Can someone explain fold equity to me?

[Oranzith]

I have read explanations that don't really sit well with me, and I didn't find ANYTHING in the FAQ(s) that referenced it.

All i understand is that it basically deals with the chance that your hand will hold up. But i don't get what the "fold" party of FE is - ie if you can get all your money in with a better than 50% chance to win PF (ie 77 and you put him on AK) then you have good fold equity?

I'm really lost, and believe I am totally blanking on one of the MOST important micro-NL topics out there

[carnivalhobo]

FE applies mostly to situations where you say, make a bet or raise with a drawing hand. Say you are 32% to hit your draw, and you make a raise on the flop where you feel like your opponent will fold 30% of the time, this means that you win the pot 62% of the time, 30% it is the current size of the pot, and 32% of the time it is the size of the pot plus your bet and his call. It is useful in calculating the EV of certain lines by assigning a value to the times when your opponent folds and you win the pot.

[ajmargarine]

Fold Equity is the % chance that you think your opponent will fold a hand after you make an action.

For example, lets say you are HU with a PFR and you flop the nut flush draw. You bet, he minraises you, you push. You estimate he will fold a better hand x% of the time, putting you on a monster hand. "x" is your FE.

FE is important when you have a coinflip situation to sway things in your favor because you gain EV from the FE.

[4_2_it]

Simply put (From the Poker wiki (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poker_jargon#F) )

fold equity
The extra value gained by forcing your opponents to fold, rather than seeing the showdown.

[Panthro]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fold_equity

[Jigsaws]

Fold Equity
Mythical concept said to exist at higher stakes. See 'Moving up to where they respect your raises'.

[hummusx]

Your hand has some particularly equity of the pot. If you have KK and your opponent has AA and all five cards are out and they are T9753 of 3 different suits, your pot equity is 0. Your portion of the value in the pot is nothing, because your opponent has the best hand and there are no cards left to come.

Now, if you BET anyway and your opponent folds, you won the pot even though your equity was zero. Where did that equity come from? It came from your opponent's fold. So your fold equity is not the % chance that he will fold, but the equity share of the pot that corresponds to the chance he will fold.

[BukNaked36]

[ QUOTE ]
Fold Equity
Mythical concept said to exist at higher stakes. See 'Moving up to where they respect your raises'.

[/ QUOTE ]

/images/graemlins/wink.gif

Soooo [censored] true it hurts.

[RobinX]

[ QUOTE ]
Say you are 32% to hit your draw, and you make a raise on the flop where you feel like your opponent will fold 30% of the time, this means that you win the pot 62% of the time, 30% it is the current size of the pot, and 32% of the time it is the size of the pot plus your bet and his call. It is useful in calculating the EV of certain lines by assigning a value to the times when your opponent folds and you win the pot.

[/ QUOTE ]

Ok so let's take your example. Villain has top pair and we have a FD. We have 9 outs for the draw corresponding to about 39% win vs. 61% loss. The pot is 10BB on the flop. He bets 10BB. You shove all in for your remaining 95BB.

What's the EV of this play? Let's use x% as the percentage the villain will fold to our shove.

1) Villain calls.
We invested 100BB to win a pot of 200BB. We expect to return 78BB so EV is -22BB/hand.
2) Villain folds
We returned 15BB on this play.

In order to break-even villain has to fold at least 68% in this situation. Correct?

[EMc]

Me and you flip coins for 3 hours. I win on tails, you win on heads. 100 bucks a pop. At certain points, I get pissed and punch you, and take the 100 bucks.

[RobinX]

Ahhh, you mean bully! Nice analogy though, I see your point. Do I summarize the concept of FE right if I say FE gives a bet/raise a higher EV one might otherwise conclude from the hand itself?

Definition is a bit skewed I guess.

[Triggerle]

The concept of fold equity is understood differently by different people. In my opinion this is the main reason there's so much confusion about it.

Before I give you my take, Here's a discussion with slightly different opinions (Micro Limits forum) (http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=7623177&an=&page=0&vc=1) .

Generally all equity concepts are based not on the specific outcome of the hand but on an abstract mathematical or statistical approach. Equity is a money-based value and describes the share of the pot that belongs to you for different reasons:

Pot equity

The amount of money in the pot that belongs to you based on the chances of you winning the pot. If you are an 80% favourite against your opponent at one point in a hand then you can base decisions on the fact that 80% of the pot belongs to you. Of course if you win you will get 100% of the pot and if you lose you will get 0% but over the long run wins and losses will even out to this ratio so you might as well assume that you will win 80% of the pot even if you lose in this specific hand. Pot equity is especially important in limit play because the pot size can be very big compared to the bet sizes.

Fair share equity

Your fair share equity is the amount of money that belongs to you based on an equal share between all players. This sounds like a pretty useless concept but it has important function: if your pot equity is higher than your fair share equity then for any money that goes into the pot a larger percentage belongs to you than you have to put in. Fair share equity is the reason you should get in your money while you are ahead, it's +EV to put your money in.

Fold equity

The amount of money in the pot that belongs to you based on the percentage of your opponent folding. If you ignore bet sizes for a moment let's say that based on the range of hands that you put your opponent there is an x% chance that he folds. You fold equity then is x% of the pot. For the case that your fold equity is higher than your fair share equity a bet then automatically makes a profit, it is +EV. Please note, however, that there could be higher +EV plays then betting if you have implied equity (see below).


These equity concepts very much depend on each other. If your fold equity is higher than your pot equity then betting and giving your opponent a chance to fold might be the better play. For this to work you also have to take into account the bet size with respect to the pot size:

Let's say the opponent checks to you on the river and you have only 20% pot equity in a $10 pot ($2). You expect your fold equity to be 30% ($3). Your EV of betting is $3 with respect to the current pot. But since your opponent folds only 30% of the time the other 70% of the time you will lose 80% of your bet. 70% times 80% equals 56%.

So if you assume you have to bet $2 to have the 30% chance that he folds (i.E. he will call all smaller bets) then your expectation of betting will be $3 (your fold equity) minus $1.12 (56% of your bet) or $1.88.

In this case checking behind has a higher EV than betting although your fold equity is bigger than your pot equity.


If you are on an earlier street then another concept might make checking and thus forfeithing your fold equity the better play:

Implied equity

This is the pot equity projected to the future. If you expect that your opponent will put in more money on later streets even if he is still behind then you have implied equity.

If your pot equity plus your implied equity are higher than your fold equity then checking or betting an amount that you are sure will be called on an earlier street will be of higher EV than betting for fold equity. A typical such situation would be if you have the nuts and your opponent is drawing to a less than nuts hand.