Playing with PS

Been doing some more playing around with PokerStove and hand equity calculations. Once you think someone is playing Group 1 thru 4 hands (11.5%), no two cards are worse than 3:1 HU if you get it all-in PF.


Which is, I guess, why you hear "any two cards can win" so often.

The numbers do change quite drastically if you think more than one hand will call. For example, if you think you'll get a call from someone playing Group 1 thru 4 and another player who would only call with a premium hand, then 99, which is 1:1 against the first player drops to about 20% (4:1). If the second caller is a blind with a random hand, your equity goes up to about 58% (0.72:1).

What I found interesting in the above chart is that any pair is no worse than 1.5:1 and if opponents are slightly tighter ie playing Groups 1 and 2 or 1 thru 3 then you're never worse than 3:1.

Looking at it from a weak kicker standpoint is also interesting. In many situations, if you're willing to play a K9s or A9o or Q9s you should almost be indifferent to playing K3s or A4o or Q2s since the equity isn't that different once the kicker is below 8 or 9. The only time the kicker will be important is if your opponent holds the same high card. For example, if you hold A4o and your opponent holds A8o. But if your opponents range is wide enough he may just as easily hold a non-Ace hand.

'Course, whether to push an Axo hand or not would largely depend on your position and reads since there are many players who will call regularly with any Ace, especially in micro-limit games. In which case, pushing any pair or suited connectors or even Kxs might be better options since you're more likely to have live cards.