No poker yesterday– I watched the Yankees beat the Marlins in the Series to go up 2 games to 1. I think Mariano Rivera brings more focus to the mound than anyone I can remember. I want to be that focused at the poker tables…
Reread Mummert’s excellent Simulation study about starting hands yesterday. Some interesting results from the simulation:
1. AKo is one of the hands that is most sensitive to the number of players contesting the pot. So we should always raise with AKo unless we are sure that our raise won’t knock 1 single player out.
2. The “big suiteds” play just as well in multiway pots as non-multiway pots.
3. Both JJ and TT play BETTER in multiway pots. This one really surprised me.
4. KQs was the 10th ranked starting hand according to the study (I think I have been overplaying this hand)
5. ATs was the 11th ranked starting hand
6. KTs was the 16th ranked starting hand
7. Medium suited connectors win much less often than traditional thinking suggests
I think the way the simulation was carried out gives somewhat strange results, because the players in the sim either went to the showdown, or did not go to the showdown– folding was an option only before the flop. However, it does show the performance of the starting hands against random hands, which allows us to get some sort of line on their strength.
Another limitation of this study is that betting is not simulated. Think about TT. Sure it wins more than its share of multiway pots, but how much money are you going to win if the highest card on the flop is a 9?
Anyway, I’m still on the fence on the debate about not raising with JJ or QQ in very loose no-fold em games. Clearly you aren’t going discourage people from calling with a raise, but you know that you’ve got the best hand pre-flop… it seems like the best strategy is to keep betting while you’ve got the best hand, then be a good enough player to release the hand once you feel you are beaten. I guess there must be some threshold point where you become a big underdog with your JJ and there are 6 limpers in the pot. I would like to see some stats/odds on this, or maybe I should work them out myself… ah well, back to work– the boring way to build the bankroll…