WHAT IS EXPECTED VALUE (EV) IN POKER?
Simply Put, It Is The Average Of Our Playing Results. In Case We’ve Done That Hundreds Of Thousands Of Times, Let’s Look At A Simple Non-Poker Example.
Bet On Steph Curry
For Fun, Imagine That You Met Steph Curry, The Basketball Superstar, And He Was Practicing His Basketball Shot. Do You Think It’s Down? If You Post, You Have To Pay Him 5$. If You Don’t Post, You Get 5$.
Should You Accept The Challenge? Trust Your First Instinct To Say No. Which Is Correct Let’s See The Results.
If You Look At The Chart, You Can See That There Are Two Possibilities.
1. Curry Shoots Down And You Lose 5$ With A Chance Of 90.1%
2. He Misses The Shot And You Win 5$ With A Chance Of About 9.9%
Which Looks Rough And You Know It’s A Disadvantage. But Do You Want To Know How Much?
How EVs Are Calculated
We Will Multiply The Results Of Each Case And Add Them Together. To See The Final Result
1. Failed Shoot 0.099 X $5 = $.495
2. Failed Shoot 0.901 X $5 = -$4.505
Failed Shoot + Failed Shoot : 0.495 – 4.505 = -$4.01
EV = -$4.01
Here Are The Results. When You Complete 100 Rounds Of Betting With Him, You Will Lose Approximately 4$ Based On EV Values.
Now, Since You Didn’t Accept His Challenge, Curry Changed Your Offer. If He Shoots Down He Gets 5$ But If He Doesn’t Shoot Down You Get 100$ Now Do You Think It’s Worth The Challenge?
Let’s Try To Think For Fun.
1. Unable To Shoot 0.099 X $100 = $9.90
2. Unable To Shoot 0.901 X $5 = -$4.505
Unable To Shoot + Unable To Shoot : 9.90 – 4.505 = -$4.01
EV = +5.395
Obviously EV Is A Showman. That This Offer, You Should Hurry Up And Accept The Challenge!
Expected Value In Poker
Let’s Take A Look At How EVs Are Conceptualized In Poker. Simply Put, To Become A Successful Poker Player You Should Play As Much As Possible With +EV In Every Action You Play UFABET. To Overcome Long-Term Volatility (Even If You Play Correctly And Have A Positive EV, You Can Still Lose That Pot, But That’s Okay, EV Will Work In The Long Run.)
Let’s Look At An Example: Let’s Say You’re In The Button Position With $200 Chips Game 2/ 4 Full-Ring An Opponent Who’s Quite A Loose Race Comes $16 From Early Position, You Call With J♦ 9♦ And Everyone Folds, The Middle Pot Has $38, The Flop Opens To Your Opponent’s 5♦ 10♦ 2♣. You Bet $30, You Decide To Call, Pot Becomes $98, Back You Left $154, Turn Is 7♠, Opponent Bet $50, Pot Now $148, Call Now Is A Good Choice. Because You Have A Gutter Flush Draw, But Let’s Look At The All-In EV.
Let’s Assume That You Often Play Against This Opponent. And He Tends To Hold The Hand Mid To Put Pressure On You To Crouch. Think He Has A 66% Chance To Fold If You’re All-In And If He Calls. Assuming He Has A Hand Like T9 On Top Of A Pair, You’re Left With 34.09% Of Your Draw To Overtake Him. Let’s Think About EV In The Same Way Curry Thinks.
There Are Three Possibilities.
1. Your Opponent Folds And You Win $148 (He Gives Up $50 On The Bet Plus $98 In The Middle Pot)
2. He Calls And You Don’t Draw, You Lose $154 (Your All In)
3. He Calls And You Get A Draw, You Win $252 ($98 Pot Plus $154 All-In)
Think EV One By One If Your Opponent Folds: $148 X 0.66 = $97.68
Next EV In Khao Call’s Case, However, This One Gets A Little Complicated. Because It Has To Add Up The Two Cases Where You Win And Lose.
If Your Opponent Calls And You Lose = 0.6591 X -$154 = -$101.5014 If Your Opponent Calls And You Win = 0.3409 X $252 = $85.9068EV When Called Is = -$16.5014
Let’s Put It In The Chart.
We Can Calculate EV As Follows.
In Case Your Opponent Calls: 0.33 X -$16.50 = -$5.45
In Case Your Opponent Folds: 0.66 X $148 = $97.68
, Your All-In EV Is: (-$5.45 + $97.68) = $92.23
Awesome! A Positive EV Means We Should Go All-In In This Play, But It Doesn’t Mean You Should Go All-In With Every Flush Draw. There Are Additional Considerations As Well.
Hand Equity
One Of The Reasons This Hand Is A Good All-In Hand. Because If You Get A Call You Still Have A Few Chances To Win Against Him. Like This Hand On The River You Are Left With About 15 Outs Or About 34%
, Which Is More Than Enough To Risk. In Case You Think This Shot, Your Opponent Will Crouch More Than Usual.
Image Of The Opponent
This Is Also Very Important. Like The Hand That We Talked About We Assume That Our Opponents Are Aggressive Players And Play Aggressive Neutral Hands. So We Estimate That The Chance That He Folds At This Point Is About 66%
, Which In The Event That You Encounter A Tight Player Your EV Will Drop Drastically. Because He Will Play With More Real Hands And There Are Very Few Bluffs At This Point. Including The Chance That He Will Crouch Here Is Probably Not 66%, Which Affects Your EV A Lot.
Volatility , Long Term , All Together
If There’s One Thing I’d Like To Leave You With In This Article, Expected Value Is Exactly What Its Name Suggests. It’s Just The Expected Value. It Does Not Guarantee That You Will Win. It’s Very Possible That Even If You Play An Entire Session Of +EV, You’ll Still Play A Massive Minus. Because Poker Is A Long Game. There Are Volatility That You Can’t Avoid. But The Only Thing That Matters To You Is Try To Get As Much +EV On Every Play As Possible, And Play As Much Volume As You Can To Overcome Volatility.