EV - It's not just an electric vehicle!
June 5th, 2024 Newsletter
Cold Deck Quote:
"Those chips are your weapons, your arsenal. If you are afraid to use them, don't play." - Doyle Brunson
What in the Word...?
...Expected Value (EV)
What's the Value of anything that involves risk?
It took me a long time to take to heart the idea that poker isn't about winning money or winning pots. It is fundamentally about making good decisions. Whether the decision is to call, raise, fold, enter a tournament, or sell your car, you should be considering the EV (Expected Value) of each of these moves.
You can get so wrapped up in thinking about EV that it may help you sort out lots of things in your daily life like whether to go to the Astros game when Verlander is pitching vs. when that rookie takes the mound or whether to buy the ice cream that your wife likes instead of your favorite. There is value to be found most everywhere. However, before I go too far down the rabbit hole, we are here to talk poker.
Many of your decisions at the poker table will work (or should work) the EV of your situation into the equation of the decision. EV is the reason why we open shove pocket 4s from UTG+1 with eleven Big Blinds and open fold it with 30 Bigs. We use this all the time but, perhaps, more on the intuitive side without thinking of why. So what is EV?
Lets start with a simple example as there is NOTHING simple about tournament poker. Lets say you and a friend want to wager on a football game. I am a big college fan so lets say that Michigan is playing Indiana for the "old oaken bucket". You think Michigan will win but your friend is a Hoosier through and through and wants to take IU to win outright. Now, if you aren't a football fan, I will let you know that Michigan is a top team each year while Indiana is, historically..... not good. The friend is willing to make an even wager of $100. You (or Vegas) estimate that Indiana only has a 10% chance of winning the game. So it is obviously a profitable wager for you. But how profitable? Well lets see.... there will be $200 in the "pot" for the winner. Since you estimate IU only has a 10% chance, UM would have a 90% chance. So the EV of your bet would be 90% of $200. So before it even kicks off, your EV is $180 and you have already gained $80!
The idea is if the situation were replicated 1000s of times, you would gain $80 each time such a wager were placed. Will you lose sometimes? Yes. You will lose 10% of the time. But even if you lost this wager 10 times in a row, you should still be willing to place the profitable wager again (or reevaluate your analysis of the teams.).
Now lets take this show to the poker table. Lets say you have the nut heart flush draw on the flop with $100 in the pot and the player first to act goes all in for the $700 more you have in your stack. You have approximately 36% chance to hit your flush on the turn or river. (This number is found by multiplying your outs {9 hearts left after the 2 in your hand and the 2 on the flop} and multiplying by 4.). If everyone folds to you, you should fold. You would have to lay $700 to win $1500. so therefore you need 47% ($700/$1500) Equity to have positive EV. You only have 36% equity as we mentioned. So we should fold as calling would have a negative EV.
Lets change things up a bit and say someone between Mr. All In and you decides to call the $700. Now you need to put $700 in to win $2200 ($700+$700+your $700+ $100 already in). Your equity in the hand remains 36% as you have the same outs to win the hand. However, now you only need 31%($700/$2200) equity to make a profitable call. So even though you will likely lose all your money, you should still call because, over the long run, you will make money by calling. Calling is a positive EV play.
Hopefully this information doesn't leave you with your eyes glazed over. Take a look at this week's Coach's Corner for a superior explanation of pot odds and equity calculations.
As always, if you have any questions, please feel free to email me and we can discuss. I don't know everything. But I would bet we can find someone that knows what you want to know.
This week's Tip of the Cap goes to.... Ryan Conner! Ryan cashed 5 consecutive WSOP events (going back to last year). It is a remarkable feat (more below). Congratulations Ryan!
All this talk about football wagers has me thinking about probabilities. And Ryan's 5 consecutive cashes has me wondering just how improbable that really is....
First, lets get back to the Michigan vs. Indiana game. What are the chances that IU wins 2 games in a row assuming their chances of winning remain 10% year after year. Well we would need to multiply 1/10 X 1/10. this comes to 1/100 which is 1%. So our hypothetical Hoosiers only have a 1 in a hundred chance to keep the old oaken bucket in Bloomington, IN for more than a year!
Now lets see how good our friend Ryan really is!
The WSOP historically has paid the top 15% of the field. This year, it is actually a bit less but lets ignore that for now. Ryan is surely a better than average player for the types of tournaments he was cashing during this streak which surely makes up for the idea that his final 2 cashes of this streak were paying only approximately 12% of the fields. Let's call this talent / field talent / percentage change a wash and do all of our calculations on 15% of the players of all five tournaments cashing.
So 15% is equal to 15/100 which is .15. If we take .15 X .15 X .15 X .15 X .15, we get .00076. That is 0.076%. That is less than 8 times out of 10,000 would an "average" person cash 5 events like this in a row. Impressive.
A very quick note of thanks to the new players to our game and those who recruited these players! If I don't have your email address, let me know and I will add you to our newsletter! Welcome to the game:
- David P.
- Michael T.
- Michael N.
- Garrett T.
- Aaron S.
- Rex B.
- Chris L.
Zoom with Joe! Joe hosts a free zoom meetup during our Tuesday Freezeout games. Give it a try if that sounds like fun.
The ZOOM password is 432777
2025 Points Leaders
- Michael Culpepper 6
- Carlos Price 5
- Ryan Conner 4
- Marty Kunz 4
- David Paukovitz 4
- Noel Spencer 3
- Michael Niebuhr 3
- Garrett Thurston 3
- Michael Thurston 3
Recent Results
- May 27th, 2024
- 1st - Marty K.
- 2nd - Aaron Shultz
- 3rd - Chris M
- 4th - Carlos P.
- May 21st, 2024
- 1st - David P.
- 2nd - Michael T.
- 3rd - Michael C.
- 4th - Stan B.
Coach's Corner
Today's corner is a little deeper dive into what EV really is. The more you start thinking about this concept, the sooner you will be making good decisions for the right reasons.
Level: Intermediate
2025 Points Leaders
- Michael Culpepper 6
- Carlos Price 5
- Ryan Conner 4
- Marty Kunz 4
- David Paukovitz 4
- Noel Spencer 3
- Michael Niebuhr 3
- Garrett Thurston 3
- Michael Thurston 3
Recent Tuesday Freezeout Results
- May 27th, 2024
- 1st - Marty K.
- 2nd - Aaron Shultz
- 3rd - Chris M
- 4th - Carlos P.
- May 21st, 2024
- 1st - David P.
- 2nd - Michael T.
- 3rd - Michael C.
- 4th - Stan B.
Coach's Corner
Today's corner is a little deeper dive into what EV really is. The more you start thinking about this concept, the sooner you will be making good decisions for the right reasons.
Level: Intermediate
Venmo Addresses
Michael Culpepper - @Michael-Culpepper-14
Joe Schwenk - @Joseph-Schwenk
Jonathan Ayala - @Jonathan-Ayala-55
Have any questions or feedback for this newsletter? If so, please email me
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