Pot equity?

[jacks321]

I'm fairly new to poker (been playing about 6 months) and have been doing a ton of reading and learning about the game. The book that has helped my game the most so far has been Internet Texas Holdem. I've been trying to delve further so I picked up Small Stakes Hold 'em after reading about it here and I'm following it as best I can. The one concept I seem to really be getting stuck on is pot equity. It's referenced a lot through the book and I've read and re-read the section explaining it but I'm not sure how it works. If someone could explain it in simpler terms or point me in the direction of a better beginning place I would appreciate it.

[easypete]

An easy explanation:

Strength of Hands vs # of players (http://www.gocee.com/poker/HE_Val_Sort.htm)

Look at that chart.

I'll take, for instance, JJ.

Let's say you're in LP with 4 limpers. Raise. If we assume the blinds fold, you are up against 4 limpers.

vs 4 players, JJ is good about 40.3% of the time. None of the limpers will fold pf from your LP raise (99% of the time). You don't want them to fold... You have JJ. If you just limp behind, you may be against 6 opponents (you'll win about 28.5% of the time).

So... pot equity... 2 examples...

vs 4 opponents for 2 bets each +1.5 bets from blinds and your 2 bets... you have a pot equity of about 5 best for your 2 bet investment.

vs 6 opponents, for 1 bet each, you have a pot equity of 1.71 bets for your 1 bet investment.

Either way, it's +EV... but if you want to increase what the pot is paying you (on average for "the long run"), the best decisions may be to raise or just to limp.

I'm sure there are better explanations, and this is a fairly quick description, but it should point you in the right direction (pf anyway). Post flop it gets a little more difficult to figure out.

[jacks321]

That is very helpful. Thank you!