can. This is not semantics. It's about a person's thought process. Wasting time thinking about nonsense is no help in a poker game.

Tom Robertson wrote...
> As an overall approach to the hand. If there are fewer than 3 callers,
> the hand is playable. If not, it isn't. That's because it has less value
> (or, perhaps worded less accurately, "goes down in value") when
> there are many callers. You can't separate what to do with hand X in
> a given situation from an overall plan of how to play hand X in any situation.

I just can't see how you think this makes any sense at all. Why are you making a decision based on "less" value? It is a very poor thing to do. I don't know how to say it any other way but again, less value does not equal negative value!

Whether it is "less" in this situation than in another is utterly useless. If it is "less" but still a positive value, you play. If it is "less" but is now a negative value, you fold. The "less" has zero to do with it.

But this is precisely why the statement is so extremely unhelpful. Tom is saying his decision to not play is based on the "less" value of the hand. I have no doubt that in reality he is thinking more non-uselessly and is folding a non-playable hand because he thinks it has a negative expectation, not because it is "less", but... look at the words here, he says it isn't playable because it is "less". That is a totally nonsensical way to decide whether to play a hand. Again, +37 is "less" than +62, but if you fold you the +37 hand just because it is "less", you are playing stupidly. Novices, and more experienced players too, sure better not be making decisions based on "less". Players should learn to base their actions on the value of the hand, not some mythical non-concept resulting from a poorly written sentence.
---

Tom Robertson wrote...
> > Badger wrote: "I don't know how to say it any other way but again,
> > less value does not equal negative value!"

> That's so obvious that I have a hard time believing that anyone thinks it is.

One would think so, but still people say, like with this KQo example that they are basing their action on the questionable "fact" that KQo has gone down in value, when in fact that is totally irrelevant. If a person says that, and means something different, they still can make the right decision, but that certainly is not what what is implied by the statements that get made here sometimes. The definite implication is that a hand should be layed down (or just called instead of raised) specifically because it has gone "down in value." It is then only coincidental if they do the right action. Poker values cover a wide range. In some situations a raise might be worth $87, and in others a raise with the same cards might be worth $82. But in both cases a raise is the best action. It should be obvious that you are just crying over spilt milk to care about that $5 difference, but it is a huge mistake to think that just because the hand has gone "down" to $82 that this means it should be folded or only called.

> Aren't there hands which you would raise with if there are sufficiently
> few callers, but only call with if there are sufficiently many, since that
> hand has less value with more callers?

The point is you raise when it is the best action; you call when it is the best action. You should never base your action *now* on what you do with a hand in other situations. You do what is best for *now*. Having less value at some times does not necessarily mean that you should do anything differently than another time (like the 87/82 comparison). Sometimes tho it does mean you should call instead of raise, or whatever. "Down" means nothing on its own.