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I here so much about equity in books and people on the internet, especially for SNG's. Can someone give a quick rundown on what this is, and whether equity calculations can be made in game? Or is it something we use to analyse our game after playing, and reviewing our hand histories?
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Equity means the expected value of something. It can refer to your expected share of the pot if there is no more betting, or your expected share of the prize money in a tournament.
SNGs may be mentioned because push or fold decisions are very common in SNGs, so you might see someone say that they have 45% equity against a tight calling range. Equity may also be mentioned because the single table tournament prize structures reward making the money much more than in other tournaments relative to winning, which means the chips do not all have the same value. An imperfect but useful tool for estimating your tournament equity from the stack sizes is the
Independent Chip Model (ICM).
In general, you can't perform a complicated equity calculation of either type at the table. You study situations ahead of time, and make an educated guess while you play.