Pocket Pairs in Small Stakes Hold'em

Optimal maths poker isn't natural or intuitive for many and the math is only one aspect of poker. The requisite to fold for equity rather than chase for excitement is also unnatural psychologically.

Sometimes I miss my Limit Hold'em and as I learn other games I find that I struggle to win at it now. I used to win at $5/$10 consistently (when the games were much softer) and have played up to $20/$40 occassionally. But Adam's suspended blog got me thinking when I watched his hands play out. It reminded me how frustrating the game can be if you don't have the confidence in your own actions and focus on getting it in good.

Today, there appears not to be much wrong with Adam's play. He has recently posted about a new LAG approach though which inherently incurs more variance and attracts action so you will take more bad beats. That aside, I read a snippet last night in "Small Stakes Hold'em" by Ed Miller (I recommend it). The maths seemed so wrong that I was going to check it out. Turns out (no surprise with Sklansky and Malmuth at the helm) that it was spot on.

Using PokerStove Monte Carlo simulation(www.pokerstove.com), with 5 opponents willing to take a flop with 40% of their hands {44+,A2s+,K2s+,Q5s+,J7s+,T7s+,97s+}, which doesn't seem to be unreasonable looking at what reaches showdown with Adam.

The book states that with AA you should be jamming on a dry board with almost 50% equity, but with TT in this spot you should be calling because your equity is closer to 21%. I was amazed! I extended the simulation to see the spectrum. The inter-pair gap gets greater with higher pairs, for the record -

AA thru 22 is 42.3%, 33.2%, 27.5%, 23.6%, 20.4%, 18%, 16.5%, 15.3%, 15.7%, 14.9%, 14.2%, 13.9%.

My interpretation is something that I've experienced and posted about before. When playing against 5 loose opponents willing to get to showdown with marginal hands and draws:
- QQ thru 99 are really middle pairs; (Adam inspired this insight)
- 88 is the cut-off where you are becoming a dog.
- 77 thru 22 are set mining hands with implied odds - flop or stop.


BRAINTEASER : I've run the simulator a few times ... why does it always deliver the pre-flop equity for 77 to be 15.3% while 66 is 15.7%, at first glance an anomaly?

TRUST IN MATHS? Even if you "knew" all the other players starting range was 40% (and the maths above), would you ever prefer 66 preflop over 77?

Community Quiz - Pick player type

I got the following SMS from an unknown number "Turned $100 into $3475 last night @ conrads. $2.50 - $5 no limit :-) 5 hours".

I set about trying to think who might have sent it. I have met quite a few people through poker. Conrads is a Casino on the Gold Coast in Australia which is a vacation destination.

My immediate candidates were a rich aggressive ex-semi-pro who played in the WSOP 15 years ago, an FX Trader who bluffs a lot and is loaded so doesn't give a sh**, a solid female who plays marginal hands fast and gets action because she's a female ... and then I ran out of likely candidates.

This is an incredible result. It was a 40BB $200 max buy-in table so that is 15+ BIs. I can't recall ever seeing a stack like this online. I'll be interested in guesses on playing style. Answer to follow when the regulars have had a guess.