Aha moment
Monday, October 5, 2009 - Annie Duke
A couple of weekends ago I taught a cash game WSOP Academy at the Bicycle Club in LA. During the academies, students get a combination of seminars and hand labs. The seminars are lectures that include some video hand examples. The hand labs give the students a chance to actually play poker in front of the instructors so that the hands they play can get deconstructed. At the end of each hand, the students turn their cards over and the instructors then talk about the good things they did and the mistakes they made. During one of the hand labs at the Bike, I got to experience one of those wonderful moments as a teacher when a student has that Aha! moment.
I was explaining a mistake a student had made. The person in cutoff had raised to 150 (blinds were 25/50). The player in the small blind had then made it 600 and the player in the big blind then made it 1275. The cut off then folded. The small blind now went into the tank for quite a while. While she was in the tank, I was thinking, “I really hope she doesn’t fold since the player in the big blind only min-raised.” At which point, she folded. The small blind now showed AJ and the big blind showed AK. Good fold right? Nope!
Obviously, I first explained what was wrong with the AK only making it 1275. The problem is that really any two cards that reraised in the first place should be calling that bet because of pricing issues so the raise doesn’t really accomplish much. It doesn’t serve to further define the hand of the original raiser and shouldn’t trigger a fold. Now, of course, in this case it did trigger a fold and that was bizarre which is what the discussion was about. I explained that the player holding AJ had to call 675 to win 2025 giving her 3 to 1. And that is why the fold was so bad.
At 3 to 1, if the player in the big blind had turned KK face up, the call would still be mathematically correct since AJ is better than 3 to 1 against KK. Against a hand like TT, the fold is a complete disaster because AJ is even money against that hand getting 3 to 1 from the pot. Even against AK, AJ is about a 3 to 1 dog so the call would be break even against that hand. The problem is that against the kinds of hands that the big blind could be playing, it is true that AJ rates to be the worst hand but it is also true that it doesn’t matter because there was enough money in the pot for the amount of the call to make it mathematically worthwhile to put the 675 in the pot.
I could see that the table was having a lot of trouble with the concept. I was having difficulty getting them to understand that it is okay to call even when you are 100% sure you have the worst hand if there is enough money in the pot to justify it. If you are going to win a hand 1 out of every three times but the pot is paying you as if you will only win 1 out of 4 times then you will make money on the call. Simple as that. But the students definitely were not getting it.
Then I had a thought. I realized I could show them that they all call on a regular basis when they know they don’t have the best hand. I pulled out the QJh and said, “What if that were your hand?” Then I pulled a board of Ah8h2s. I asked them how many of them would call a bet in this spot. They all said they would. Then I asked how many of them thought they had the best hand right now. Then the light bulbs started going on. They started getting it. Obviously, no one thought they had the best hand with the QJh on that board but they all would call because they figure they would make a flush enough of the time to make the call profitable. Their opponent could show them AK there and they would still all call. Somehow the flush draw makes it an obvious call even though you definitely don’t have the best hand right then.
But flush draws aren’t the only drawing hands. In fact, all hands are drawing at something. In the case of AJ vs AK, you are drawing at a J (or KQT). AJ vs KK is drawing for an A. Now if you are drawing for a flush there are more cards in the deck that help but it is no different in the sense that either way you are drawing. It is just about how many cards you are drawing for. The more cards you are drawing for, the more liberally you can call. The fewer cards you are drawing for the better your pot odds need to be.
Seeing the students’ faces light up as they got it was really cool. In fact, it is why I teach.
