you want my honest response?..

equity means shit. well, not exactly. but it only helps you make a decision that is not an auto-call or an auto-fold (i know i left out auto-SHOVE).

you can never, imo, know your "equity" because you dont know your opponents hand. you can only put him on a "range." if thats the case, you show me someone that can calculate equity of their holding against a "range" of hand possibilities, and i will show you an idiot savant.

you can, however, have a "range" of your expected equity. meaning you will know if you "may" have and edge or may not. and that will help you make your decision.

i guess what i am saying is that "equity" is not a worthless number. it is just a number i dont believe you can know, in the midst of a hand, with enough certainty to calculate it. at best, its a guess. just like your "read" of your opponent's hand. maybe not a blind guess, but still a guess.

at the 5, 10, 25, and all the way up through the 100 level, i doubt it's important to know in NL.

now in limit, i feel its a much more important concept. if you have AA against one player, you jam the pot until you feel you are beat. the reason is the way i feel equity is defined. if you have an 88% equity stake in the pot, you need to keep jamming the pot with money because each additional dollar you put in the middle, and each that goes in with yours, you can expect $.88 to come back to you, in the long run. i like putting in a dollar, and getting called, to receive $.88 of each dollar going in.

meaning, if you put in your $1 and get called 3 times, that means your cost was $1, but you "theoretically" made ($.88 X 4) $3.52. as a wise man once said, "i like them odds."

but again, this concept shouldnt take the place of a read or your instincts. just because you have AA, does NOT mean you should go to showdown everytime because you "have a lot of equity" in the pot.

hope that helped a little, too. doubt the mathemeticians (and spellers) will like that one much.

well, that's my 2% equity in this thread.