My morning delemma? odds? fold? all-in?

two very good thread have been posted by T1riel and Tenbob (see below links) about going all-in when there are 3 or 4 people in the hand that could call or have already.

tenbob: $100 live freezeout

T1riel : What if episode 8


There have been arguement made for both call or folding in both situations and I can see both sides of the situations. Both are early in a tournament. I like to live beyond the first couple of hands myself but...

Here is my delemma and where I am getting confused by some answers. I am looking at how likely you are to win the hand you are playing and considering the number of player in the hand around me.

In Tenbob's situation you have a straight and flush draw to the royal but have to call an all-in with 3 people in front of you going all-in already. By using a poker calculator I can not find a situation where you are more than about a 44% chance to win the hand overall and people are saying bomb away. I see all the outs but are they all good in multiperson play? Your odds are more in the 32-38% range to win this hand 4 way. Is it still worth calling?

In T1's you have a raise to 200, reraise to 500, reraise to 1000 and you have AA in the BB. People are saying fold here even though you are the first to push all-in and you have the best possible starting hand. The worse case you could be against is three hands that are suited to give you a 44% chance to win? Most instances you are are closer to 53-60% favorite to win. There are some who still think it is best to fold.

What is the difference and where are we getting our poker wires crossed to what is the correct play here? I know there is never a truely right play except the winning one, when hind sight is 20/20.

What is making some of us play a hand when we are no better than 44% to win the hand and folding another when that is the worse odds we could get? This has been stumping me all morning. The only answer I can come up with is trying to do math with multi person pots and determining odds to the winning hand.

How do we adjust odds and play to determine the correct decision in large multi player pots? I really have only gotten better at this by setting up situations in the calculator and messing with them to know what is best.
Anyone else have an easy way to practice or determine the odds of playing multi person hands.

The reason a lot of the better players make the right calls in these situations ie not necessarily putting their money in where the number of outs give them the nuts, but in situations where they believe their hand is either ahead or the pot odds determine the call easy in relation to the chances they have of winning the hand

To play the odds everytime time, in my opinion, is not going to make you a great player. There have been several occasions where I will fold what I feel may be the best hand against aggressive players when the odds are in my favour, like if I am holding 88 and I am facing an all in move when I am pretty sure he is holidng KJos or some form or mediocre overcards. This is mainly because I am putting my tourney on the line in a coinflip against a poor/aggressive player where I am a slight favourite, and could just as easily be outdrawn

At the same time, playing the odds can also be very affective.

I think the ability of a player to choose these situations untimately seperates the good players from the extremely good players

I think sometimes your gut instinct may be a greatfactor in making a decision like this instead of the odds, math, etc. I'm not saying disregard the odds all together. But if you feel you have the best hand or have the best chance, go for it!

I had a good shot at putting a more concrete reasoning behind the thread i posted during the week on the live game i played in, i hope that answers you questions, but the fact is there is a huge amount of ways that any particular hand can be played. Personally i like to see lots of cheap flops, especially with table position because i figure myself to be a better player post flop than pre-flop, if that makes sense. Others like to go all-in pre-flop a lot, especially against me It negates the skill difference, but its the one or two big pots that you play in, and the decisions that you make there that make you a winning or losing player.

Making big laydowns when the likelyhood that you will bust out of a tourney early when you know your a better overall player in generall can be a good idea, and sometimes a poor one.

The reason i pulled these two threads to one is that I think these are the types of hands that make the difference between the good and great players. Knowing your odds of winning a multiplayer hand with what you are holding and determining if it is worth it.

I have been in some situations like both of these lately and did not understand the math until after the hand I ran it through a calculator. I don't think you can play these hands right until you see the math and the odds of you winning the hand.

The hardest part about it is trying to figure your winning hand percentage when there are more than 2 people in the hand. Selecting what hands they have that warrent the call and realizing when you may have a strong hand but you outs or odds of winning the hand don't work to call. I think both these thread put that to good use.