Flex your brain #3

Alright folks, this time I'm using the cool little card pic dealies, so your eyes won't bleed.
For anyone who hasn't read these before, read the question, contemplate, post, THEN go read everyone else's comments if u like, go run the #'s in stove, whatever. Enjoy

Alright, fair warning this one is TOUGH. If you're tired, come back later, it's not worth frying your brain over!

Ok, so you've been card-dead forever and gotten blinded down way low. You finally push pre-flop, but your stack is so small you get... 4 callers!!!
(This is where u probably cuss, kick your computer and cross your fingers).

So here's the hands:






So, which hand would you want to have pushed with?
Try to jot down a little something towards your reasoning unless ofcourse you're just going with your gut and you well... don't give a crap about reasoning.

Doesn't this depend on what ranges the players calling your shove will call with? Are you assuming they call with four random hands or are there specific ranges you have in mind?

My gut says AKo.

I think 44 is the strongest of all those hands HU, and is the only "made" hand there, but in that 5-way pot it is almost impossible for it to hold up without another 4, which is about a 1 in 8 chance.

QJs is stronger than 87s simply by virtue of being higher cards. AK dominates A9, and the fact that A9 is suited helps but not that much. AK has got to be a favourite there. And although QJs has more flush and straight possibilities than AKo, its going to miss the vast majority of the time.

At the end of the day, three-flush boards are fairly common, and any three-flush board other than hearts will beat AK here (unless it is a four-flush spade board). Connected boards are also fairly common and several will connect with one of the drawing hands here. But my guess is that AK will lose this hand more often than it wins, it will win more often than any one of the other four hands.

So there you have it - not a single number or probability in sight, and I end up with AK.

I am going to stick my neck out and say QJs is the best hand here. With the 44 you have to avoid a 7 cards or spike a 4. Both are unlikely to happen. I suspect AK would be the strongest hand in this situation except one of the outs is taken by the A9 hand. The suited QJ has 8 full outs plus there are 10 diamonds still left for a flush. And there is a possibility of a straight as well. If I had to guess I'd say it's a race between the AK/QJs hand, but I think the QJs is slightly ahead here.

EDIT: QJ of course has only 6 full outs.

I think 44 is weak here.. Definitely not A9 since there is AK.. Not 78 because there is QJs.. I think it all comes down to AK or QJs.. I think I'll go with QJs because one of the Aces is out..

sorry taipan, maybe i wasn't clear enough, what the question is (I'm sure you can tell by the other responses) is, those are the 5 hands in the pot. Which one would you want based on your expectation that it had the best chance of winning when the cards go all the way down to the showdown.

44 was my instinct, but surely the 'answer' depends on calling ranges?

edit ha my reply was like tais

whoever said 1/8 for set is thinking just on the flop, you make a set just under 20% by river.

edit 2

OK I get it

I'll guess QJs although now I read everyone

Originally Posted by Kijjo

Alright folks, this time I'm using the cool little card pic dealies, so your eyes won't bleed.
For anyone who hasn't read these before, read the question, contemplate, post, THEN go read everyone else's comments if u like, go run the #'s in stove, whatever. Enjoy

Alright, fair warning this one is TOUGH. If you're tired, come back later, it's not worth frying your brain over!

Ok, so you've been card-dead forever and gotten blinded down way low. You finally push pre-flop, but your stack is so small you get... 4 callers!!!
(This is where u probably cuss, kick your computer and cross your fingers).

So here's the hands:






So, which hand would you want to have pushed with?
Try to jot down a little something towards your reasoning unless ofcourse you're just going with your gut and you well... don't give a crap about reasoning.

I'm going to do this over lunch here at work to see if I can figure it out...

Ok... let's see, disregarding the fact that I wouldn't shove some of those hands without reads and such, let's take the hands one at a time.


Ok, this hand has two opportunities to improve, either of the two remaining 4s. It is already the best hand of the ones shown, so no improvement may be necessary. At the pre-flop point it is clearly ahead... but could fail easily. I'm going to hold off on this till I finish up the other hands.


A strong hand, but needs to improve to beat the 44 combo. Let's see... there are 6 potential improvement cards without a 4-flush board or a straight appearing (3 cards needed). There is a problem though, one of the other hands is holding one of the aces, reducing your cards by 1. This leaves 5 for sure outs, with potential straight possibilities, I'm discounting the 4 flush because it is pretty rare, also because it might be clubs that still loses.


This hand also has 5 outs to improve, counting pairs but you can't count the Aces as AK beats them. Counting the flush, which only needs 3 cards to complete. There is a slim out there as well.


This hand I like, 6 strong outs with just pairs, has flush (8 cards left) and straight possibilities, though slightly reduced on the straight side.


This hand I also like, 6 weak outs with just pairs, but has flush possibilities (8 cards left), straight possibilities...

So which is better... hmm, now that I have stated the obvious... I don't have Pokerstove installed at work, so I'm doing this based on some known facts about hitting flushes and such... (.9% of hitting flush on flop, if 2 or 3 suited on the flop that match you, something like 10% to hit the flush after)... and the remote straight possibilities... I'm coming up with these gut feelings:

has 2 outs as flush possibility remote, 8-10% chance of hitting but already is a 'made' hand. I give it around 25% to win.
has 5 outs to beat 44 and straight possibilities, I'm giving it around 35% chance to win.
has 3 outs to win, Aces are beat by AK, the flush is remote... I give it 10%
6 strong outs but they are facing potential overpairs, flush possibilites and straights that can counterfeit AK, hmm... maybe 30%
well, outs to improve, 6 of them, straights, flushes, but I don't like it. I think this hand will at least be beat by the flop. I give it 10%

So where does that leave me, probably not adding up to 100%, let me go rework the numbers a bit...

That leaves me without using pokerstove, strictly my brain and what little donk knowledge it contains, to come up with... I'll take the AK hand first, then QJ second. My theory is that any A or K makes it a winner, even if one A is missing from the opportunity. QJ can pair and still not win, so that gets discounted a bit but I think the flush there is a possibility... that's my thought! Tear it up guys...

i would say Qd Jd followed by 78s both have 6 full outs, plus flush draws and up and down straight possibilities, eventhough the ak takes some of those straights out for the QJ this is probably wrong , its probably AK

i would say Qd Jd followed by 78s both have 6 full outs, plus flush draws and up and down straight possibilities, eventhough the ak takes some of those straights out for the QJ this is probably wrong , its probably AK

i would say Qd Jd followed by 78s both have 6 full outs, plus flush draws and up and down straight possibilities, eventhough the ak takes some of those straights out for the QJ this is probably wrong , its probably AK

I'm going for Qd Jd too. I was going to go for 7s 8s because it has more straight potential, but I think the higher values of the Qd Jd make this hand stronger.

Originally Posted by drmcboy

whoever said 1/8 for set is thinking just on the flop, you make a set just under 20% by river.

That was me, and good point.

I'm not going to change my answer though - even if it makes a set it will be beaten sometimes by one of the flush/straight possibilities out there, so with the only other improvements being the board pairing, I think the 44 is going to win maybe 15% of the time at best. If thats true, then by definition at least one of the other hands must be better.

gonna go with QJs, but I really have no clue. second guess is 44

A9 is definitly not a good one - you are dominated and the cards are not good for a str8.
44 is bad because there are too many overcards tp dodge.

QJs and 78s are pretty close, QJ has a better chance of making top pair but has less str8 potential (you can make less str8 with it ).
AK has the best chance to make TP but it cannot make the K flush and the A flush has 2 dead cards, there are Q and J deadthere for str8 and another A dead.
5 handed TP is usually not good enough
I am going to go with the following:
78>qj>ak>44>A9

QJd>87s>AKo>44>A9c is my vote. I believe the suited connectors have the best chance to "make the nuts" with QJ having a better chance of making the best pair (compared to 87s), AK would be next due to TPTK hands. 44 can somehow hold or hit the set while A9c only real chance is the club flush.

44 - not very good in a multiway hand.
Ac9c - dominated by the AK so wouldn't want this one.
QdJd - higher suited connectors, but still not as good as AK.
7s8s - suited connectors, but another choice is QJs which is better suited connectors than this.

So my choice would be AsKc...would rather it be suited, but if I had to choose I would go with it. Having an ace already out there would hurt this hand a bit, but I still think it would be the best hand to take.

Interesting comments, I'm impressed with the level of reasoning and thought.

I think everyone's had a chance to respond that will probably want to.
As many of you figured out the answer is QJs. And yes as many of you mentioned, 78s is the second best option.

Lesson of the situation? Don't let yourself get blinded ultra low, cause then even with a good hand like AKo, you could toast because your stack is so callable.
Is that a word - callable?

callable is definitely a word in the poker lexicon lol

Ok heres my reasoning:

AK and A9 are stealing one of each others outs (the Ace obviously) so that decreases Their value. The A9 has only 3 outs (not counting clubs.) and AK is drawing at 5 outs.

78s straight outs are getting robbed on both ends by the 44, A9 and the JdQd. So its kind of drawing dead to spades or a 7 or 8. So essentially 6 outs.

QJd has its straight outs being robbed by AK and A9. So its (sort of) drawing dead to the Q and J or the diamond flush which gives it some equity. So ill say 6 outs still.

44 is the made hand thus far. It is ahead thus far but there is such a HUGE amount of cards that it has to dodge that it might as well be a dog. However, if he hits the set he is sitting good. Cant count on that though so only 4 outs.

Ok I'm just going to take a shot with this one and say either QJ or 78. They essentially have the most outs in terms of flush draws and there cards aren't getting robbed by someone else's hand. The 44 is ahead for now but by the time that the 5th card comes out you probly aren't ahead anymore.

So my answer is QdJd or 7s8s.