people, gutshots are not profitable!!!!

[justblaze 0]

The discussion was AA vs. 5 or more hand taken to a showdown. The link you posted gave us the enlightening news that AA is the best possible starting hand in Holdem. I'm pretty sure we all knew that.

Then you're missing the point.What the data shows is that the value of aces increases as there are more people playing, not decreases as some of you have suggested. The rate at which the value increases is decreasing (the second derivative of the change in value), but the relationship between number of players and value of aces is unambiguously positive.

Yes more people playing..not more people in the hand all the way to a showdown. Read the links I posted. Having every person at the table calling your AA down to the river is absolutely not the best way to increase your EV. Read up and run some simulations on poker probe. The most profitable situation for AA is against 2 or 3 other hands, not against 10. Show me simulations or stats that prove otherwise as I have shown ones that prove my point instead of saying "of course you want a lot of people calling you down you make more that way."

the links you posted were anecdotal evidence. they do not prove your point. they prove that at least two other people agree with your point. in 1945 a majority of germans believed that jews were the cause of all of their nations problems. abbaddabba has already posted stats that prove his point conclusively. having every person in the hand to the river when you hold AA is ABSOLUTELY the best way to increase your EV. read up and run some simulations, or better yet just click the link which shows the real life numbers. you need to gain a better grasp of what EV means.

[Matt Miner 0]

if you're in a six handed pot you're hand is profitable if it has greater than 16.6...% pot equity. i shouldn't have to explain that. i don't know why you think aces have to win more than 40% of the time in a six way pot in order to be profitable. pretty funny though.

[Abbaddabba 0]

Yes more people playing..not more people in the hand all the way to a showdown. Read the links I posted. Having every person at the table calling your AA down to the river is absolutely not the best way to increase your EV.

Most people shouldnt be MAKING it to the showdown if you're playing it properly. We're talking about number of people in the hand, not the number of people at the showdown. In the hand (as i made clear in my earlier posts) means seeing your preflop raise. But even supposing it was an all in preflop situation (where everyone saw it to the showdown), the EV would have a positive relationship with the number of players.

[Matt Miner 0]

having every person in the hand to the river when you hold AA is ABSOLUTELY the best way to increase your EV. read up and run some simulations, or better yet just click the link which shows the real life numbers. you need to gain a better grasp of what EV means.yeah, thank you.i'm really beginning to wonder about some of the people on this board. yeah, you don't want action with your premium hands.

[yeffy 0]

the links you posted were anecdotal evidence. they do not prove your point. they prove that at least two other people agree with your point. in 1945 a majority of germans believed that jews were the cause of all of their nations problems. abbaddabba has already posted stats that prove his point conclusively. having every person in the hand to the river when you hold AA is ABSOLUTELY the best way to increase your EV. read up and run some simulations, or better yet just click the link which shows the real life numbers. you need to gain a better grasp of what EV means.

Anecdotal evidence? They are statistics based on 200,000 simulations or 42 billion showdowns. Show me a nembers to prove your point. My arguement is this. AA fairs better against 2 or 3 opponents calling to the a showdown. The value of AA drops sharply when played against 6 callers to a showdown. This arguement is proven by math. Provide proof otherwise. Instead of saying "it's better that way" and giving no actual information. Show me poker probe or wilsons turbo simulations. Point me to any actual evidence to back up your statement other than the fact that you think this is true. Do you always limp with AA? According to you you should. You should also never raise on the flop with the hand as this may chase people out of the pot. According to you you want everyone in the hand from start to finish. Prove this.

[justblaze 0]

the links you posted were anecdotal evidence. they do not prove your point. they prove that at least two other people agree with your point. in 1945 a majority of germans believed that jews were the cause of all of their nations problems. abbaddabba has already posted stats that prove his point conclusively. having every person in the hand to the river when you hold AA is ABSOLUTELY the best way to increase your EV. read up and run some simulations, or better yet just click the link which shows the real life numbers. you need to gain a better grasp of what EV means.

Anecdotal evidence? They are statistics based on 200,000 simulations or 42 billion showdowns. Show me a nembers to prove your point. My arguement is this. AA fairs better against 2 or 3 opponents calling to the a showdown. The value of AA drops sharply when played against 6 callers to a showdown. This arguement is proven by math. Provide proof otherwise. Instead of saying "it's better that way" and giving no actual information. Show me poker probe or wilsons turbo simulations. Point me to any actual evidence to back up your statement other than the fact that you think this is true. Do you always limp with AA? According to you you should. You should also never raise on the flop with the hand as this may chase people out of the pot. According to you you want everyone in the hand from start to finish. Prove this.

heres the proof: against nine random hands, you are better than 9:1. simple. i never said limp, i never said check. all i said was that your EV increases with each opponent. Abbaddabba already posted the numbers.

[yeffy 0]

the links you posted were anecdotal evidence. they do not prove your point. they prove that at least two other people agree with your point. in 1945 a majority of germans believed that jews were the cause of all of their nations problems. abbaddabba has already posted stats that prove his point conclusively. having every person in the hand to the river when you hold AA is ABSOLUTELY the best way to increase your EV. read up and run some simulations, or better yet just click the link which shows the real life numbers. you need to gain a better grasp of what EV means.

Anecdotal evidence? They are statistics based on 200,000 simulations or 42 billion showdowns. Show me a nembers to prove your point. My arguement is this. AA fairs better against 2 or 3 opponents calling to the a showdown. The value of AA drops sharply when played against 6 callers to a showdown. This arguement is proven by math. Provide proof otherwise. Instead of saying "it's better that way" and giving no actual information. Show me poker probe or wilsons turbo simulations. Point me to any actual evidence to back up your statement other than the fact that you think this is true. Do you always limp with AA? According to you you should. You should also never raise on the flop with the hand as this may chase people out of the pot. According to you you want everyone in the hand from start to finish. Prove this.

heres the proof: against nine random hands, you are better than 9:1. simple. i never said limp, i never said check. all i said was that your EV increases with each opponent. Abbaddabba already posted the numbers.

AA is not a 9:1 favorite against any hand. You clearly are confused. It is certainly not a 9:1 favorite against 9 hands! And abbaddaba posted numbers that were based on how many people are SEATED at a table. Those numbers dont take into account how many people are in a hand, how many see the flop turn or river, or what hands they are playing. All those numbers proved is that AA is a better starting hand than anyother period end of story. To which I responded...duh.What you said was:

having every person in the hand to the river when you hold AA is ABSOLUTELY the best way to increase your EV

Therefore you shouldn't ever raise on the early streets in order to keep people in the hand. You also would never want to raise to get rid of straight and flush draws on coordinated flops. Check and call is the best way to keep everyone in and according to your statement that is the best way to improve your EV.

[justblaze 0]

clearly i meant 1:9. and checking/calling reduces your EV despite allowing others into the pot as you dont get as much money into the pot. i think you are misunderstanding two terms:EV - expected value: how many big bets you will make/lose every time you play a certain hand under certain conditions. a measure of the MONEY you will win.percentage chance of winning: how many times out of a given sample you will win with a particular hand under certain conditions. a measure of how many POTS you will win.again, poker success is measure in money, not pots.

[rog 0]

Yes more people playing..not more people in the hand all the way to a showdown. Read the links I posted. Having every person at the table calling your AA down to the river is absolutely not the best way to increase your EV. Read up and run some simulations on poker probe. The most profitable situation for AA is against 2 or 3 other hands, not against 10. Show me simulations or stats that prove otherwise as I have shown ones that prove my point instead of saying "of course you want a lot of people calling you down you make more that way."

The link you posted shows that AA loses some EV with more callers under certain circumstances. Those circumstances the author himself calls "pretty extreme". He's referring to how rare a deal of AA + 5/6 playable hands in front. Getting all those hands to the showdown seems pretty far-fetched to me. Consider the circumstances required:1) The table is good enough and tight enough that you only get that many callers when they all have decent hands.2) The table is bad enough that all those "playable hands" call down to the river no matter what comes on the board.3) Action has no effect on who stays and who goes.Now, do you really think this is the more realistic situation for AA than random hands? In a loose game half those limpers could be any ace or king. The cutoff is only calling because there's so many limpers in front of him he can play 1-gap off-suit connectors if the flop is cheap. And then there's the Gus Hansen wannabe with 10-6 hoping to flop a stealth monster.Maybe AA loses EV against too many callers when everyone has a good hand. You hardly ever see that many decent hands in a deal, and when you do, they will hardly ever all stay in to the showdown.Rog

[Matt Miner 0]

http://www.cardplayer.com/poker_odds/texas...ToiMjAuNCUiO319

[Matt Miner 0]

the above link shows AA with close to 40% pot equity five ways preflop against a variety of common holdings. sorry but i couldn't do it nine handed. surely you must realize that since AA has 38.7% equity five handed (needing only >20% to be profitable of course) that nine handed it still has >16.6% equity? this isn't terribly complicated stuff. AA is going to win well more than it's fair share against any range of holdings, that's why it's the best hand. maybe you guys should quit playing poker and try out for the special olympics. this isn't a good game to play with half your brain tied behind your back.

[Guest]

Theres been a lot of rediculous posts in this thread, and a few good ones. To sum up my feelings, I'll paraphrase Slansky:If you believe in luck, you shouldnt be playing poker.

[Abbaddabba 0]

Anecdotal evidence? They are statistics based on 200,000 simulations or 42 billion showdowns. Show me a nembers to prove your point. My arguement is this. AA fairs better against 2 or 3 opponents calling to the a showdown. The value of AA drops sharply when played against 6 callers to a showdown.

Being called to the showdown by 6 players is a ****ing HUGE conditional. It completely misrepresents the value of the hands, because it only gives consideration to the situations where 6 other people either landed their draws, or have at least two pair (something that you could call in a 6 handed game). Hell, if there are 6 players betting and you didnt hit your set, i'd almost certainly fold it before i made it to the showdown. It's an atypical situation and not sufficient grounds to prefer fewer players in on the flop or in the hand. Obviously you dont want to be called in the showdown by 6 people at the river. I just read the post again, and i agree. You dont want 6 people calling you to showdown unless htey're mentally retarded and call regardless of what they have.The point of this "exercize" is to show how many people you would rather have playing against you when you have aces and more IS preferable to less, with all else held constant. Of course, you ALSO prefer the preflop bets to be bigger to build a pot, since you're heavily favored to anything and everything. Whether you want 5 players in for 2x the BB each, or 1 player in for 8xs the BB is debatable. But that isn't the issue in question.Oh, and the more people who are sitting at the table - like i said, the more people you'll have calling your bets, in virtually all situations (and the greater probability that someone will raise you preflop, that the pot will be bigger preflop, etc)