Professional No-Limit Hold 'em Study Group Day 1

[Matt Flynn]

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I call this conundrum pot control vs donk control

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i lol'd. nice description.

donk control > pot control unless you're betting so much that everyone routinely folds unless they have you beat.

[Fisherman23]

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The picture changes a bit once we are up against more aggressive players. They will often know about the "standard" nature of the raise/cbet line and call flop bets liberally in order to put you to the test on the turn.


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Put yourself in the opponents shoes. Against aggressive players say we float and they lead on the turn. Is there a lot of value sticking a small raise in on the turn? Do you think against the average uNL TAG, LAG, this is going to win you enough medium sized pots to cover for when they are not bluffing and you get caught making a huge bluff for 60-70BB? What stats would you consider. CB%, Turn AF, anything else?

After rereading this it sounds like this is FPS and is really read based.

[Matt Flynn]

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I wrote down a few words on cbets and bet sizing.

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thanks for the detailed discussion!

like triggerle says, it's all about adjusting to maximize your profits given your current game conditions. it's also good to mix it up.

[cubase]

Calculating EV. I've always been a little confused here when to count money I've put in and when not too.

Contrived example. In a simple blindless/rakeless game of poker I raise pre-flop to xBB. My opp calls xBB. The villian nor I look at our cards, and we have a simple strategy. I will c-bet 2/3P and he will fold 65% of the time. 35% of the time he will call. Those times he calls, he will bet the turn and I will fold.

(.65)(+P) + (.35)(-2/3P)=+5/12(P).

This formula (borrowed from Killer Poker by the Numbers) shows us to be making money. We are +EV.

Unfortunately we actually go broke in this game if we brute force it (actually play it out). Why?

(.65)(+P) + (.35)(-2/3P)=+5/12(P).

Let's note that in order to create P, I invested 1/2P and my opponent invested 1/2P preflop. So in order to break even, I have to win 1/2P or 6/12P. If my EV is 5/12, I am LOSING money.

So what am I missing? How can I have positive EV and lose money?

Note that if we subtract my initial investment from our result, I will get the -EV result.

5/12P - 6/12P = -1/12P.

So I'm confused. This causes me some pain when reading PNL as I'm often trying to determine if it is "truly" +EV or +EV mathematically, but once I take into account my investment, it turns out to be -EV or break-even, etc.

Understanding how this works better will help me out. I remember being confused a bit in NLHTAP with some of the EV examples when I worked out the math in a brute force fashion. Hopefully you can set me straight so I can look at the EV calculations here in PNL clearly.

[WarhammerIIC]

[ QUOTE ]
Calculating EV. I've always been a little confused here when to count money I've put in and when not too.

Contrived example. In a simple blindless/rakeless game of poker I raise pre-flop to xBB. My opp calls xBB. The villian nor I look at our cards, and we have a simple strategy. I will c-bet 2/3P and he will fold 65% of the time. 35% of the time he will call. Those times he calls, he will bet the turn and I will fold.

(.65)(+P) + (.35)(-2/3P)=+5/12(P).

This formula (borrowed from Killer Poker by the Numbers) shows us to be making money. We are +EV.

Unfortunately we actually go broke in this game if we brute force it (actually play it out). Why?

(.65)(+P) + (.35)(-2/3P)=+5/12(P).

Let's note that in order to create P, I invested 1/2P and my opponent invested 1/2P preflop. So in order to break even, I have to win 1/2P or 6/12P. If my EV is 5/12, I am LOSING money.

So what am I missing? How can I have positive EV and lose money?

Note that if we subtract my initial investment from our result, I will get the -EV result.

5/12P - 6/12P = -1/12P.

So I'm confused.

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Once your money goes into the pot, it's part of the pot. You don't subtract it from the pot when making EV/pot odds/etc calculations. +5/12 is positive EV.

[cubase]

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Once your money goes into the pot, it's part of the pot. You don't subtract it from the pot when making EV/pot odds/etc calculations. +5/12 is positive EV.

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I appreciate this and understand.

The issue I have is that the +EV is almost misleading here. You are not actually profiting! If you ran this through a computer simulation for x million hands, you would lose money in the long run even though you are +EV.

And that is confusing! And perhaps I'm missing something else here, because I'm looking for balance. If I'm +EV than presumably my villian should be -EV, no? I haven't done the math yet, but if I'm winning 5/12P then he must be taking down the other 7/12P.

So we are both +EV but I'm losing $$$.

[Triggerle]

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[ QUOTE ]
The picture changes a bit once we are up against more aggressive players. They will often know about the "standard" nature of the raise/cbet line and call flop bets liberally in order to put you to the test on the turn.


[/ QUOTE ]

Put yourself in the opponents shoes. Against aggressive players say we float and they lead on the turn. Is there a lot of value sticking a small raise in on the turn? Do you think against the average uNL TAG, LAG, this is going to win you enough medium sized pots to cover for when they are not bluffing and you get caught making a huge bluff for 60-70BB? What stats would you consider. CB%, Turn AF, anything else?

After rereading this it sounds like this is FPS and is really read based.

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These are just some random thoughts, not a complete manual.

Regarding the aggressive players I used in my example, those are often not very good aggressive players (aggrodonks if you will). Their strategy doesn't make sense because they will risk too much on the turn. But this doesn't mean we have to throw money at them on the flop when we can't call a turn bet. Let them have it when we miss, we will collect later and then some.

If we cbet with air just enough times so they will float us as well when we have a hand then we are exploiting them by denying them to steal enough from us to offset the times they float us and we have a strong hand. Cbetting every hand might be +EV as well because their strategy is not sound but my approach is more +EV.

Of course if they are thinking aggressive players we can/have to adjust in other ways as well.

[Matt Flynn]

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The issue I have is that the +EV is almost misleading here. You are not actually profiting! If you ran this through a computer simulation for x million hands, you would lose money in the long run even though you are +EV.

And that is confusing! And perhaps I'm missing something else here, because I'm looking for balance. If I'm +EV than presumably my villian should be -EV, no? I haven't done the math yet, but if I'm winning 5/12P then he must be taking down the other 7/12P.

So we are both +EV but I'm losing $$$.

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if i am understanding you correctly, the issue you present is that individual actions within a hand can be +EV while the whole line is negative EV. for example, you flop a draw with 12 outs to the nuts. you bet half the pot (say that's your standard cbet) and get minraised. you will call getting 4-to-1 because it's more than your pot odds, even if you knew you were going to face a huge bet on the turn if you missed. globally, however, you just put a pot-sized bet in on the flop at a collective 2-to-1. your call is +EV, but your overall line on the flop was -EV.

same can be true over multiple streets. action on multiple streets can be profitable while the whole line loses.

[WarhammerIIC]

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The issue I have is that the +EV is almost misleading here. You are not actually profiting! If you ran this through a computer simulation for x million hands, you would lose money in the long run even though you are +EV.

And that is confusing! And perhaps I'm missing something else here, because I'm looking for balance. If I'm +EV than presumably my villian should be -EV, no? I haven't done the math yet, but if I'm winning 5/12P then he must be taking down the other 7/12P.

So we are both +EV but I'm losing $$$.

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Your example is also a little contrived, though. First of all, if you knew that your opponent was going to fold 65% of the time, obviously betting 2/3 of the pot is not optimal (you're betting more than your chances of winning). If you were in this situation, you would need to bet less and find the "sweet spot". Constantly betting 2/3 of the pot when you're only going to win 65% of the time is horrible.

In most games, you will win with a c-bet more often than 65% of the time (if you're paying attention to what your opponents do), and you will also sometimes win even when it gets called.

[cubase]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
The issue I have is that the +EV is almost misleading here. You are not actually profiting! If you ran this through a computer simulation for x million hands, you would lose money in the long run even though you are +EV.

And that is confusing! And perhaps I'm missing something else here, because I'm looking for balance. If I'm +EV than presumably my villian should be -EV, no? I haven't done the math yet, but if I'm winning 5/12P then he must be taking down the other 7/12P.

So we are both +EV but I'm losing $$$.

[/ QUOTE ]
Your example is also a little contrived, though. First of all, if you knew that your opponent was going to fold 65% of the time, obviously betting 2/3 of the pot is not optimal (you're betting more than your chances of winning). If you were in this situation, you would need to bet less and find the "sweet spot". Constantly betting 2/3 of the pot when you're only going to win 65% of the time is horrible.

In most games, you will win with a c-bet more often than 65% of the time (if you're paying attention to what your opponents do), and you will also sometimes win even when it gets called.

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The example is contrived (as mentioned in OP) to focus on the math and my curiosity confusion around being +EV but losing money. It is not about strategy, optimal lines, or anything else. You could even remove poker from the example and turn it into a ball throwing contest.

The post is really about understanding EV more fully.

It would appear that for EV to be completely EV for an entire line, you must determine you investment equity and ensure that your EV is above that.

In my example, I've invested 6/12P pre-flop. I need to earn > 1/2P in order to break even on my investment.

If it were 3-way (and assume the 3rd player's strategy is to always fold on the flop), then i need to earn 4/12P to break even. So 3-way given the silly assumptions and rules, I would be +EV for the hand as well as the street.

The key here is that a lot of books/posts tout you need to win X% of the time to break-even on some play. In the above math it would appear we are profiting, when in actuality we are losing money by making this play.

So the math tells us the wrong story and we could conclude the wrong things by seeing a +$EV result in our math.

So really, my EV calculation here is about this and only this street.

If I want to calculate EV for the entire line (am I profiting over the entire line), I seem to need to be able to aggregate my EV results somehow to find out whether I'm *truly* winning or losing money. What is the "correct" way to aggregate EV results to find out if you are truly +EV/-EV for a given line. Using my contrived example, how would we properly (meaning, mathematically) deduce that I'm losing money?

Hopefully I'm providing more clarity. This is NOT about strategy. This is about understanding EV calcs fully.