Equity Value Betting: Getting the Best Return on Your Money

[SixForty]

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Very nice and interesting post. I discussed a few other aspects of this issue in the last post of
this topic.. Maybe you already read that, and you could extend your post with other areas I have covered...

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I hadn't read that post of yours yet - just read it now. Some good stuff in there! I'm going to read it again!

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In practice I think the hardest part of this is estimating your equity in a concrete hand given the board and the action. Do you think that anything else than practice and good judgement could help in improving this skill? I mean something similar to an outs-winning percentage table would be very useful. Something like x opponents, y estimated winning chances -> z% equity edge.

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I don't know if getting it down to a specific adjustment equation or that sort of thing is really viable. There are so many different situations in poker, and each situation may have slightly different variables that affect it. And reads on your opponents are so important.

I'll give you an example. I have one opponent that I play regularly against who will never raise the flop without two pair or better. She never raises on draws, never raises top pair or an overpair, never bluffs. So, let's say I flop the nut flush draw. Somebody bets, and she raises, and I'm next to act. Normally I'd consider my nut flush draw to be about 35% equity or better (I say or better since my Ace is often an out) However, in this case, against her, I know that my Ace is not an out, and I know that sometimes I will make my flush and lose to her full house on the river. If she has two pair, my equity is somewhere around 32%. If she has a set, it's somewhere around 25%. If she has a straight, it's back up around the normal 35%.

So given the board texture, I can estimate what she has and estimate my equity. If the board is J72, I'm extremely confident she has a set. If the board is T95, then she may have two pair (T9) instead of a set, and she's twice as likely to have the set as opposed to the two pair, and I can estimate my equity accordingly. If the flop is 987, then she may have a straight, set, or two pair, and again, I adjust accordingly.

So you can see that each indiviudual hand, each individual flop, and each opponent that you play against provides so many issues to take into consideration, it's tough to get into any concrete "always adjust your equity in this manner" type of thinking.

Practice, good judgement, good reads and observations - all these things help!

[kaboshedx]

So just one clarification on pushing equity.

Would it be correct to say that you should only raise to push equity if you are confident that the other players will call this raise.

For if you raise a late position bettor with your OESD that ends up pushing the other players out of the hand is this not deiminishing your equity? WIth the raise that was meant to get bets in the pot you actually ended up making it heads up, and when it is heads up you only have raising equity if your hand is >50% to win. Correct?

Again, all working under the assumption that the only purpose of raising is equity, no free card strategy, etc..

thanks,
KABO

[SixForty]

Hey HoneyBadger, good points.

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Good post. Like you, once I understood this concept it demystified poker a lot. A word of warning though; do not overestimate your true equity. You might be drawing dead, and raising is a huge theoretical (and practical if you knew) mistake in this case.

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That's true, and it's something to always keep in mind. However, it's something that should come into your estimation of your equity. For example, if 20% of the time you are drawing dead, but the other 80% of the time you have 40% equity, your average pot equity is 32%. If you have 4 opponents, this gives you an average equity edge of 60%, even counting the times you are drawing dead. So it's still a big enough edge to push, even though sometimes you may be drawing dead.

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Also, and I haven't done the math on this but I'd like to, sometimes when you edge is only small you could be better of to wait one street and not raise. This costs you (expected) money, as you had an edge and didn't push it. However, what it buys you is more information on the next street to make a better decision. If you link this with your explanation of equity edge, I'm sure many people will better understand the "two overcard hands" section in SSHE as well where the famous quote "forgo pushing a small edge to push a much larger edge later" comes from.

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This is absolutely true. All I was trying to do was talk about equity edges, and how to look at them, think about them, figure them out, use them, and determine how they affect your play. But there are many other things to look at in any given hand of poker. And decisions should be made on all the information, not just edges.

You are right - sometimes you will have a very small edge, and it's worth it to not push it this street because you can take advantage of a bigger edge next street. When your equity edge is small, you may lean this way. When your equity edge is large, it should lean you more towards pushing the edge now. (Even though sometimes, you still won't push it now for other reasons, ie, slowplaying)

When you have an equity defecit, you usually don't want to be raising. But you may want to raise for a freecard. If your equity defecit is large, then raising for a freecard costs you more, and it isn't as attractive. Especially if your opponent doesn't like to give freecards. But if your equity deficit is small, almost close to neutral, then you can be more inclined to raise for a freecard, even against someone who doesn't like to give them. For example, raising with an equity defecit of 30% to get a freecard against a passive player who will give it to you almost all the time, costs you the same as raising with an equity defecit of 10% against a player who will never give it to you and always 3-bet you.

An offshoot of this that I've found useful is that it does make you harder to read. For example, I'm against a tough opponent like we mentioned who doesn't like to give freecards. There are others in the pot also, in between us. He bets, others call. If I have an equity defecit of 40% I'm probably not going to raise to try for a freecard. It's unlikely to happen and it's costing me. But if I have an equity defecit of only 5%, then I'll throw in a raise knowing that even if he does 3-bet me, it's not costing me much at all.

Then when he sees my hand at the end, he really can't tell the diffference of why sometimes I go for a freecard against him, and sometimes I don't. Unless he's looking very closely to see that this time I had a backdoor flush draw and an extra opponent calling, he won't know the difference. And it makes it harder for him to read my raises and my calls.

[SixForty]

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So just one clarification on pushing equity.

Would it be correct to say that you should only raise to push equity if you are confident that the other players will call this raise.

For if you raise a late position bettor with your OESD that ends up pushing the other players out of the hand is this not deiminishing your equity? WIth the raise that was meant to get bets in the pot you actually ended up making it heads up, and when it is heads up you only have raising equity if your hand is >50% to win. Correct?

Again, all working under the assumption that the only purpose of raising is equity, no free card strategy, etc..

thanks,
KABO

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This is absolutely true - and it's another reason why position, and relative position, are so important.

You are right in that you need to estimate how many people will call your raise in order to determine whether or not you have that edge.

Sometimes this is easy - 1 player bets, 4 players call, you can be sure that almost all will call your raise (especially if the pot is large) Sometimes it's easy to see they won't call you - 3 players check, 1 player bets, the next raises, if you now 3-bet, you are definitely losing some people along the way.

Sometimes it's tricky - 2 players check, 1 player bets, 1 player calls, what happens if you raise now? How many people are coming along? You may have an equity edge if all 4 come along, but if the first 2 checkers fold to your raise, you may not have the equity edge 3-handed. (for example, all you have is an 8 out open-ended straight draw)

In this case, you have to estimate - who will call my raise, do I have a big enough equity edge to push, will there be other benefits to my raise (ie, freecard, fold equity) If the first two checkers are calling stations, then be more likely to raise because if even one calls to keep it 4-handed, then you've got a good equity edge. If both are tight, and the original bettor is known to be aggressive and 3-bet a lot, then be less likely to raise since they'll probably fold and you won't have the equity edge.

Again, knowing your equity edge is just one piece of the puzzle. It's an important one, but it's still only one piece.

All different things to think about. Every hand in poker is different - that's what makes it a beautiful game!!

[kaboshedx]

again very helpful, thank you.

[Harv72b]

This really should have gone to the magazine. Great stuff! [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

I think this also does a great job of illustrating just how important position is, even in limit hold'em. With position you end up with all of these great +EV scenarios, but if you're out of position (or sandwiched in the middle), then putting in a bet or a raise could drastically change your equity advantage depending on what your opponents do behind you. But it could also mean that a check/raise or call/3-bet line would be correct.

Thanks for taking the time!

[The DaveR]

Your last point bears emphasizing. Related to it is the fact that things change a bit when there's already money in the pot. They change a lot when the pot is already large, often to the point where massaging an additional bet or two on the flop can easily become less important than knocking out a weak draw or two.

[hookem208]

i enjoyed this piece a lot and i appreciate the time u took to write it all out. quick question, how much does the rake effect your overall equity. very little or can it have a bigger impact in smaller pots. thanks.

[UCLAseetoK]

Excellent post OP. This is a must read for those just beginning into small stakes limit hold em and are struggling to understand what exactly pot equity means to them.

[TripleH68]

Thanks Six,

You have motivated me to open PT and really break down some hands, rather than settling for going by 'feel' while playing. Good work.