32Red Poker Blog

The most common misconception in poker

There is nothing that many poker players like more than a good debate. You will hear statements in cardrooms everywhere like “it’s never right to slow play aces,” and “I would never put all my money in with ace-king, it’s just ace high.” These kind of statements will cause a lot of debate, but are in some part true.

I am not going to argue these kind of issues, but want to write about another kind of statement. This is a statement that are held  as being absolutely true, even amongst good players, but I would argue conatins a dangerous amount of misunderstanding. In fact, I will go as far as to argue that this “truth” is absolute nonsense.

Forgive me for presenting some of my opinions as fact. Sometimes in poker, it is impossible to discuss with perfect balance as it be endless, but I hope you will agree with some of the arguments. Here is my “most common misconception” in poker:

“My small pair is ahead, so I’m all in.”

 My argument centres on any time a player feels their low pocket pair is ahead, and so re-raises all-in. This can be before the flop, and is particularly wrong in the case where the player with the low pair has no fold equity. The situation also crops up a lot on the flop. We will focus our attention on one example, although there are many more- a rainbow flop of 997, where our “hero” holds 33. 

“But a small pair could well be ahead here?!”

My argument is not with the statement that a small pair may be ahead. My argument is against the logic that, given we hope a small pair is ahead, it is a good idea to move all-in with it.

The crucial piece of logic that many people seem unaware of is this: when you move all-in, it does not matter what you have unless you are called. On this flop, if your read is wrong and you are called, you can expect your pair of fours to be in really bad shape. You will be drawing to two outs. Even if your opponent makes a brave call with AK-high, the extra chance he has of the seven pairing means that we are barely ahead even in this, your best case scenario. When we think about it, we see that the fact that your hand may well be ahead is actually irrelevant.

The logic of “my small pair is ahead,” is nearly right, but actually the correct logic is “my opponent probably does not have much, and will not be able to call.” I am not saying that you should never move in on this flop with 33, but that there are actually other hands with which it is a better idea to make this move. These hands are going to seem quite unlikely.

“What other hands are we best to move with?”

When we apprecaite the logic that “it only matters what we have when we are called,” we see that a hand like KQ-high could offer us up to 6 outs. Even J10 (for a gutshot) is a better hand to move in with. We will have four outs against an overpair, and, if we are really lucky, up to ten outs against a hand like ace-seven.

Readjusting your hand evaluations

I want to encourage you to realise that a hand like 33 on a 997 flop is actually a much weaker one that it seems. There is a real paradox here. Of course 33 is beating far more hands than J10 is, but in almost every situation, J10 plays much better on this flop. It is a confusing thing to say that J10 is a better hand than 33 here, but understanding this logic will really help your game.

This logic extends even to holding a hand like 87 on this 997 flop. It is important to realise just how weak this hand is; if you are behind, the pair on the board means that you will be drawing to just 2 outs.

Before the flop; the all-in move with a small pair

Let’s go back to thinking about players moving all-in (or even worse calling all-in) with small pairs before the flop. The danger that fuels this play is the over-importance that people attach to a pair being “ahead” of two overcards. A player with 77 will often proudly table his cards against AK and say that he is ahead, but this 4% or 5% advantage really is too small to be of any relevance.

An example

A typical mistake you will see time and time again even in a big tournament goes something like this. Our hero has 9,000 and is playing 44 on the button. A mid-position player raises the 1,000 big blind to 3,000, and our hero thinks “a pair could well be ahead,” and moves all-in.

Our hero has made two mistakes. The first one is simply the belief that he is moving all-in. It is strange to say, but a quick look at the maths will reveal that this is practically a call all-in.

“But our man has raised 3,000 to 9,000, how is this a call?”

Well, put ourselves in the position of our opponent when the action passes back round to him. He will faced with calling 6,000 more, but when he adds the blinds into the equation, he will work out that the pot will actually be as big as 19,500. His odds to call are actually 2.25 to 1, and a player who passed would either be a fool, or would have been caught stealing with real junk with his original raise.

“But not every opponent works out the numbers like that!” I hear you cry. This is very true, but many opponents will have a simple notion of 6,000 actually being a small amount relative to this pot. If they are not good enough to see this, then funnily they are probably not good enough to pass a hand anyway! All in all, we would struggle to name a kind of opponent who might pass here!

“Why is it a bad idea to move in with a small pair?”

Now that we have established that this is actually more like an all-in call, we come back to why it is a bad idea to choose a small pair to make this move with. If we think about what hands we are going to be called with, we see they are basically two types. We will either be up against two overcards (and be a tiny bit better than 50-50%), or will be dominated by an overpair, (and find ourselves drawing to 20% shot). This is clearly not a good spot. The players with the biggest misconceptions would think “I am either ahead of two overcards, or behind an overpair,” and would make it sound like some kind of even money spot. This over-simplification is a very dangerous one.

“So, what is the right type of hand to make the all-in move with?”

Say we have the right sized stack (here, I would say the perfect stack size is 12,000, four times the original bet), then we come back to the logic that we only need to worry about what we have if our opponent calls.

What hands is our opponent going to call with? His calling range will be something like pairs from 99-AA, AK and probably AQ. If we were allowed to choose a “weak” hand to try to suckout against these hands, what would it be? Have a little think about it. It is actually not 44,55, or even ace-nine that we want to hold, but actually the supposedly weaker holdings like QJo, 87 suited, or maybe best of all, J10 suited.