Poker Strategy

Aces on the first hand of the World Series?
This is an old chestnut on the poker scene but it bears repetition here. The scenario takes many forms but boils down to the same thing, how much do you trust to maths in a game of poker. So here's the question:

You are the big blind on the first hand of the world series of poker at your table. The first player to act goes all in. How many players going all in ahead of you would it take to make you drop the Aces?

Ok, so the question is silly because it could never really happen but its an interesting gedanken* experiment. Would you call two all ins? Would you call three? Is there any number of all ins that would make you drop the hand?

You have the strongest hand in poker but after a certain number of hands (about 3-4) you know that the odds are that one of them will win this hand rather then you. Still, you have the best individual chance of winning, indeed the odds are even better for AA against the other top five hands than against random muck!

Here's my personal view on it. I don't play a big stack particularly well so the reward for all this risk is reduced for me personally. Also, I'm unlikely in my lifetime to be able to afford two chances at the World Series (one would be enough right now!!) so I would probably prefer to fold the hand and not take such a high stakes gamble all in one go! These are not good poker reasons to fold a hand though...