Hero covered both of his opponents and wanted to know whether I preferred a raise or a call in this situation. The pre-flop raiser folded, and the third player, who had about $800, called. The big blind, who had only about $200 in front of him, led out with a bet of $28 into a $58 pot. The button and small blind folded, and a pretty fishy player in the big blind called. A better player called next to act, there was one fold, and then Hero called one off the button holding A T. A decent player opened in first position with a pot-sized raise to $14.
This hand occurred at a 6-max no-limit hold ’em table with $2 and $4 blinds. The point is that I’m not just armchair quarterbacking here: this is the kind of thinking about equities and ranges that you can and should conduct at the table. As you follow along with my analysis, notice that although I use an equity calculator to prove certain points, I always provide logic for my reasoning in a way that can be considered in real-time at the table. I found it to be an interesting situation in a multi-way pot where analyzing the ranges of various players and how each of them affects Hero’s equity suggests a better line than what may be the “obvious” play. This month, I’m going to discuss a hand sent to me by a student of mine.
For example, why is your equity versus an overpair so much better with top pair top kicker than with a pocket pair? Why does a big draw lose so much equity on a blank turn?Īn equity calculator can tell you how should have played a hand, but if you don’t know how to analyze and learn from it, then it won’t necessarily help you with real-time decision-making at the table or with difficult decisions you may face in the future. However, their usefulness is limited if you don’t understand where these numbers come from and what factors influence them.
And we have QQ.Equity calculators like Poker Stove and Pro Poker Tools are great tools for analyzing your play away from the table and after the fact. You know the type, they only 3-bet with AA,KK or AK (both suited and off suit). Here we’re going to assume a very tight player. So what can we do? We can estimate what hand they are playing. This can be useful in retrospect, when you have seen the hand at show down but we don’t always see the hands and this doesn’t always help our thought process when playing the hand. (If you are struggling to work out pot odds there are many simple tools out there, like this one) We’re talking poker here, so it isn’t quite this cut and dry if you should fold or call, but does give us a good starting point for what to consider. If they bet 50 into a pot of 100, that is odds of 2:1, so you need 33%, it’s probably a fold. Your equity is greater than the pot odds, so the maths would imply it’s correct to call.
You need to call 25 to win 100, so this is 4:1 which is 20% as a percentage. For example if the pot is 75 chips and the villain bets 25. You can see on the flop that KK has a 27% chance of winning, so if the villain gives the correct pots odds, it is correct to call. In this example we will simplify things and we won’t consider implied odds and we will assume that they won’t bet on the turn. Quickly see who was winning all through the hand