Is my friend insane? Folding QQ to AK preflop.

I gave my friend the following ridiculous cash game hypothetical:

Folds to CO, who moves All-in for 10% of your bankroll. You have him covered. He also flips over his hand, AhKs. You look down at QhQs on the button.

I told him he was about 55% to 45% to win (actually 56.1% to 43.4%). He advocated folding because it wasn't worth the variance.

I argued that the edges in poker are so small that to fold in this spot would be absolutely insane.

The blinds are in the pot. They have really, really low odds of holding big pocket pairs since you hold the QQ and your opponent holds the AK.

Is my friend a risk-averse nit? Or does his variance argument actually have some merit?

I would have thought so. To not insta call with QQ for so little of your stack seems stupid. There are 2 hands that are in front AA and KK. I mean its a must call.

You're right - this is an instacall.

In cash games you need to exploit small edges (and there are smaller ones than this).

10% of stack or 10% of bankroll?

Does that make any difference?

Your friend is a supernit.....I'd push every other hand (any 2 cards) against him.

The guy behind you moves AI for 10% of your bankroll, figure roughly 200BB at whatever stake you typically play at.

^^^^bad advice. Comment was based on 10% of stack.

10% of bankroll?........Yes I call. As grafkarow said, you have to exploit small edges.

This.

I'd be interested to see, if you could repeat this scenario as many times as you liked, what the probability of going bust would be. Suspect it's fairly low. And that ignores that if you run into a bad patch you can move down a stake.

10% bankroll is somewhat significant, the house edge on Roulette is like 5% and I've hit streaks of 10 blacks in a row... of course I've also had the reverse happen lol. You spin the wheel enough times you realize that 10% of your bankroll is a pretty significant amount.

Very generally if I lose more than 20% of my bankroll in a poker session I'm invariably going to be on tilt.

10% of your stack (not BR because we never take more than 5% of our BR to the table right!!)

10% of your stack is nothing.

Assuming a buyin of 100BB and a game of NLH

10% of your stack is less than a standard reraise preflop.

10 % of your stack is an early raise, followed by a single caller followed by you making a c-bet on the flop.


10% of your BR means that you are taking atleast 10% of your BR to the table.. which means this game is too big for you and you have no place in being there.

Right... which is precisely why I said 10% of bankroll. In table stakes games around college nobody takes money off of the table until we cash. Most of us buy in for $50 ish, winning $50 on top of that, and have 200BB there.

At which point bankroll management dictates that you should cash 100BB, but we don't do that, since too many people would try to hedge.

its not in your bankroll while its on the table!!!

BRM says nothing about when you should cash out.. thats personal choice BRM is about what you decide to bring to the table

TBH its a pointless example though.

Whilst its correct to call with QQ knowing that your opponent has AK, how would you know?

What sequence of preflop betting ends with your opponent putting you all-in, yet narrows his range to just AK and excludes both AA and KK?

whilst the call maybe mandatory in a shortstack situation (less than 20 BB), in a deep stack situation its an instant fold unless you have some exeptional read or his shoving range has been proven to include a lot of bad hands.

The only reason for the call in SS confontations is that his range would include many lesser hands.

If you can see his cards.. why stop with just QQ vs AK calls?

I can see folding it against a tight player, or if that player is someone you'll be able to extract chips bit by bit from in the future. If this is a tournament, it's an insta call. NL cash game, I'd think twice if I thought the table was able to give me better spots to get my money in. I hate rolling the dice if I have everyone outplayed in the long run. In the end....it depends. .....

Your friend must be scared of losing? I'd absolutely call with the QQ, with only 2 cards better, you have a very good chance of winning I think.

Money on the table is certainly part of your BR and you should include it. This is also a risk aversion/tilt question not a what should I do question and I dont think its pointless at all, although a few months ago I may have agreed its pointless, after looking deeper into my game I disagree.

To be honest I am probably folding this. If i am at the beginning of a session I will give up the small amount of equity to not go on tilt as the equity loss is pretty small. I am also not sitting with 10% at a table for this very reason. Its easy to say this is an insta call but tilt is a bigger leak of mine than the perceived loss when we are talking about that much money.

I fold, then get up and leave the table.

This is basically my friend's line. I agree that the money on the table needs to factored into bankroll management. I shouldn't play $400 deep with a $1000 bankroll, even if I only bought in for $50. I should cash because playing with that $400 is more variance than I can reasonably tolerate. That money is better in my bankroll where I can grind out my edge.

I think 5% is a good baseline for what you should bring to the table, but we shouldn't be too afraid to go up to 10% for a short period of time if our bankroll is replenishible (that is, if we have income sources other than poker).

It is more a risk aversion question. I also asked my friend if he'd rather have $50 or a 50/50 shot at $100. He of course took the $50, as I expected. Up to a certain point we shouldn't care (because we ideally are being risk neutral), but if someone offered us $2million or a 50/50 shot at $5million we'd be stupid not to take the $2million.

Likewise, we're going to buy insurance on our car, house, and jewelry, because we can't handle the variance associated with losing all that in one disaster. Auto insurance is actually -EV (that's why insurance companies stay in business), but we need it anyway to protect ourselves from a huge loss.

And also likewise, when we are properly bankrolled we should be looking to lay insurance against those players who aren't properly bankrolled for the stake, or who just can't handle the swings mentally.

Villain is basically laying us 1.2:1 on a coin toss.

5% should really be a maximum you should bring unless you have a big edge at the table. And I assuming it will at least be very difficult to replenish. If I have 5K on 1 site and 300 on another, Im not going to base my decisions of the 300 and by into .02/.05 game, since its really one big pot. Same goes for replenishing I suppose. If I put 50 bucks on with full intentions to put more on if I lose it then sure, I take the edge. But if I am playing 1/2 with $500 effective stacks and a 5K BR, then I am folding, not even because my risk of ruin, but more my risk of playing poorly after that. So really my EV needs to consider that if I lose the 55/45 here that I will play suboptimal for a certain amount, while if I win I wont be playing any better. If I had absolutely no tilt then that changes things.

So while BRM can play a factor here its more of a tilt thing than anything.

Yep this is perfectly right. The key thing is if the bankroll is replenishable. If you're talking about $500 that if you bust you work a few weeks and have it again you can afford to be much more aggressive with shot-taking, whereas if your bankroll is 100k, sitting at a 10k buy-in game (or even 5k) would just be plain awful.

You never saw me drive-My auto insurance is +ev.

First hand of WSOP Main Event, idiot accidently shows you his AK as he is pushing all-in. You have QQ, Do you call? (only you and him in the pot)

I think ak is highly overrated I would rather have a pair in my hand than risk making one on the flop.

See, we're back to risk aversion and bankroll... I would probably do it at the WSOP because I'd be pretty out of my league and doubling up early could give me the momentum edge. But that's not a game I should be playing in anyway...

this. even though its 50-50 A-K is a drawing hand not a made hand.
the variance between A-K vs Q-Q is the same for A-K against any pocket pair Qs and under.

i'm confused is this a heads up match or multiplayers. (do you know he has a AK?) it depends on how quickly the other players fold. because most peeps with piss poor hands click the fold button. if that happens most likely the other players have low cards. now if you have 7 players, and they fold quickly... that is 14 cards out of 52 cards gone. or at least 26% of the cards that are lower than yourself are already gone. so more of the higher A's, k's j's or so forth are still floating around. not only that but there may be a chance that another player threw away your q's. so you really only have 1 out. the other player...playing wit AK has 6 outs really. (3A's, 3K's). given that 26% of the bogus stupid cards are gone already, and each individual card (a's,k's etc..) have a 7.9 % chance to hit the board. multiplied by 6 he has less than 47% chance of catching his card, but remember 26% is gone already or 14 or so cards. so you really have to take 6/38 (6 outs divided by what's left in the deck.) which comes out to about 15% per A or per K. so it really increases the AK chances to about (if no one threw one away) about 89%, (that seems really high. someone check my math) chance of catching a A or a K. so it really depends on how fast or how other people play. if everyone threw away their hands quickly. i would fold. if (even just one) took time wit their hand i would instacall. maybe i'm sick of getting my head busted in because my thought would be i'll be back to take the rest of your chips. poker is a game of patients. but then again. 10% of your chip stack. also depends on what the blinds are. ask your self this can you shrug off the loss and keep playing your tactics or will you tighten up and letting your opponent out play you?? i maybe wrong but then again, logic.

I am calling. and i have even done so, and got a good size pot.

Anarchy, this is a hypothetical live situation, not a real hand from an internet site.

The point is to show how we should be attempting to exploit even the smallest edges in a poker game. However, at some point the money involved will become so great that we become risk averse, at which point we should cash out, because we've lost our ability to exploit that edge. You shouldn't fear the variance.

Poker is a game of very small edges and failing to exploit them is a severe folly.

Also, Anarchy, you have no way of knowing whether or not someone threw away As or Ks... your calculations that we're actually way behind are very silly.

If you are running hot.
All in


If you are running neutral.
Fold


If you have been running not so hot.
Fold


I decide Coin Flips based on how I have been playing.
If I feel good about it.
I push All in.
If not I Fold.

A Small edge to exploit.
Everything being equal take whatever edge you can get.

syfted. thank you for the input. i realize the variances. i also knew that it was a hypothetical question. poker is a math game about unknown variables, probabilities, and mostly logic. it's also a memory game, and psychology. ah well. thanks again for your response.

you can buy in for 5% and if you double up you should be very close to 10% of your roll. at that point i don't think taking coin flips for it is a good idea.

Mandel - I suggest you change your sig-line fast......no-one here needs viagra...

So you advocate playing progressively tighter as your stack increases?

OK how much tighter should I play when my stack reaches 120% of my buyin? How does my play become effected once my stack reaches 150%?

Why should stack size have any bearing in an equity decision?

If the odds are correct a call is mandatory.. if the odds are not correct a fold is required.

If you wouldn't call when your stack is 200BB then then why would you call when its 100BB? The risk to reward ratio is exactly the same.

More importantly, if having a stack of 200BB causes you to make +ev folds.. then why are you still sat at the table playing? Surely you already know that your stack size is now effecting your decisions and you should have left a while ago.

Simply because of the fact that you do have a small edge should make this a fairly easy call. On the long run you will make money because you have that slight edge.

I would instacall in Cash Game but not in a tournament . If you're favourite you gotta call, at the end you will always be the winner.

Instacall
Weird, never see many knits in local cash games. My cash games people call my all-in's with k-2 suited and q-10 suited.