Poker player folds AA preflop to a 3 way all in at final table. Is this a good move?
https://www.pokernews.com/news/2025/08/p...
Can anyone think of doing this at a final table preflop for the pay jump?
Edit: sorry for the misspelling in the title
I guess the lesson here is if you’re gonna fold aces don’t windmill them across the table after they would’ve gotten cracked or PokerNews might write an article about you. Jesus Christ, it’s poker Phil
I'm not sure I've ever seen an ICM spot in a normal tournament where it was correct to fold aces. Satellites are another story, but I can't imagine ever folding here.
I guess the argument could be made that if the $60k pay jump means enough to your real life situation, then making a -EV fold could make sense from the perspective that pay jumps mean more to you than winning the most money on average. It's kind of like taking insurance in blackjack.
Wait until Qtang see this. He's been adamant that GG poker is rigged.
100% ICM/GGfactor correct fold, unless he deposited big earlier that day, then he can r/c ATC here
Standard GG board when ahead pre
I'm not sure I've ever seen an ICM spot in a normal tournament where it was correct to fold aces. Satellites are another story, but I can't imagine ever folding here. I guess the argument could be made that if the $60k pay jump means enough to your real life situation, then making a -EV fold could make sense from the perspective that pay jumps mean more to you than winning the
Yeah, we would have to bring in utility theory to justify this fold.
For example, if you owe money to the mafia and will get killed tomorrow if you don't pay them in full and getting to the next pay jump will be enough to pay them in full.
Then it becomes like a satellite where it doesn't really matter if we win or finish lower, as long as we finish ITM. Then we can justify folding AA.
The move was even worse than I thought. Had 68% to take it down completely, preventing future surprises with the small stacks in. But of course 80% or something against the big stack right now, what a Sklansky pay jump!
Edit: looking closer, saw the "big stack" had one tenth of the chips of "hero". Do the job yourself anyway! Aces every 200th time...
Obviously, totally horrible and gii with hands worse than AA. Tournament poker is not dead.
I can't find it now, but I swear I read an article last night that said the fold lost $36k of equity by ICM.
Ma man's gotta teach us how to play and reach final tables on GG
97s wins outright about 18.5% of the time there.
“The root of all superstition is that men observe when a thing hits, but not when it misses.”
What?
what is G666G?: eaz666zy moneyzz666z
Wow lol no
Basically at least 80% of the time he more than doubles up against the Chip Leader and becomes the CL by a little with more than double the chips of the other players. And 20% of the time (at worst) he finishes 5th in all likelihood.
I would call 100% of the time here online. Live it could be a different story if I have absolute reads on the other players with lots of chips. Which has happened exactly once (well twice if you count the Venetian multi day event I finished 3rd and knew whether the CL was bluffing or not 100% of the time). But in that tournament I still wouldn't have folded AA 4 way when I was 2nd in chips vs the CL and two short stacks.
In a $200 bounty tournament ($100 bounties every time you knocked somebody out) at the Borgota I was shortish stacked and I did fold a huge hand (not AA but like QQ) at the Final Table knowing that I was beat (and the CL had AA). I ended up chopping 3-ways evenly even though I was still short stacked with like 9 blinds because the CL knew by then that I had a 100% read on him and suspected I had a read on the other player which turned out to be true. And the other player agreed to the even chop even though he had like 25 blinds.
That’s true, Yes. But in all honesty, this board altogether with he hole cards has like what, 0.00000000…1% to come up, maybe less
Your intuition is a few orders of magnitude off. If we know 4 starting cards there are 48 remaining. The number of 5 card combinations of these is C(48,5) = 1,712,504. Any of these are equally likely, so the lowest possible probability for such a remarkable board is 0.00006%. That’s also assuming that there’s only one board that would have caused you to post this. The turn card (which I can’t remember of the top of my head) was arbitrary as far as that was concerned. Any of the remaining 44 cards (other than the flop, the starting hands and the river 9) would not have changed your reaction to this hand. That makes the probability of such a remarkable board 0.0026%.
Further , I suspect even just the flop without the river 9 would have caught your attention, and even a 779 rather than the 997 flop would likewise have done so, not to mention 999 and 777 flops. Any combination of 9s and 7s otf likely would have been “remarkable”. There are C(6,3)=20 such combos. Given one of these plus arbitrary turn and river cards yields a total of 20*45*44=39,600 “remarkable” boards. 39600/1712504=0.0231 or about a 2.3% chance of a “remarkable” board.
Turn J gave villain with JJ the nuthouse, so there's remarkability to be accounted for in the double switch of the winning hand from flop to turn to river: 97 to JJ to 97,
AK watching from the sidelines in awe, wondering what the blockers are good for, when villain no 2 was void of any hope and the river revealed his long forgotten, last and only out: the final nine.
Actually it's a triple switch, so it's not only the remarkability of the 997 flop in itself,
but moreover that villain outflopped JJ that was ahead before:
preflop - flop - turn - river
JJ - 97 - JJ - 97
Hero as the observer left out and alienated in the cold struggles to comprehend if it was a bad beat, occult sorcery, a gift from santa or quantum entanglement in a superior dimension
"It was... I don't know what it was"
Your intuition is a few orders of magnitude off. If we know 4 starting cards there are 48 remaining. The number of 5 card combinations of these is C(48,5) = 1,712,504. Any of these are equally likely, so the lowest possible probability for such a remarkable board is 0.00006%. That’s also assuming that there’s only one board that would have caused you to post this. T
Flop was ok, What was truly remarkable about this hand was that JJ “won” pre, then “lost” otf already (and not to AK which needed just one card, but to 97s, where there were two pairs needed or: straight, flush or trips, let alone the full house otf, so in a nutshell at least 2 of 3 cards in favor of 97) , then “won” ott, then lost for real otr. This phenomenon is called “GG rollercoaster” and it’s widely spoken of. I’m just referring to facts here. No opinion or superstition involved. Let the time pass and clear my doubts.
