Tag Archives: +ev
Expectation Value (EV) Calculation (Page 1 of 4)
Any action you make in poker game should be focused on making a profit. Your efforts are worthwhile if they lead to the maximum profit possible or have the best average profit value. The average value of a possible profit is also named Expectation Value (EV).
Sometimes there are situations when you have several possible ways to play the hand. The profit of each variant = ev1, ev2,…,evN, the possibility of each variant = p1, p2,…, pN accordingly. Then the expectation value of the profit in the given situation is calculated by the formula:
EV = ev1*p1 + ev2*S2 + … + evN*SN (*)
The following is a very complicated example, but it has great practical value and touches on all the basic moments and rules of calculation. Let us assume that you have AK and raised on the preflop. The contender re-raised. Both stacks are 100BB. What is your best move? Should you call his re-raise, fold or re-raise (4bet)?
To answer these questions you need to calculate the EV of the call and the re-raise. The EV of the fold, obviously, is zero.
It is necessary to note that the EV of an action is the difference of our stack between the end and the beginning of an action, but not at the beginning of a hand. You cant get the money you have just invested in the pot.
When you call:
Let us set a task first:
The opponent made 3bet of your raise (raise=5??, 3bet=15??). You need to determine the possibility of your opponent having certain hands.
Let us divide the range of 3bet into two groups
The first group: he will play 3bet every time; these are QQ+ and ??.
The second group: he will play 3bet less than 100% of the time.
JJ: 70%. It means that he will re-raise with JJ 70% of the time, and will not make any further play.
AQ, ??: 30% (no more for small limits)
AJ, QK: 20%
1)?? and ?? have three combinations each, QQ-6, ??- 9, total 18
2)JJ – 6
3)AQ – 12, ?? – 6, total 18
4)AJ, KQ – 12 each, total 24
The total number of hands the opponent may re-raise with
13+6*0.7+18*0.3+24*0.2 = 32,4
The possibility the opponent has ??:
?(??) = 3/32.4 = 0.09.
The possibility of other hands:
?(??) = ?(??) = 0.09.
?(QQ) = 6/32.4 = 0.19
P(AK) = 9/32.4 = 0.28
P(JJ) = 0.7*6/32.4 = 0.13
P(AQ) = 12*0.3/32.4 = 0.11
P(TT) = 6*0.3/32.4 = 0.06
P(AJ) = P(KQ) = 12*0.2/32.4 = 0.07
Lets calculate the EV of various possibilities:
AA:
If you have K and/or A on the flop you should play with your entire stack.
The flop with a king and/or an ace may happen 23% of the time.
You may calculate this in the following way: one ace and three kings are left in the pack, four cards. To calculate the required probability, lets calculate the probability of the opposite situation – there will be neither an ace nor a king on flop.
Poker: Playing Turbo Tournaments
Prepare To Gamble- The lure of the turbo tournament is one that many players are beginning to bite down on, as the popularity of a quick tournament becomes more and more appealing to the ADD riddled youth movement in poker. Big buy-in tournaments are even running with turbo structures, like the EPT 10k turbo events. But, one of the primary things that a player has to be aware of when sitting at a turbo tournament is that, in order to win a turbo, you WILL have to gamble at some point in order to survive. The structure is designed to collapse stacks quickly and keep players constantly moving to stay afloat in the tournament. After the first 5 or so levels, don’t be surprised to see the average M hovering around 3-4 and the big stack will still barely be above M10.
Transitioning- At the beginning of the tournament, a super tight, conservative approach to play will keep you in the thick of things and avoiding unnecessary gambles in the early stages, where the value of a double up is not as vital as it would be an hour (or 6-12 levels) from now. So, a neutral equity coin flip (Example: shoving 1010 against an opener whose range runs roughly 50% against your tens) may yield a much greater return when you go from M5 to M10 as opposed to going from M20 to M40; the extra M20 does you little good early, but the extra M5 later allows you to muscle the shorter stacks and expand your game at the critical stages where everyone stays in flux with their stacks. As the tournament progresses, be looking for those spots that may seem marginal to chip up; in a turbo, they may actually be +EV in the long run, not because the actual result is +EV, but the chip position you get to if you win allows you many more +EV scenarios.
Time=Essential Factor- The biggest problem many players struggle with when playing turbo tournaments is understanding the factor in which time moves throughout the tournament. When the blinds start bringing everyone down to short stacks, you need to always be moving. If you double up to an M8 stack and suddenly think you can slow down a bit, you’re not approaching the turbo correctly; let’s say the blinds are t1,000/t2,000/(t200) at a 10 handed table, and you’re at t50,000, an M of 10, not comfortable, but seemingly out of danger for now. The problem is, in a very short amount of time (5-10 minutes) the blinds will increase to something like t1,500/t3,000/(t300), a common increase in turbo tournament increments, and your M10 stack suddenly drops down to M6.66 in a span of 5-8 hands. Once the average stack reaches M8 or less, which will vary depending on the initial stack sizes and blind intervals, no stack is safe from the advancing blinds; stay aggressive and accumulate chips, whether you’re M1 or M30; in 30 minutes, M30 may be M1.