Poker equity equations

craigcu12

When doing bets and calling a raise I've found myself placed into difficult spots on the next street when my hand has missed and start to question whether or not it was the right move and what size bet I should do on the turn ifI was called by a player on previous street.

I understand what is a profitable call when holding draws  and the breakeven% when doing entire bluffs It's the equations used to make a semi bluff profitable and knowing how often my hand needs to be ahead for a call to be correct.

 

weedgi

just bet enough on turn to set up a rvr shove 

rancid

In Response to Poker equity equations:

When doing bets and calling a raise I've found myself placed into difficult spots on the next street when my hand has missed and start to question whether or not it was the right move and what size bet I should do on the turn ifI was called by a player on previous street. I understand what is a profitable call when holding draws  and the breakeven% when doing entire bluffs It's the equations used to make a semi bluff profitable and knowing how often my hand needs to be ahead for a call to be correct.  
Posted by craigcu12

I take it your talking about cash games.

The first part, you can only play one street at a time.

Unless you developing a GTO strategy which takes into account your entire range and essntially calculates how your opponent can not profit against you.

craigcu12

My general aim is to be more balanced out. most hands at the minute are expected to make a maximum of 20 BB and thats even when I've triple barrelled at times I'm also facing huge reraises or huge river bets leaving me in a much nastier spot in deciding whether or not I should make the call. If I knew the full calculation in over how often I require player to fold I can start putting more thought into how often I expect calls and work more towards build the pot up nicely. 

What puzzles me the most is knowing how often I really need folds for semi bluffs to work compared to total bluffs

If this was a total bluff I know this 1/2 pot bet would need folds 33% but here I assume their will be less needs for fold because I've got 1 card that is certain to put me ahead and 8 other cards highly likely to put me ahead of the players overall range so is the equation itself to help work out how often I would need folds

a	Small blind		£0.10	£0.10	£28.81
x	Big blind		£0.20	£0.30	£25.97
	Your hole cards	4 K
x	Fold
x	Fold
craigcu12	Raise		£0.60	£0.90	£25.84
x	Fold
a	Call		£0.50	£1.40	£28.31
x	Fold
Flop
		7 Q 2
a	Check
craigcu12	Bet		£0.70	£2.10	£25.14
a	Fold
craigcu12	Muck
craigcu12	Win		£1.33		£26.47
craigcu12	Return		£0.70	£0.07	£27.17

I understand here that an A or J won't guarentee that I go ahead of opponent but I imagine them to be good against his overall range and kno w he'll have some flush draws in his range which mean I'm actually sitting ahead of him already. So how does the formula itself actually work

b	Small blind		£0.05	£0.05	£12.44
x	Big blind		£0.10	£0.15	£9.90
	Your hole cards	A J
x	Fold
x	Fold
craigcu12	Raise		£0.30	£0.45	£10.50
b	Call		£0.25	£0.70	£12.19
x	Fold
Flop
		6 6 9
MOOLY	Bet		£0.20	£0.90	£11.99
craigcu12	?

Duesenberg

Hi Craig

Forgive me if you are already familiar with this but it sounds to me like what you are looking for is the rule of 2 and 4 - a quick way of working out the percentage of time your draws will complete by either the turn or the river.

It's pretty simple and easy to do on the fly during play. With one card to come you simply take the number of outs you have and multiply it by 2 to give you the percentage of times your draw will get there. With two cards to come (eg your opponent went all in on the flop and you were deciding whether or not to call) you mutiply your outs by 4.

Using your K4 flush draw hand above as an example, when you are betting on the flop you have 9 other clubs in the deck which will complete your flush. The odds of you making your flush by the turn are 18% (9x2). If you shoved on the flop and had both turn and river still to come you would get there 36% of the time (9x4). 

To then see how often your semi bluffs need to work, simply minus the percentage of times your draw will get there from the total percentage of required folds for your bluff to be profitable - eg you bet half pot on the flop needing 33% of hands to fold. However, your flush will get there by the turn 18% of the time meaning you actually only need folds 15% of the time in this spot for your bet to be profitable long term (33% required folds minus the 18% of the time your draw gets there and your bluff has now become a value betting situation). This is of course a pretty simplistic analysis of semi bluffing and doesn't account for implied odds (or of course reverse implied odds), but that's a whole new can of worms!  

Just google poker rule of 2 and 4 you'll easily find a far better run down than I've given here. Also, if you're not familiar with it, I can highly recommend downloading Equilab which is a program for doing complete equity calculations for pretty much any situation you can think of (including full range vs range analysis). Best of all, Equilab is free!

Sorry if you're already familiar with all of the above but it may be useful for others reading too I guess.

Best of luck out there :-) 

rancid

Craig,

If I read your post correct then there is no easy answer.

I am not being funny when I say this.

You need a lot of study of ranges and equity tree's to able to get close to an answer.

Your question about how often you will need folds.

What about when you don't want folds.

You talk about wanting to be balanced, what about all the other hands you can have here.

Are you concerned really if they fold, you shoudn't be.

If you realy want to delve into the maths side of the game then it's probably worth putting in some effort into a training site or something similar.

craigcu12

In Response to Re: Poker equity equations:

Craig, If I read your post correct then there is no easy answer. I am not being funny when I say this. You need a lot of study of ranges and equity tree's to able to get close to an answer. Your question about how often you will need folds. What about when you don't want folds. You talk about wanting to be balanced, what about all the other hands you can have here. Are you concerned really if they fold, you shoudn't be. If you realy want to delve into the maths side of the game then it's probably worth putting in some effort into a training site or something similar.
Posted by rancid

Right now it's being able to get calls with my good hands and build up pots that is actually my problem. I'm currently in where I only ever manage to win small pots and lose the majority of big pots, the problem I have is being able to build the pot up nicely whilst keeping in a large portion of the opponents range. The reason i'm trying to get my hand range more well balanced is because cash tables are now filled with a selection of regulars. cash table poker has changed massively, I use to be able to easily give up my missed hands post flop and obtain 40bb+ with my big hands but now i'll be lucky to gain 10bb with a hand, in coolers I usually loose 50-100BB but  when I win coolers my prize is 20BB-50BB.

A poker training site would be something useful, I would like a one which can provide a coach who'll help explain things load and clear,

rancid

In Response to Re: Poker equity equations:

In Response to Re: Poker equity equations : Right now it's being able to get calls with my good hands and build up pots that is actually my problem. I'm currently in where I only ever manage to win small pots and lose the majority of big pots, the problem I have is being able to build the pot up nicely whilst keeping in a large portion of the opponents range. The reason i'm trying to get my hand range more well balanced is because cash tables are now filled with a selection of regulars. cash table poker has changed massively, I use to be able to easily give up my missed hands post flop and obtain 40bb+ with my big hands but now i'll be lucky to gain 10bb with a hand, in coolers I usually loose 50-100BB but  when I win coolers my prize is 20BB-50BB. A poker training site would be something useful, I would like a one which can provide a coach who'll help explain things load and clear,
Posted by craigcu12

Craig,

How do you get to these figures of winning or losing x amount of bb, and over what sample size.

From what I have read above, I would think you need to learn how to lay down hands when it's obvious your beat or play them a bit differnetly on certain textures and run outs.

You can't force people to call you with nothing so don't worry about it.

Maybe look at your sizing, maybe it's too big.

Poker NL is a very simple game, you don't have to over complicate it at these levels.

my tip: Checking is always an option 

Tikay10

^^^^

That's a great post imo.