One of the most common all in situations you will see in tournament poker is the two player heads up “coin flip”. One player holds a pocket pair and the other player has two overcards. For instance, player A holds the ever strong AK and player B has pocket sixes. When those hole cards get rolled over, someone invariably says: “It’s a race” or “it’s a coin-flip.”

Actually, in these situations the small pair is a slight favorite. If the AK is not suited then the odds are 54.82% for the pair to win and 44.79% for the AK. Not really a coin-flip at all. Notice there is a small chance of a tie here.

In situations where the smaller pocket pair is within “straight” range of the big cards the odds get better for the pocket pair. Say it’s AK up against JJ. Now the AKQJ10 straight is less likely for the AK hand, as two of the jacks are out. The odds here are 57.09% to 42.58%. It is enough to remember that in the typical “coin-flip” the smaller pocket pair, is a slight favorite. Even though you will swear every time you have the small pair you lose to the overcards, we all now know that is only 44.79% truthful.

-this is Beginner’s Poker Blog Post #180

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 16th, 2008 at 9:12 am and is filed under Poker Basics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.