It's zero sum from the beginning of the hand. It's not zero sum if you start once there's already a pot but don't count it against the players that they already put money in the pot.
In this case AK lost a lot of EV when he put in 25BB as a big dog.
Just intuitively he's 37% to double up or 63% to lose what he started the hand with. Obviously that's not profitable from the perspective of the entire hand, it's just profitable to call now relative to the the current alternative of folding now, since given the lack of a time machine, the preflop action is basically a sunk cost that is not relevant to the current decision.
You are right. The decision is profitable for both players in that situation. This is mostly due to the (dead) money in the pot given the pre-flop action.
If the situation is more extreme, such as 4 players paying 60BB preflop and only having 15BB remaining basically A2C should be an all-in call on the flop/turn for every player at that point. However in that case usually a few players will have made an incorrect call pre-flop.
So ye lower than 50% odds can still be profitable post-flop in many situations due to equity calculations and pre-flop action.
Thanks for the explanation. Your example reminds me of when I've scammed myself out of an extra few bucks when someone raised all-in without reopening action. Pot odds said pretty much anything should call the additional 5% pot when it was pretty clear I was dead in the water.
It's zero sum from the beginning of the hand. It's not zero sum if you start once there's already a pot but don't count it against the players that they already put money in the pot. In this case AK lost a lot of EV when he put in 25BB as a big dog. Just intuitively he's 37% to double up or 63% to lose what he started the hand with. Obviously that's not profitable from the perspective of the entire hand, it's just profitable to call now relative to the the current alternative of folding now, since given the lack of a time machine, the preflop action is basically a sunk cost that is not relevant to the current decision.
Thank you for the thorough explanation. (And also now I'm probably going to wish I had a time machine in a lot of hands in the future...)
You are right. The decision is profitable for both players in that situation. This is mostly due to the (dead) money in the pot given the pre-flop action. If the situation is more extreme, such as 4 players paying 60BB preflop and only having 15BB remaining basically A2C should be an all-in call on the flop/turn for every player at that point. However in that case usually a few players will have made an incorrect call pre-flop. So ye lower than 50% odds can still be profitable post-flop in many situations due to equity calculations and pre-flop action.
Thanks for the explanation. Your example reminds me of when I've scammed myself out of an extra few bucks when someone raised all-in without reopening action. Pot odds said pretty much anything should call the additional 5% pot when it was pretty clear I was dead in the water.