Today we talk about understanding equity in poker. Poker strategy is based on understanding things like equity so while it’s not normally a part of poker coaching it is valuable information to have.

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Equity
100 pot 65% chance to win
That’s 65% chance that you win the entire pot in this one hand. It’s also a 35% chance you lose the entire pot in this hand

EV
How much money you expect to profit on average over time. You will win it all 65% Minus the 35% you lose when you lose it all.

Let’s say you play a 100 pot 10 times this month where you are 60% favorite to win when the money goes in.
You will win 100 , 6 times out of those 10. That’s 60%
You will lose 100, 4 times out of those 10. That’s 40%
So what is your bet wins or lose. What is your expected value in actual dollars over time.
It’s the amount you win when you win, minus the amount you lose when you lose
100 X 6 = 600 when you win
100 X 4 = 400 when you lose 600 minus 400 = 200
That’s your total profit for all 10 hands. But how much is it for each individual hand.
It’s 200/10 or 20

So your expect value , or EV , every time you get in this spot is 20. No matter if you win the pot or lose the pot. Because poker is never about one hand. It’s about EV over time.
How can you calculate this on the fly?
It’s always your win% minus your loss percent. And then you have to take that percent of the total pot.
So in a 100 pot in which you are 60% to win and 40% to lose its 60 minus 40 = 20
So 20% of the 100 pot is yours in EV. That’s $20
On larger uneven pots it’s harder to determine in your head.
687 pot. You’d need to know 20% of 687I like to break it into 100 increments in my head. There are 6 of those with 87 left over. For every 100 it’s 20. So that’s 6 X 20 or 120. Plus 20% of the remaining 87. You can get as exact or general as you want with this. Honestly in my head is probably say oh that’s about 15. Ads that to the 120 and you get 135 EV.
By the way the exact number is 17.40 so close enough I guess.
In the part two of this which is for patron fans only over on Patreon we will get into how EV affects strategy.