Robb,

Thx for your explanation and it covered the example I had provided though there are other areas that I still need help on. Eg: as mentioned in my earlier post, there is the EV of betting - which I have no idea how to gauge: Pot is $100. You believe there is a 10% chance opp will call $65, 20% chance they will call $50 and 50% chance they will call $30 - therefore the +EV move is to bet.

A lot of the time, I have no idea what I think my opp is liable to call so that makes this hard. And in that link I provided, it goes every crazier with % and probability by breaking it down into cards, eg: if villain has a club then the chance of him calling is..... If he has an ace then the chance of a call is..... So if I can't do the former, I certainly cannot do the latter.

Now in you reply Robb, you talk about gauging your opponent and making a decision based on that but two points arise. I keep reading how you can only calculate EV with a sepcial calculator, so how do you do it in game and on the fly? Also, in one of my first posts, I mentioned how I don't explicitly use EV but make plays and bets based on my reads at the time (like an innate form of EV) yet I was chastised for doing so and told to dig out the EV calculator etc. But all I talked about in that post is what you've described in this: gauging where you are to determine whether it's worth continuing and if you're ahead, how much to bet to get paid off. So I am confused by the conflicting advice.

Another aspect of EV that requires help on has been addressed with the "K on an A flop" posts and quite simply, how do you know what is EV or not? In these posts, many people advocate betting out so quite a lot believe it is EV+. However, it appears on that occasion that doing so is EV-. But without that thread, we wouldn't know so how do we learn? And what about other hand flop combinations.

Finally, there is the aspect of bluffing, be it late in a tourney to steal the blinds, representing a flopped ace or just an outright bluff played up to the river with absolute nothing. All of these are EV- are they not? Yet they can be vital and even necessary and this seems to brings up the conflict of learning what is EV, making EV+ plays and then going against it, such as the KK on Axx flop scenario, thus leaving things just as confusing.

Thx