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There exists a favorite poker concept shared only at the highest
levels. It’s hush-hush. It’s a guiding force. It’s believed to be
fully understood only by poker masters. It’s clever. It’s mysterious.
It’s fascinating. It’s intuitive. It’s wrong.
I’m talking about thinning the field – the notion that
driving opponents out of pots reduces your chances of being
beaten. Makes sense so far, right?
They claim some big hands make more profit when a whole herd of
opponents aren’t chasing them to the river. They’re right. When too
many players try to draw out, the profit expectation can be reduced.
Many hands earn more money on average when targeted by a few
opponents than when targeted by a lot of them.
But such arguments for thinning the field are illusion. Let me tell you
how it really is…
REALITY
More than 30 years ago, I started explaining that any hand,
except an unbeatable one, loses value when the number of opponents
passes a certain point. I used a five-card poker example.
Suppose you’re dealt a king-high straight flush from an infinite
deck of cards. We’re playing showdown for the antes and there is no
draw. Whatever you’re dealt at first is what you end up with, except
duplicate cards are exchanged. (Remember, we’re imagining an
infinite deck.) The best hand is a traditional royal flush.
Well, you have a hand that’s second best to a royal, and the
chances against any specific player having you beat are almost
650,000 to 1. Obviously, against just one opponent, you’re in a profitable
situation. Do you want two opponents? Of course! Twenty?
Sure. A thousand? Yes, again. Each added opponent adds to your
profit expectation – up to a point. Strangely, each additional opponent
is a little less valuable than the one added before.
Now it gets weirder. If you played against six billion people, your
king-high straight flush would be unprofitable. In fact, it would be
almost worthless. You’d be an enormous favorite against each opponent
independently. But put six billion opponents together and
you’re likely to face at least 9,000 royal flushes superior to your
hand. Because poker is played so that there can only be one winner,
your king-high flush would have to encounter no royals to win.
What are the chances that there are no royals when you’re predicting
over 9,000 of them? Effectively (though not mathematically)
impossible.
BEST NUMBER OF OPPONENTS
That shows that there can be a cap on the number of opponents
a hand can face and still be profitable. There is also a range within
the possible number of opponents for which a hand remains profitable,
but the profit is reduced. Does this have real-world application
in poker, where practicality limits the number of players at a
table to ten or fewer?
Yes. And you should remember that many hands have a best
number of opponents. Too many or too few, and the expectation of
profit is reduced. Let’s take aces before the flop in Hold’em as an
example. The most profitable number of opponents for a pair of aces
in a Limit Hold’em game is four or five, depending on conditions.
(I could argue for six, in some cases, but I won’t.)
The most profitable number of opponents for a starting pair of
kings or queens is even fewer. This is why many pros recommend
thinning the field with big pairs. They hate the thought of letting
opponents draw out, when an extra raise could have saved the day.
Now, it seems as if everything I’ve said adds weight to the argument
in favor of thinning the field doesn’t it? Well, here’s why the
concept is wrong. Indeed, it would benefit you to right-size the
number of your poker customers and discourage too many calls. But
there’s a problem.
When you make an extra raise (typically a reraise) to thin the
field and keep players out, you’re more likely to scare away the
weaker hands that would have been the most profitable to you had
they called. Stronger hands are apt to play anyway. Often, the
unwanted effect is that acting to thin the field backfires. You have a
better chance of facing the right number of opponents, but they’re
frequently the wrong opponents. And that’s why making extra raises
to thin the field frequently fails.
WHEN TO THIN
But sometimes you may want to thin the field, anyway. You
should try it when players acting behind you are strong and players
already committed to the pot are weak. That way, you often end up
chasing away sophisticated opponents and playing a strong hand
only against weak ones. Conversely, if strong players are already
committed and weak players remain to act behind you, it’s often
better to call and invite these usually looser opponents in. Raising
just chases away the weak action and leaves you stranded with
stronger foes.
Get it now? Thinning the field is a noble ambition, but it often
backfires. If you try it, choose situations in which weak players are
already in the pot and strong players can be chased out – not
the reverse.
Mike Caro, “The Mad Genius of Poker,” is today’s foremost authority
on poker strategy, psychology and statistics. A world-class player, he is
founder of the Mike Caro University of Poker, Gaming, and Life
Strategy (MCU – with online campuses at Poker1.com). His research
and accomplishments have been cited in over 100 poker books other
than his own. Email: mike@caro.com. Play poker with the mad genius
at DoylesRoom.com.
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