How much equity do I need to make this call

[Stef]

6 handed game. Reasonable players. UTG+1 opens. His stats are 24/17/2. Folded to me in BB with 97s. If I stove this agaisnt a 17% range I will have about 35% equity. 3.5sb in the pot.

What determines if I should call or fold?

[Oink]

- rake

- Do you know how he plays postflop and can you exploit it. I.e if he folds too much you can c/r a lot of flops. If he calls down too ligt you can c/r and bet a pair for value. If he gives too many free cards you can peel a lot of flops.


I would play this one. But its close and its prolly a muck if the rake is high and if he plays well postflop

[Entity]

Oink's right in that it's your opponent's postflop play (and yours) that make up the call here and not so much your equity. That said, there aren't any 24/17/2 opponents I can think of that I'd fold this against preflop -- I don't think it's super close.

Rob

[Stef]

Thanks for the replies both of you. I understand and agree with your responses and it is how I approach these situations.

I was however hoping for a more mathematical answer. Perhaps I chose a poor example. As a lurker for sometime I see the word equity thrown around these forums like mud in a pig pen. I however don't have a full understanding of when to use the equity I have or might have in a particular hand (as ranged against opponent(s) possible range) to help me make a decision. What factors come into play once I know my estimated equity in a hand? In a HU situation is it simply I call with 50.1% equity and fold with 49.9%? Does pot size factor in? (IE less equity but bigger pot I still call).

I believe these equity calculations are used both pre and postflop and for both HU and multiway hands. I may be incorrect here or they may be more relevant in one than another.

Perhaps we could get some hands posted by the members where they actually used equity calcs in there decision making. These calcs may have been used exclusively or in part in the decision making process.

[Wolfram]

Equity tells you what the chances are that your hand will win at showdown. This assumes of course that you will go to showdown.

It also tells you how much of the pot is rightfully yours right now. Let's say your playing a 3-handed LHE game with uncapped betting and it is the turn. Also, there will be no betting on the river.

Your equity is 34%, and you know that your opponents aren't folding. Theoretically you would want as many bets to go in on the turn as possible because you have a 1% equity advantage, meaning that for every 1 bet you put in you get 1.02 bets back on average ( 3 bets * 0.34 ).

The problem is that poker isn't quite that simple. There's more than one street of betting, and sometimes we will pay opponents off when we don't have favorable equity (because of incomplete information). This is mostly due to reverse implied odds and is exacerbated when we are oop.

[Stef]

[ QUOTE ]
Equity tells you what the chances are that your hand will win at showdown. This assumes of course that you will go to showdown.

It also tells you how much of the pot is rightfully yours right now. Let's say your playing a 3-handed LHE game with uncapped betting and it is the turn. Also, there will be no betting on the river.

Your equity is 34%, and you know that your opponents aren't folding. Theoretically you would want as many bets to go in on the turn as possible because you have a 1% equity advantage, meaning that for every 1 bet you put in you get 1.02 bets back on average ( 3 bets * 0.34 ).

The problem is that poker isn't quite that simple. There's more than one street of betting, and sometimes we will pay opponents off when we don't have favorable equity (because of incomplete information). This is mostly due to reverse implied odds and is exacerbated when we are oop.

[/ QUOTE ]

Thanks for the reply. I do understand this concept. Where it starts to go grey for me is for example in my first post. Both Oink and Entity would make the PF call as would I and many others. However from an equity standpoint we are a 3:1 dog. Why do we make the call. Let's say we were getting worse pot odds than the normal 3.5:1. Would it still be correct to make the call?

Another example. We are in the BB W/85o. UTG raises (19% PFR). MP CC, Button calls, SB folds. Do we make this call?
If we input a 19% range for UTG, 24% for MP, 26% for button. We have the lowest equity at about 16%. The highest is about 30 and the others inbetween. In this case we have 16% equity and only need to contribute about 13% PF to the pot. All players are of equal talent. Do we make the call? I usually don't. I do make it with 85s though. That only stove's at about 17% equity. So why one and not the other.

Perhaps both are incorrect calls to make or perhaps both are correct. So what I'm trying to establish here is some coralation between equity and the other factors I should be considering. Pot size, # of players involved or other factors I'm not considering.

[Oink]

[ QUOTE ]
However from an equity standpoint we are a 3:1 dog

[/ QUOTE ]

Huh? We had about 35% eq right? That makes us an 65:35 dog ~ 1.9:1 dog. I must be misunderstanding you!


[ QUOTE ]
Another example. We are in the BB W/85o. UTG raises (19% PFR). MP CC, Button calls, SB folds. Do we make this call?


[/ QUOTE ]

Always

[ QUOTE ]
Do we make the call? I usually don't. I do make it with 85s though. That only stove's at about 17% equity. So why one and not the other.


[/ QUOTE ]

Well I call both. But lets say there is only one coldcaller. Then I only call 85s but muck 85o. Basically 85s gives you more options postflop because of flush possiblities. When I call junk in BB vs a raise and 1 or 2 cold calls its with the intention of playing fit or fold postflop and win a nice pot when get trips, two pair, a straight or a flush.

[mvoss]

Hey Stef, you're only a 2-1 dog in the original hand, but you're getting 3.5-1 on your call and you have a hand that's quite easy to play postflop. This is why you can call profitably.

Also when considering how much equity you have and deciding whether to call you should definitely consider pot size. Have you read "Small Stakes Hold'Em..." by Miller, Sklansky and Malmuth? If not I'd suggest you do and if you have already read it I think you should reread the equity part.

[Wolfram]

The reason we make calls when we don't have the equity is because we figure that implied odds will make up for it when we flop strong.

The reason we sometimes fold when equity says we should be calling is because we might be OOP with an easily dominated hand and fear that we'll get in a bad reverse implied odds spot.

[Stef]

[ QUOTE ]
Hey Stef, you're only a 2-1 dog in the original hand, but you're getting 3.5-1 on your call and you have a hand that's quite easy to play postflop. This is why you can call profitably.

Also when considering how much equity you have and deciding whether to call you should definitely consider pot size. Have you read "Small Stakes Hold'Em..." by Miller, Sklansky and Malmuth? If not I'd suggest you do and if you have already read it I think you should reread the equity part.

[/ QUOTE ]

Sorry guys, my bad. I did mean 2:1.

So we do need to consider pot size when we are considering calling. Otherwise in a HU situation, for example, it would only be correct to continue with 50+% equity. In a 3 handed situation we need 33+% and so on.

I basically assumed this already. What got me asking questions is the fact that and we'll use my initial example. UTG raises folded to BB with 97s. Even if we gave UTG a 10% PFR. There are almost no two cards that have worse than a 3:1 equity disadvantage against that range. The pot is always 3.5:1 (1/2 structure and I realize rake bites in). So now based on both equity and pot size it would seem correct to call with any two.

Now what other factors come into play. The players involved are of equal skill. If I was to play, as Oink mentioned,
Fit(hard) or Fold. Would we be making a mistake by playing any two cards. Or put another way. Do the Lags know something we don't.

Hopefully I'm not coming off as being difficult or dense(probably both).

Actually what I'm thinking now is (and this is an attempt to answer my "any two" question). When we stove a hand like J4o against a 10%PFR range we have ~25%eq. Considering only our equity and pot size we have enough to make the call, seemingly. But the problem with J4 is even when we make TP we have domination problems(these domination problem actually get worse as we move up the scale- Q4/K4/A4)Being that pokerstove is an all-in program it can't calculate the future pressure that my be imposed on us by an aggressive opponent. Not only may our hand end up in an actual dominated position but we risk being put in an imposed dominated position(if that makes sense). With future bets to call we may be forced to fold the best hand.

On the other end let's say we have the discipline to play "Fit Hard or Fold". Well now when the flop comes J62 or even JA2 we always fold because we didn't hit hard enough. Again we risk folding the best hand.

Again stove is calculating an all-in situation. It can't adjust it's equity calcs for these situations. In reality we never had 25%eq with J4 but considerably lower. Which is why calling with any two is incorrect. In slight contrast a hand like 85o risks less domination issues and a skilled player may be to realize his full equity or at least closer to full equity.

I'm just kinda thinking out loud so excuse my rambling. If my thought process is running off course please let me know.