Beaming, Fred strode up to my chair while I was waiting for a seat in a hold 'em game. He had dumped aces in a tournament, he told me proudly. "Great," I said, "what were the circumstances?"
He had entered our local poker room's weekly no-limit hold 'em tournament, limited to ten tables of ten players, no alternates, no re-buys. They all started with 2,000 in chips, 25-50 blinds, and the blinds increased every 20 minutes.
First playing tight and then loosening up as the blinds increased, Fred managed to make it to the final table, he told me. He was the short stack with 6,000 in chips; he had won the button and the two chip leaders were to his immediate left. The blinds were 1,000-2,000.
"In the very first hand the three other small stacks went all-in. I peeked at my hand and saw two red aces. I knew that my chances of winning the hand went down exponentially as the number of opponents increased, and since they were short-stacked too, I figured I'd move up at least one spot on the ladder, maybe two, so I dumped 'em," said he with a big grin.
I was stunned. While collecting my thoughts, I asked if his plan had worked out. "Yes indeedy, I moved up to eighth place and finished there when I later lost to an all-in shove," he said.
"Fred," I said, "you lay down aces when doing so would materially increase your chances of getting into the money. You were already in the money."
"Suppose each of those three all-in players held pocket pairs smaller than aces. You would estimate your win probability at 0.83, or 0.512. (A popular online simulator obtains a win probability of 0.5453.) So, you'd have roughly a 50-50 chance to quadruple up," I said, "and that would've moved you up to fourth or fifth place, with a much better chance to win it."
As the great Johnny Moss reputedly said, "Boys, all I can do is get all my money in with the best hand!" Fred no longer looked so pleased with himself.
"In most tournaments, the big payouts are for the first three places. $40 of your $45 entry fee went into the payout pool for a total of $4,000. If the first three places paid about half the pool, then quadrupling up would have been a big increase in your equity, because your chance of winning would have been so much larger. I would have gone all-in with those aces," I said, "and taken my chances. If I had won, then with 24,000 in chips I would have had a much better chance to win the $1,000 first prize. If I had lost, then I would have won my entry fee and a little extra. Moving from tenth to eighth wouldn't be my choice.
"With chips equal to three times the big blind, you had little or no fold equity, so you really had to shove with any kind of a hand. What better opportunity could you have had than the best possible starting hand?" Fred, looking miserable, didn't answer.
I assured him that he had thought it through, arrived at a decision, and acted on it. That was good. And, if he was satisfied with a small gain, at no risk, then I couldn't fault him, because, as the Romans said, "De gustibus non est disputandum." (In matters of taste there is no dispute.)
Mr. Burke is the author of Flop: The Art of Winning at Low-Limit Hold 'Em, on sale at amazon.com & kokopellipress.com. E-mail your Hold 'Em questions to richardburke@comcast.net
