Question About HOH vol 1

As you know from my other post on the subject (recently updated so please respond) I am having some trouble with equity.


1) In HOH Vol 1, page 135, Dan goes through a lengthy process to determine whether he should call a reraise that would put him all in, with AA. Here he breaksdown all the possible hands villain holds and assigns them a percentage. Then he multiples that percentage by his chance of winning under each scenario. Then he adds them up for a final figure and compares that against the odds on offer.

So, is this Dan working out equity? Never seen it done like that before.


2) for the rest of the odds section, he doesn't refer to this method again. Instead, like on pages 149 and 155, he just says things like "he might have the goods, he might be bluffing but at this stage of the tourney, just fold" and "unless you know for sure he has AA, you have to call."

So irrespective of whether 1) is equity or not, what's with the differing methods of figuring out whether to call or not? And if neither is equity based then you have 3 potential ways to decide: equity; doing all the percentages and adding them up, wondering what he could have and pushing if you think it's more likely you're winning.

Kinda confusing!

It's all equity.

When he says stuff like 'just fold' he's using the reasoning you have to use on the table. We can't bring out a paper and a pen and a calculator to figure out every little detail about every little decision. We have to estimate. If we want to check if our estimation is correct or if we made the optimal play, we can check the math.

If you want to get a better grasp of equity, download pokerev and play with that a bit.

I'd like to start with understanding why he starts with the whole working out percentages & addign them up for a final figure and then leaves that to play the guessing game. And why he doesnt' approach it in the way Warpe showed.

No point DL pokerev if I don't understand the methods first.

Originally Posted by Thunder

No point DL pokerev if I don't understand the methods first.

This is a wonderful attitude.

Harrington spells it out first, then cuts the math out and leaves it up to you. That way you learn. If you want a specific explanation, give a specific hand.

I dont recall the exact hands in HoH you refer to, however in various places in the book Harrington factors in other issues that are specific to tournaments like payout strucutre, stack sizes of other players etc... that affect the final decision, if you are playing cash those factors are pretty much irrelevant

Originally Posted by dev

Originally Posted by Thunder

No point DL pokerev if I don't understand the methods first.

This is a wonderful attitude.

If I don't understand the working out of equity, or why Harrington *appears* to be flitting between different methods, then DL a program that will work it all out for me is not going to enlighten me, surely?.

As said, in the example on page 135, Dan goes to great length to work out the maths behind every possible hand you could be up against to formulate your chance of winning - staying to true to percentages and pot odds. Whereas in the other he seems to be saying "he likely has 1 of 5 possible hands. As your AA beats 4 of them, it's probably best to call" which is a quite loose approach, Hence the confusion.

Originally Posted by Thunder

Originally Posted by dev

Originally Posted by Thunder

No point DL pokerev if I don't understand the methods first.

This is a wonderful attitude.

If I don't understand the working out of equity, or why Harrington *appears* to be flitting between different methods, then DL a program that will work it all out for me is not going to enlighten me, surely?.

As said, in the example on page 135, Dan goes to great length to work out the maths behind every possible hand you could be up against to formulate your chance of winning - staying to true to percentages and pot odds. Whereas in the other he seems to be saying "he likely has 1 of 5 possible hands. As your AA beats 4 of them, it's probably best to call" which is a quite loose approach, Hence the confusion.

Looking thru pokerev will give you a better feel for these situations. It's a complex program, and while you're learning to use it, you'll develop a much better feel for EV. That's my opinion, take it as you will.

My copy of HOH1 is out on loan atm. Look at how he works out the math in the earlier hand, then replicate it for the hand you have a question on. It sounds like the example is an AI call after the flop, which is as simple as it gets. If the 5 hands are equally distributed, your opponent would have to have bet multiple times the pot in order for a fold to be correct. Thus, an easy call.

At the table we have to make these decisions quickly. Most of us that play online with PT go over hands we weren't sure about after each session. We put our opponents on ranges on each street, then we work out our equity against those ranges in pokerstove and decide what the best action would have been. Some guys even use pokerstove while they play. Knowing the math is important, but we estimate everything when we play anyway. Going over our hands like this develops our feel for ranges and equity so that when we play we are more accurate (and more profitable).

Originally Posted by Thunder

As said, in the example on page 135, Dan goes to great length to work out the maths behind every possible hand you could be up against to formulate your chance of winning - staying to true to percentages and pot odds. Whereas in the other he seems to be saying "he likely has 1 of 5 possible hands. As your AA beats 4 of them, it's probably best to call" which is a quite loose approach, Hence the confusion.

It's not that loose. He puts villain on a range and estimates his equity at roughly 80% against that range.

Most opps you run into at lower stakes never even try to make the effort and make EV mistakes as a result, so if you get even rudimentary grasp of it you'll make less EV mistakes than them and profit.

This is why putting opponents on ranges is so important.