Equity and value betting

[SeanC]

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Pot equity is not the main point. As PhlegmWad said, you have to think about the chance of being called by a hand that you can beat. You also have to know what you will do to an all-in reraise.

It's the texture of board that matters, along with the betting to date and style of the other player. You almost never want to bet into a hand that might be sure it has you beat. You also almost never want to bet if you have the weakest likely hand given your betting so far (and if you do bet, it's a pure bluff). You almost always want to put in a sizeable bet if it's a wide-open hand such that the other player is not likely to have nuts, and you have something signficantly better than your weakest possibility. You can't really figure out the EV in that situation, but you can force a hard choice on the other player. When you can't do something right yourself, give someone else a chance to do something wrong.

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Well put, and I agree. I guess my original question is better understood in context of how it came about. I was watching one of Townsend's videos and on the turn of one of his hands, he remarked how he still had a lot of equity against his opponent's range, and that he could've pushed instead of calling (he was analyzing a hand in PT).

I was just curious how he concluded that. I guess he was looking at his equity versus this vil's range and also the probability of the vil calling his shove with an underdog hand.

BTW, what did you mean by a "wide-open hand"?

[SeanC]

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That's good that you think about stuff like this. One of the best ways I've improved is breaking down even the simplest concepts.

However, fold equity has nothing to do with deciding whether or not you should value bet. Also, try not to think about it in terms of Equity %'s either.

Here is a hint: When you bet what needs to happen in order to show a profit (think of it in the long run)?

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Well, as Phlegm was saying, I'm looking at marginal situations where you may or may not have to best hand (kicker wars or something), but you feel you have too much equity vs. the vil's range to simply check. Folding equity, I feel, has a little to do with it as the vil may fold the better hand.

[SeanC]

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Ummm.. I'll take a stab.... I think the basic thought here would be to answer this question: Given by read on the vil and his range, how likely am I to get called by a hand that I can beat? Taken to the extreme, if I am only going to get called by a hand that beats me, then you have no additional equity in the hand by betting and hence you check it down (UNLESS, OF COURSE, YOU DON'T WANT YOUR HOLE CARDS SEEN - IF, FOR EXAMPLE, YOU WERE RAISING WITH SOME ODD COMBO FROM EARLY POSITION OR SOMETHING WHICH WAS IN CONTRAST TO YOUR TABLE IMAGE, IN WHICH CASE, IT WOULD PAY TO MAKE THE BET AND HOPE TO WIN THE HAND WITHOUT EXPOSING YOUR CARDS). On the other extreme - if you KNOW you are going to get called on the river by a substandard hand that you surely have beaten, then, by all means, you would try to extract every $$ possible by betting.

As far as the math - you really don't need much fold equity at all to make it a positive EV play on the river - I mean, if you have a hand thats gonna be a loser 2 out of 3 times on showdown, and your opponent is going to call 70% of the time, you still have a 53% EV position and, if you arent risking much of your stack percentage wise, it's clear that you should make the bet, unless there is a possiblity that your opponent could be check-raising 5th street. But if your read on him is right and you don't think he will, then by all means make the value bet. The question becomes, "how much to bet so that I maintain what little fold equity (30%, lets say) that I have. If there is 1000 in the pot, and you bet 200, your opponent is getting 6/1 pot odds (200 to call to win 1200) and might make the call just figuring he can lose this 80% of the time and still make money. So your river bet must be large enough to maintain the "fold equity" that you require depending on your assessment of your hands chances on showdown.

If you feel that your hand has a higher chance to prevail on showdown adjust accordingly and feel free to offer what seem to be better pot odds for the call.

not sure if this helps

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You need to factor in that your mediocre hand will sometimes win if you check. Saying "if I bet $X and he fold Y% of the time, I profit, therefore I should bet" is correct only when your hand has no chance of winning the showdown. It will often appear that you stole the pot when the pot was yours. Remember, you can't bluff with the best hand.

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Good point. I was just thinking with the occasional hand where, by the river, you feel you have too much equity to simply check as the vil's range includes a fair amount of hands that he will call with and lose. In that case, a check-check is most likely lower EV than check-value bet. I'm going to play around in Excel on this and see what I come up with.

[SeanC]

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Ok here is what goes through my mind when deciding to value bet:

First, I kind of visualize what I think his range is. Then I think of all the hands that he calls my bet with, how many I am beating and how many I am losing to. A value bet must be called by more hands that you beat then are beating you. If he calls with 20 hands and I beat 12 of them, then it will be a profitable bet.

It doesn't matter how much the guy folds, if he calls with more hands that beat you then you beat, you should not bet. The only time FE comes into play is when you are deciding to bluff..

Edit: If when the guy calls and he has more hands that beat you and it is still more profitable to bet then check, then you are technically bluffing not value betting

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This is good, but it doesn't take into the account the probabilities of each holding in his range. You don't want to weight each holding equally, unless you truly feel each is equally likely.

When working EV calculations, this is easy, but it's tough to do at the table. I've created EV "drills" that I do, which is helping a lot. At the tables it helps my feel for situations as I'll remember drilling a similar situation before.

[craig1120]

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That's good that you think about stuff like this. One of the best ways I've improved is breaking down even the simplest concepts.

However, fold equity has nothing to do with deciding whether or not you should value bet. Also, try not to think about it in terms of Equity %'s either.

Here is a hint: When you bet what needs to happen in order to show a profit (think of it in the long run)?

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Well, as Phlegm was saying, I'm looking at marginal situations where you may or may not have to best hand (kicker wars or something), but you feel you have too much equity vs. the vil's range to simply check. Folding equity, I feel, has a little to do with it as the vil may fold the better hand.

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If villain is folding better hands then how is he calling with many worse hands? This would be a bluffing situation.

[SeanC]

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That's good that you think about stuff like this. One of the best ways I've improved is breaking down even the simplest concepts.

However, fold equity has nothing to do with deciding whether or not you should value bet. Also, try not to think about it in terms of Equity %'s either.

Here is a hint: When you bet what needs to happen in order to show a profit (think of it in the long run)?

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Well, as Phlegm was saying, I'm looking at marginal situations where you may or may not have to best hand (kicker wars or something), but you feel you have too much equity vs. the vil's range to simply check. Folding equity, I feel, has a little to do with it as the vil may fold the better hand.

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If villain is folding better hands then how is he calling with many worse hands? This would be a bluffing situation.

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Well, I don't consider it bluffing unless you know you have the worst hand. If your vil's range includes several likely holdings that are weaker than yours, it's not a complete bluff.

[craig1120]

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That's good that you think about stuff like this. One of the best ways I've improved is breaking down even the simplest concepts.

However, fold equity has nothing to do with deciding whether or not you should value bet. Also, try not to think about it in terms of Equity %'s either.

Here is a hint: When you bet what needs to happen in order to show a profit (think of it in the long run)?

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Well, as Phlegm was saying, I'm looking at marginal situations where you may or may not have to best hand (kicker wars or something), but you feel you have too much equity vs. the vil's range to simply check. Folding equity, I feel, has a little to do with it as the vil may fold the better hand.

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If villain is folding better hands then how is he calling with many worse hands? This would be a bluffing situation.

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Well, I don't consider it bluffing unless you know you have the worst hand. If your vil's range includes several likely holdings that are weaker than yours, it's not a complete bluff.

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The best thing to do is to open up pokerstove and make up a hypothetical situation with a marginal hand and divide up villains range into calling and folding. Then run the math and you'll see what I mean.

Edit: Basically, what I'm saying is that if you think there is a situation where you're bluffing and he's calling you with worse hands, you'll see that checking is actually better. And if there is a situation when you're value betting and he is folding better hands, you'll also see that checking is better. There won't be a villain where you can consider FE when value betting and value from worse hands when bluffing..

[PhlegmWad]

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Theoretically, a $50 river bet into a $100 pot would need at least 50% equity outlined above, right?

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Well, if you were CALLING $50 to win $100, you are correct, you would have to win half the time to be even. But you aren't calling here.. you are betting, <u>and so you must consider what decision you are placing on the lap of your opponent</u> Once you make a $50 bet into the $100 pot on the river, assuming he is not reraising, he has to ask himself "I need $50 to call the $150 in the pot... I have to be right better then 1/3 of the time"... again, we have no idea how you got to this point, but if they think there is any realistic shot that they have the best hand, and they are deep stacked relative to the pot (as you said), then 1/2 the pot might not be a difficult decision for them to screw up given that they can be wrong twice as often as right and still be "whole" on the decision...they are gonna call and your hand will have to prevail on its own merits (thus the trouble with betting "medium" strength hands).. if you have a "strong" hand, then offering them 3/1 might be just the ticket to get them to make a mistake calling with a hand that they are going to lose with a much higher % of the time than that. Remember the choice you are giving your opponent and don't give them a decision that they can't screw up!

[jogsxyz]

This has been solved for the uniform [0,1] game.
Using low values as best. One bet only. Only
you may bet, opp(onent) may call or fold.
Pot size is two chips. Bet size is one chip.

You should bet =&lt; 0.3 and bluff &gt;= 0.9.
Opp should call =&lt; 0.6.

Now to apply this to a real game was left as
an exercise for the reader.

[PhlegmWad]

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There won't be a villain where you can consider FE when value betting and value from worse hands when bluffing..

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Either we are saying the same thing 2 different ways, or I'm not sure I agree or I'm confused on your definition of bluffing?? ..after all, what are the only 2 reasons you would bet on the river? Either (1)if you can get a better hand to fold, or (2) you can get called by a worse hand. So therefore, fold equity is a consideration when you are facing a hand that "could" be ahead of yours - so with any "medium" hand, its a consideration as it reduces the % of times your hand has to prevail on its own merits when called. Theoretically, the only time when fold equity can be completely ignored is when you hold the nuts. Although for sufficiently strong hands, it may be considered small de-minimus and, thus, ignored.