Variance, fear of it, and dealing with it.

[illegit]

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Against his actual hand I am a favorite, but If I run his range through the pokerstove his range is slight favorite to my A-7, unless I am using the pokerstove wrong.

equity (%) win (%) tie (%)
Hand 1: 48.4642 % 43.96% 04.51% { Ad7h }
Hand 2: 51.5358 % 47.03% 04.51% { KK-22, A2s+, K8s+, Q9s+, J9s+, T8s+, 97s+, 86s+, 76s, 65s, A2o+, K9o+, QTo+, JTo, T9o, 87o }

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Erin, you are not understanding this situation properly. First of all that's an extremely wide range to be CALLING with and I seriously doubt his CALLING range is that wide. his PUSHING range might be that wide, but his calling range probably is not. If he's a good player he'd rather fold a hand like 97s here and push any 2 from the SB on his next hand.

Secondly the range you described, and I'm just estimating, is only around the top 35% of hands. So even if his range IS that wide you're forgetting the fact that 65% of the time you'll be winning the blinds which is a HUGE percentage of your stack. If you combine all the times he folds and you win the blinds with all the times he calls and you still win, and compare it to the times he calls and you lose, it's a huge money making edge to push this hand here. HUGE. it's not close to marginal at all.