pot equity

[mmctrab]

Okay, please help a newbie out. How does pot equity change preflop according to the number of people in the hand? For example, in a limit hold'em game, if 4 people limp in front of me, and I hold pocket Jacks, I understand that my pot equity is greater than 20% so I should raise.

But, what if only 2 people limp in front of me? Does my pot equity increase proportionally with the reduction in limpers, or is there a point where raising the Jacks becomes incorrect from an expectation standpoint? Thanks.

[Unknown Soldier]

http://www.pokerstove.com/

I'm not sure where you are getting %20 from it depends on the limpers range. Just play around with this program.

[mmctrab]

Thanks, but my question doesn't relate just to my particular example. It's a question about pot equity in general.

[Unknown Soldier]

My answer is about pot equity in general. Download the program and you can work out your pot equity in any situation.

My 20% answer is general too, I'm using your example to explain that you are confused about the concept. Your pot equity does not increase proportionally at all it depends on the range of the callers. Eg if someone only calls with AA then you equity with jacks will decrease by a large amount if he's one of the callers. But if someone only calls with J2o then your equity will only decrease by a v. small amount if he calls (obv these are terrible estimates of ranges, but I'm just using it as an example. A more realistic range for a tight limper is ATs AJ+ KQs 77+). Do you understand? Get the program and play around. Your equity is a function of the possible hands that your opponents hold (and yours). Hope this is more clear [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[alanbrown]

Basically your pot equity is the probability that you will win the pot if there's no more betting from this point.

This is clearly a function of the hands you all hold. If you don't know their hands then you put them on a range. If, for instance the range you put them on is KK+,AK+ then your pot equity is how well your cards play against AA, KK, AKs and AKo. However, the average must be weighted correctly to account for the fact that there's more ways to deal AKo than AKs or AA. So calculating pot equity when you put villain on a range is only done accurately with s/w. Hence the recommendation of PokerStove.

If you have multiple villains that you're putting on differenct ranges then things get stickier even for poker stove and the best way to calculate it is for it to quickly deal out thousands of hands with villains getting holdings in their range and then seeing who won the pot how many times to calculate the equity.

[mmctrab]

[ QUOTE ]
My answer is about pot equity in general. Download the program and you can work out your pot equity in any situation.

My 20% answer is general too, I'm using your example to explain that you are confused about the concept. Your pot equity does not increase proportionally at all it depends on the range of the callers. Eg if someone only calls with AA then you equity with jacks will decrease by a large amount if he's one of the callers. But if someone only calls with J2o then your equity will only decrease by a v. small amount if he calls (obv these are terrible estimates of ranges, but I'm just using it as an example. A more realistic range for a tight limper is ATs AJ+ KQs 77+). Do you understand? Get the program and play around. Your equity is a function of the possible hands that your opponents hold (and yours). Hope this is more clear [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[/ QUOTE ]

Okay, now I understand what you're talking about. In SSHE the authors say something like JJ will win more than 20% of the time against four limpers, so raising is +EV. I was wondering how to adjust that for fewer limpers. Thanks.

[Eponymous]

[ QUOTE ]
Okay, now I understand what you're talking about. In SSHE the authors say something like JJ will win more than 20% of the time against four limpers, so raising is +EV. I was wondering how to adjust that for fewer limpers. Thanks.

[/ QUOTE ]
I think a better way to use pot equity is when you're drawing to the nuts (or close to the nuts). Then you can calculate your pot equity based on your number of outs, and your pot equity is the probability you will hit your draw (i.e., you don't have to play with software to figure out your equity vs. a given number of opponents). In this case, your pot equity doesn't really change with the number opponents, and the decision of whether to bet or raise is influenced by your pot equity vs. the number of likely callers. This is the result of your equity of the future bets. Pot odds and/or implied odds would tell you if you should at least call in trying to hit your draw, while pot equity would help you decide if you should bet out vs. check (or raise vs. call if there is a bet to you).

Example: You have the nut flush draw on the flop (and are behind otherwise), so you have about 36% pot equity, which is the probability of making your flush by the river. If you have 4 opponents, you would want to bet/raise if you expect them to call because your equity of the calls is 36% of the 4 calls (plus yours) which is more than the one bet that you put in (so it is EV+).

[Unknown Soldier]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Okay, now I understand what you're talking about. In SSHE the authors say something like JJ will win more than 20% of the time against four limpers, so raising is +EV. I was wondering how to adjust that for fewer limpers. Thanks.

[/ QUOTE ]
I think a better way to use pot equity is when you're drawing to the nuts (or close to the nuts). Then you can calculate your pot equity based on your number of outs, and your pot equity is the probability you will hit your draw (i.e., you don't have to play with software to figure out your equity vs. a given number of opponents). In this case, your pot equity doesn't really change with the number opponents, and the decision of whether to bet or raise is influenced by your pot equity vs. the number of likely callers. This is the result of your equity of the future bets. Pot odds and/or implied odds would tell you if you should at least call in trying to hit your draw, while pot equity would help you decide if you should bet out vs. check (or raise vs. call if there is a bet to you).

Example: You have the nut flush draw on the flop (and are behind otherwise), so you have about 36% pot equity, which is the probability of making your flush by the river. If you have 4 opponents, you would want to bet/raise if you expect them to call because your equity of the calls is 36% of the 4 calls (plus yours) which is more than the one bet that you put in (so it is EV+).

[/ QUOTE ]

This post is about pre-flop equity.

[RatFink]

[ QUOTE ]

Okay, now I understand what you're talking about. In SSHE the authors say something like JJ will win more than 20% of the time against four limpers, so raising is +EV. I was wondering how to adjust that for fewer limpers. Thanks.

[/ QUOTE ]

The 20% comes from the fact that there will be 5 people in the hand, and you are 1 of them. (1 of 5 is 20%)

Against 4 random hands, JJ will win against 4 opponents about 40% of the time. Since each of the 5 people contribute 20% of the pot, but you are likely to win 40% of the time you have an equity edge that merits raising.

If 4 of your buddies got together and decided to invest in real estate, and you got 40% ownership and they each split the remaining 60% but all 5 of you were going to put up the exact same amout of money, you would be leaning to get them all to put up as much as possible because your back-end was much higher.


http://www.gocee.com/poker/HE_Value.htm is a reasonable chart to look at to get an idea of this, and how to adjust based on # of players.

PokerStove helps further when you can develop better ranges to put your opponents on, so you aren't always guessing against random hands. I.e. If it went limp, raise, reraise and cap before it got to you with JJ, you ain't winning 40% of the time.

[mmctrab]

Thanks all. Yes, I'm talking about pre-flop, but SSHE uses the term in that situation as well. Thanks again.