Equity

[Outlaw]

I've heard a ton about equity in a pot or fold equity in both videos and posts, but I don't think I've ever seen a post that went into great detail on all the ins and outs of it. Calculating equity vs a range has always been one of my weak spots.

Can any of you pros please either point me in the direction of a good post or explain in detail all they know about it? Example pertinent hands would be awesome.

Thanks!

O

[kb coolman]

First off, you need PokerStove, and the better you are at defining an opp's range, the better you will be at determining equity.

Hand equity is the % of times you will win the pot with your current holdings against your villain's range. Now, the easiest range to define is pre-flop. Take good notes here. Also take notes every time he flats, folds, and 3bets, because these help you further define a range on later streets. There's a really good thread here on the BC that covers several exercises regarding equity. It really clarifies the concepts. I'll dig it up unless someone else beats me to it.

Fold equity is an advanced topic that is better left to the regs, but I'll take my shot. Basically, it's the % you think you're opponent will fold a better hand to a certain bet. At our level, it mostly comes into play with AI move. For example, will he fold TPGK to my AI air bluff, or can I shove him off the draw with air? It also calculates into semi-bluffs where you have the weaker hands, but nut draws. If he folds, you take down the pot now. Otherwise, you build equity for you outs.

[Robb]

Use this Poker Stove link. Download the program. KB has a good post above.

Let me provide an example. Suppose a TAGG cold calls your preflop raise of AQs and the flop is K92 w/ two cards in your suit. You think (since he's a TAGG and has a narrow CC range) he's got a small/med pp or AQ and nothing else ever. He could have a set of 9's or 2's, but you think he would 3bet QQ+ and AK.

To find out your equity against that range, you enter your hand, the flop cards and 22 - JJ, AQ into his line. Here's the results.

Text results appended to pokerstove.txt

62,370 games 0.015 secs 4,158,000 games/sec

Board: Ks 9h 2h
Dead:

equity win tie pots won pots tied
Hand 0: 53.129% 48.62% 04.51% 30324 2812.50 { AhQh }
Hand 1: 46.871% 42.36% 04.51% 26421 2812.50 { JJ-22, AQs, AQo }

Now, he donk shoves the flop, and you start thinking he's got a set, JJ, TT or 88 and maybe AQ. He's a shorty w/ 40bb stack, so you've gotta call 36bb for a chance to win 45bb (not quite perfect w/ blinds, but close). So you have 36 to 45 pot odds, which simplifies to 4 to 5 pot odds. Convert that to a percentage 4 / ( 4 + 5 ) = 44.4%, which is the equity you need to call the shove. Correct opponent's range, and get...

Text results appended to pokerstove.txt

32,670 games 0.005 secs 6,534,000 games/sec

Board: Ks 9h 2h
Dead:

equity win tie pots won pots tied
Hand 0: 52.071% 43.46% 08.61% 14199 2812.50 { AhQh }
Hand 1: 47.929% 39.32% 08.61% 12846 2812.50 { JJ-88, 22, AQs, AQo }

So you have enough equity to continue.

Of course, no guarantees this scenario would happen or that this is a coherent list of his range, but you get the idea. Good poker thinkers use the Stove a lot when looking at HH's, thinking about possible villain ranges and our equity in the hand. If your chance of winning at showdown is better than the pot odds being offered, you should call.

[Outlaw]

Awesome, thanks guys.. that really helps a lot.

I have Pokerstove, I just never really knew how to use it.

Of course, when multi-tabling its impossible to do all of the calculations that fast. I assume you gain a feel for where you stand through experience.

I feel I tend to underplay my OESD and Nut flush draws in the wrong situations.. I tend to bet-call, check-call too much most of the time when I probably could have gotten it all in and gotten a fold a lot and at worst had a winning amount of equity even if I got it in bad sometimes.

I think what I am saying here is what types of situations are you mostly finding to be most profitable with the best fold equity, etc? Hand examples would be great if anyone has any that are relevant.

Thanks again!

O

[Illfavor]

Robb FTW

[Robb]

Robb FTW

I know I'm a moran for not getting this, but what's "ftw" mean?

[Illfavor]

Robb FTW

I know I'm a moran for not getting this, but what's "ftw" mean?

"For the Win"...kinda loses its luster when you have to ask

[Robb]

Robb FTW

I know I'm a moran for not getting this, but what's "ftw" mean?

"For the Win"...kinda loses its luster when you have to ask

sorry ... FTL

[kb coolman]

Of course, when multi-tabling its impossible to do all of the calculations that fast. I assume you gain a feel for where you stand through experience.

I feel I tend to underplay my OESD and Nut flush draws in the wrong situations.. I tend to bet-call, check-call too much most of the time when I probably could have gotten it all in and gotten a fold a lot and at worst had a winning amount of equity even if I got it in bad sometimes.

I think what I am saying here is what types of situations are you mostly finding to be most profitable with the best fold equity, etc? Hand examples would be great if anyone has any that are relevant.

I'll pass on some awesome advice I got from Robb. Get HEM, and use the replayer. I'll go back through hands and start narrowing down ranges, taking notes, etc. Practice, practice, practice. It eventually becomes more natural. Don't worry about having the math exactly correct, but you need to easy spot when a play is clearly correct, clearly wrong, or somewhat marginal. Play the clear cut hands decisively, whether betting or folding. With marginal holdings, learn pot control, but bail out early if opp is tring to build a big pot or take you to valuetown.

As an example for fold equity, let's define 3 types of players:
1) calling station - you have zero fold equity here. valuetown here, don't bluff
2) weak/tight - you have tremendous fold equity unless you're up against the nuts. You can shove these guys off top pair and any decent drawn with properly sized bets. Also great for stealing the blinds.
3) Tight Aggressive - Will have a smaller, more defined range for FE, and you have to pay a lot of attention to how he plays his hands. What does he open with? How does the board help his range? Will he fold given improper odds to draw? What does he 3 bet with? etc. This player is much tougher to beat, but will be very profitable if you can dominate him. You have to understand blockers to play him right.

To that regard, here's the post I alluded to earlier. Please work through these examples and feel free to PM me with any questions.

http://www.flopturnriver.com/phpBB2/...ns-t80656.html

DO THIS!!! I cannot tell you how much it will help your game.

[Outlaw]

Nice KB. Thanks for sharing that.. I will get to work on it tonight.

Update: Wow my head is hurting. I am not a math guy so I struggle with such things.

I think what I need to do is put the opponent on a specific range BEFORE I look at the texture of the flop. Then use my memory to correlate it to the board.

I really suck at math but am blessed with a very good memory for images. In a general sense, I am able to remember how just about every combination of hand I have ever had has faired on a particular board from every hand ever. I mean I can't tell you "I did this on hand #421 on day 82 of my poker career" But generally whenever a flop comes after the preflop action hands pop into my head my opponent could have based on past hands I have played. Generally if I feel its more likely I am beat, I tend to play pot control.. if I feel like I am ahead more often I play aggro.

What I am saying I guess, is I assign ranges after the postflop action instead of before.. I need to start putting the egg before the chicken, if you know what I mean. I need to get more organized.

Another of my problems is that a lot of the time I tend to remember the hands that have beat me more and feel I sometimes miss spots where I have positive equity in the hand.. I tend to only get it in when I feel I am 90%+ sure I have the best hand. I tend to discount the fact that air could be in the equation and the opponent could just be taking a stab based on what he thinks my range is and I fold the best hand too often.

I might just be undercalculating ranges based on opponent history and giving too much likelihood in my mind to the top of his range.

I feel like I am babbling.. I guess my main question is, how does a non-math guy compete with all you guys able to calculate all of these %s on a dime?

Should I just bite the bullet and go over and over this stuff until I get it? Or is there an easier rule of thumb method I could use to get a more relative idea of this stuff?

O

[Sir Pawnalot]

I am not a math guy either. I will do the calculations when reviewing my hands, but not in the middle of one. I rely much more on "feel"- timing tells, betting, patterns, positionally adjusted ranges etc..

Figuring out your equity is also "feel based". With a lot of experience this becomes easier- but basically it is all about how are my chances of winning this particular hand?

Fold equity is your chance of making opponent fold his hand- whether you are in front or not. Several factors are important while calculating fold equity:

1. Bet sizing. (If villain tends to fold more against bigger bets, FE is higher with bigger bets.)

2. Strength of villains hand. (with a weaker holding he will fold more)

3. Credibility of play. (If you represent a hand that is likely in your range villain will fold more. This is dependent of image, but anyways it is important to tell a story which seems believable.)

4. History. Have you been bluffing a lot, (FE-) playing passively (FE +), playing tight (FE + preflop, FE + postflop on A, K, Q flop.), playing loose (FE- preflop, FE+ on J high flops, can represent atraights and flushes.

Equity and fold equity must be balanced. When equity is very high (playing tight) fold equity is very high. This implies that we should loosen up when fold equity is high.

How much equity we should sacrifice in order to maximize fold equity becomes the most important decision for any NL player IMO.

[Outlaw]

I am not a math guy either. I will do the calculations when reviewing my hands, but not in the middle of one. I rely much more on "feel"- timing tells, betting, patterns, positionally adjusted ranges etc..

Figuring out your equity is also "feel based". With a lot of experience this becomes easier- but basically it is all about how are my chances of winning this particular hand?

Fold equity is your chance of making opponent fold his hand- whether you are in front or not. Several factors are important while calculating fold equity:

1. Bet sizing. (If villain tends to fold more against bigger bets, FE is higher with bigger bets.)

2. Strength of villains hand. (with a weaker holding he will fold more)

3. Credibility of play. (If you represent a hand that is likely in your range villain will fold more. This is dependent of image, but anyways it is important to tell a story which seems believable.)

4. History. Have you been bluffing a lot, (FE-) playing passively (FE +), playing tight (FE + preflop, FE + postflop on A, K, Q flop.), playing loose (FE- preflop, FE+ on J high flops, can represent atraights and flushes.

Equity and fold equity must be balanced. When equity is very high (playing tight) fold equity is very high. This implies that we should loosen up when fold equity is high.

How much equity we should sacrifice in order to maximize fold equity becomes the most important decision for any NL player IMO.

Thanks for putting equity in perspective from a practical sense.. this is where I have my biggest problems, applying what I know about equity to real situations encountered in play.

Sometimes I will have a huge draw on the flop and understand that I have a lot of equity.. but then am unclear exactly on how to proceed. I generally tend to think I ruin a lot of my equity by playing too passively.. I need to be adding some fold equity to balance things out.

Also, I tend to have problems calculating my equity vs a villains range when my hand is marginal.

Example:I have TPTK, it goes down in equity value some vs a nit but can be treated like the nuts vs a maniac in a 3bet pot due to their ranges. Am I on the right track here?

Also do big draws have more total equity against a scared passive than a calling station due to the addition of fold equity if we play the hand forcefully?

Example: I flop an OESD with bottom pair and a backdoor FD. I checkraise the flop then shove the turn.. the calling station likely won't let go of his TPGK but the former will likely snap fold.. so I actually have a lot more equity vs the scared passive player?

Would it then be better to play a more cautious pot control game vs the station with an unmade hand and valuebet him more thinly? While at the same time crush the other guy with fold equity (unless he's shown great strength at some point in the hand)?

Thanks again guys for helping a n00b.

O

[Sir Pawnalot]

You are right on.

You mentioned total equity. That is a powerful concept which explains why semibluffing can be profitable against certain players. If you estimate your equity to be around 40 % and fold equity 20% we can profitably bet- even though we think we are behind.

When fold equity is very low, we need to have more than 50% equity to profitably bet.

[Outlaw]

So in general if we have a hand with good equity against the villain's range but are possibly behind right now.. we sometimes want to bet even more forcefully if we believe he will fold better hands 1/5 times or 2/5 times, because in the long run.. the times he folds and gives us the current pot will override the times we get called and brick out.

If we feel we are well ahead of his range, we want to valuebet to build a pot with our superior equity, giving a poor price for him to catch up.

I feel like I've been a poker ostrich until you guys just explained this to me. I am looking forward to applying these concepts in actual play. I also want to mess around with Pokerstove for a few hours now that I understand how it works. I want to get a feel for how ranges hold up against other ranges.

Once I get some play in, I'll post some hands if I get into any weird or tough spots.

Thanks again Pawnalot, Robb, and Coolman!

O

[kb coolman]

So in general if we have a hand with good equity against the villain's range but are possibly behind right now.. we sometimes want to bet even more forcefully if we believe he will fold better hands 1/5 times or 2/5 times, because in the long run.. the times he folds and gives us the current pot will override the times we get called and brick out.[

If we feel we are well ahead of his range, we want to valuebet to build a pot with our superior equity, giving a poor price for him to catch up.

I feel like I've been a poker ostrich until you guys just explained this to me. I am looking forward to applying these concepts in actual play. I also want to mess around with Pokerstove for a few hours now that I understand how it works. I want to get a feel for how ranges hold up against other ranges.

Once I get some play in, I'll post some hands if I get into any weird or tough spots.

Thanks again Pawnalot, Robb, and Coolman!

O

It sounds like you've made good progress. Good job!!

I'm still not really good a defining ranges, but I'm a lot better than I was. Just understanding theseconcepts has increased my BB/100 significantly.