Posts Tagged ‘equity’

Q: How would you recommend using Poker Stove to get better? Especially since I can only play live these days.

A: Your caveat at the end there threw a wrench in my plans for building a post around what I think is an innovative idea for the popular no-limit hold ‘em odds calculator. You see, I often recommend Poker Stove to my students as a hand reading aid. While playing online, you can make real-time use of the feature that graphically displays a hand range.

Start with the entire grid of possible starting hands highlighted. When you get involved in a pot, de-select all of the hand combinations that you believe your opponent would have folded pre-flop based on the action and his position. Continue to de-select combinations each time he takes an action.

This is what you should be doing in your head constantly. For many people, having something visible to manipulate is a good starting place. In particular, this exercise prevents you from re-introducing hands into your opponent’s range that you’ve previously ruled out. I often have students tell me on the flop that they think an opponent would have bet his flush draws but then they are afraid to value bet when the third flush card comes on the river. Their minds have a fear response on that river that blinds them to the hand-reading work that they’ve already done.  Read the complete post...

I’ve been writing a lot lately about the importance of understanding how much equity your hand has against your opponent’s range, and a lot of people have quite reasonably asked how to figure that out at the table, when Poker Stove is unavailable or impractical. Thus, my January article for 2+2 Magazine is an example of how to use rough estimates to make real-time decisions and in particular how to recognize the factors that cause your equity to be what it is in a given spot. Here’s an excerpt:

“Interestingly, if Villain has a one-pair hand, he barely affects our equity at all. If we assume that the big blind has 87, then letting the middle position player stay in the pot with 65 costs us only about 3.5% equity. This is because unless Villain’s kicker dominates one of Hero’s pair outs (i.e., unless Villain has something like T7 or A6 that kills one of our outs), then he will rarely affect the outcome of the hand. Either Hero draws out to a hand that beats both of his opponents, or he does not improve, in which case he would have lost to the big blind whether or not the third player was in the pot.”

By all means, please let me know what you think of it!

I feel like it’s been happening a lot recently (though sometimes it’s ended well.)

PokerStars No-Limit Hold’em, $20.00 BB (6 handed) – Poker-Stars Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com
CO ($2000)
Button ($1189.50)
SB ($2014)
Hero (BB) ($2030)
UTG ($2429.50)
MP ($5521.95)

Preflop: Hero is BB with A, A
1 fold, MP bets $60, 1 fold, Button raises to $185, SB raises to $440, Hero raises to $2030 (All-In), 1 fold, Button calls $1004.50 (All-In), SB calls $1574 (All-In)

Flop: ($5277.50) 10, 2, 4 (3 players, 3 all-in)

Turn: ($5277.50) K (3 players, 3 all-in)

River: ($5277.50) 3 (3 players, 3 all-in)

Total pot: $5277.50 | Rake: $3

Results:
Button had K, A (one pair, Kings).
SB had K, K (three of a kind, Kings).
Hero had A, A (one pair, Aces).
Outcome: SB won $5274.50

The thing is, I honestly believe the guy with KK can fold it pre-flop. Button was a loose passive fish, so that 3-bet is no joke. I put him on AK,JJ+. When SB 4-bets, I put him on AK,QQ+. That means I’m shoving KK+ and folding everything else, including AK and QQ. Even being generous with Button’s range, KK is a fold:

Text results appended to pokerstove.txt

1,908,089,568  games     2.713 secs   703,313,515  games/sec  Read the complete post...

This is one of the biggest leaks that I’ve helped my students to find, and as these hands illustrate, it’s not something I’m immune to myself. I’m talking about choosing the wrong hands to defend against a possible bluff/semi-bluff when there are still cards to come. It is so much more important to defend with draws that have good equity against your opponent’s range than with hands that are “made” (which is really a meaningless concept anyway).

Full Tilt No-Limit Hold’em, $20.00 BB (2 handed) – Full-Tilt Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

SB ($2060)
Hero (BB) ($2239)

Preflop: Hero is BB with 9, 9
SB bets $60, Hero raises to $200, SB calls $140

Flop: ($400) J, 3, J (2 players)
Hero bets $244, SB raises to $520, Hero raises to $2039 (All-In), SB calls $1340 (All-In)

Turn: ($4120) 10 (2 players, 2 all-in)

River: ($4120) A (2 players, 2 all-in)

Total pot: $4120 | Rake: $0.50

Results:
SB had Q, J (three of a kind, Jacks).
Hero had 9, 9 (two pair, Jacks and nines).
Outcome: SB won $4119.50

Full Tilt No-Limit Hold’em, $10.00 BB (2 handed) – Full-Tilt Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

SB ($3011)
Hero (BB) ($2010)

Preflop: Hero is BB with J, K
SB bets $30, Hero raises to $111, SB calls $81  Read the complete post...