Folding Aces

A situation in which folding aces is determined to be the best play

by Lee H. Jones | Published: Mar 07, 2006

"Substitution, mass confusion"

I recently got an e-mail from a friend of mine, Jeanne. She said, "Well, I finally did it: I folded aces before the flop."

I thought, "This is going to be a good story."

Jeanne was playing in a supersatellite on PokerStars. Now, if you've never played in a supersatellite, here's how they work: You have a target tournament (in this case, the $215 Sunday afternoon no-limit hold'em tournament). People buy into the satellite for whatever the buy-in is (in this case, $10 with rebuys). The satellite prize pool is simply divided up into $215-sized pieces. So, if you end up with $2,150 in the prize pool, you have enough for 10 buy-ins to the target event, and the last 10 players remaining in the satellite get seats into the $215 event. If there's a remainder after doing that division, it goes to the unfortunate person who was the last one to bust out before the seats were awarded.

As you can see, this format throws a rather bizarre twist into the normal proceedings of a poker tournament. If the person who finishes 10th gets exactly the same prize as he who finishes first, the correct strategy for the tournament becomes very different as you get close to the seats being awarded. In many respects, it stops looking like poker. In fact, noted poker player and mathematician Bill Chen has said, "Supersatellites aren't poker. I'm not sure what they are, but they're not poker." This should give you an idea of where we're heading with Jeanne's story.

Jeanne's narrative picked up with 24 players left at three tables. The prize pool was such that 22 players were getting seats in the $215 event, and the 23rd-place finisher would get $160 cash:

"There were 24 players left when this hand came up; I probably don't need to tell you that everyone was taking the clock to the max and even timing out, and then immediately sitting back in when the hand was over …"

Well, wait just a minute here. If you're not a supersatellite veteran, you may not know what Jeanne was talking about. But I'm going to get up on a soapbox for a moment and digress.

Here's what's going on: Players look around and say, "Hey – when two more people bust out, the rest of us will get seats. I've got an idea: I will use up as much time as I'm permitted before taking any action (even folding the trashiest of hands). While I stall like that, the other tables will play at normal speed. They will get more hands in and thus surely bust out the necessary players. I will be assured of a seat!"

What these geniuses, these mensches, these rocket scientists fail to take into consideration is that (you'll never believe this) the players at the other tables have figured out this clever tactic. It's hard to imagine, I know, but true. Indeed, you could go to all three tables and see each player waiting as long as the software permits him, and then folding his 8-2 offsuit or whatever. So, what is the ultimate effect? Does table A get an advantage over table B by playing at a glacial pace while hands zip around table B, rapidly wiping out the short stacks? Of course not, because table B has gone into its own nine-corners stall [with props to Dean Smith], so basically nothing is happening at any of the poker tables.

The ultimate effect, which these Einsteins never seem to realize, is that everybody gets much less play. Think about it: They are playing one hand every two minutes instead of one hand every 15 seconds. But the tournament clock grinds inexorably forward. So, if there are 15-minute blind levels, they get seven and a half hands per blind level rather than 60 hands. Of course, the result is that pretty soon, the event is reduced to an all-in fest with no poker whatsoever being played. We get all kinds of e-mail from our players at PokerStars: "Give us more play! More blind levels! Deeper stacks! Longer blind levels!" And within reason, we do that. And then people go out and, by this process of mutually assured destruction, obliterate all that play and find themselves reduced to simply shoving their stacks in and running out five boardcards.

I will make one other point, do with it what you will: Stalling like that in a tournament is cheating. It's against the spirit of the game and tournament directors in brick-and-mortar events don't tolerate it. If you think it's a permissible "tactic," you're wrong. I hope that either the "It's cheating" argument or the "It's stupid" argument will sway you.

Anyway, we're back to my friend Jeanne, and the 24 players left in the satellite. Jeanne had not quite $36,000, and the blinds were $6,000-$12,000 with a $600 ante. There were two folds to her and she looked down at, indeed, two red aces. Now she really did need that time clock. There was a good chance that if she raised, she'd win the blinds, and that would almost certainly guarantee her a seat. And even if she did move all in and was called by somebody, she would go into the flop as a big (probably prohibitive) favorite. But Jeanne looked around at the other tables. I'll let Jeanne describe the situation:

"With everyone taking the clock, the next round of blinds already went up while we were in this hand; the new blinds were $10,000-$20,000 with $1,000 antes. There were three tables left. I counted about six players who would go all in on the next hand, if not this one. I had three hands before the big blind. If I did play this hand and lost, but didn't get eliminated, it would cripple me. What was the benefit of playing the hand? I did not see any."

Is this poker? You can argue that it's not (and I certainly wouldn't disagree). But, every game has its rules, and the rule here was that it didn't matter how many chips Jeanne had; all that mattered was that two more people busted out before she did. Here's more of her narrative:

"Now, I am not a math whiz, but what are the chances that all six players, on this hand and then again on the next two hands, would survive? If you can do the numbers, I think there was no way I could have played [the aces]. I wasn't looking to steal, as I wasn't looking to get to first; I was looking to get to twenty-first! That must be exactly what happened, because the tournament ended on that hand, and I was in."

Jeanne hit the nail on the head: She wasn't playing for first; she was playing for twenty-first (actually, 22nd).

So, maybe what she was playing wasn't poker; if you look down at aces and think, "I need to fold these," it's hard to describe the game as poker. But my friend Jeanne played the end of the supersatellite perfectly, including folding aces to win the seat.