In a situation like this, where does the money come from?

[AlmightyJay]

I was trying to explain this to a friend today, but I couldn't figure it out on my own.

Let's say it's heads up on the turn. Player 1 has top pair, Player 2 has a flush draw. Player 1 about a 4-1 favorite to win the hand. The pot has 5 BB in it. Player 1 bet. Player 2 is getting 6-1 to call, which is more than enough pot odds to make it profitable, so he calls.

Who is winning and losing money in this situation?

Neither player is making a mistake. Player 1 bets for value with the best hand, and to prevent laying infinite odds. He has 80% equity and is putting in 50% of the bets, for a 30% equity edge. This makes money in the long run. Player 2 calls. He's getting 6-1 to call with a 4-1 to shot, which also makes money in the long run.

If both players are gaining, where is the money coming from? I'm sure this is a ridiculously stupid question, so please be gentle with me /images/graemlins/smile.gif

[tylerdurden]

When you determine if these players are making mistakes, you're not considering how they got to the point they are at. Somebody (possibly players no longer in the pot) made mistakes (probably a lot of them) putting money in on the earlier rounds. The mistakes a player made in earlier rounds may outweigh the correct decision they're making now (that shouldn't change their decision process though).

[PotatoStew]

The money is coming from the pot in the form of previously placed and called bets.

[Redd]

Both players have the odds to play for the money that was put in the pot earlier by the blinds and from previous mistakes people made preflop and flop.

Don't forget that the player who's chasing is actually paying a small amount of money to the player with TP for every additonal bet that's put into the pot. That's why he's raising correctly.

[cheapsuit]

both players in this situation are correct to make the plays they did for various reasons. as said before in some of the other posts, the money from the pot is from previous bets put into the pot but other players (some of them mistakingly being in the pot, others probably correctly being in the pot and then folding for correct reasons).

but because neither one of the players in the pot are making a mistake by playing their hands the way they did, it is better just to think about the money in terms of pot equity and pot odds.

just because players' long-term profits come from mistakes made by other players, it doesnt mean that every single time money is put into the pot and then lost it is a mistake. i think that you might be mistakingly combining two similar but fundamentally different poker theories. one states that all long term profit is made by capitalizing on opponents mistakes and the other states that, communitively, the addition of money won (a positive number) + money lost (a negative number) = 0 (actually, its usually less than zero because of the rake).

basically, if 10 perfect players were to play at a table against each other for a million years, they would all be relatively even with each other at the end--this is because they make no mistakes. but yet during the course of each individual hand, money is being exchanged.

(wow, this is a ridiculously long-winded answer and i dotn even know if it helps answer your question. sorry.)

[McNeese72]

[ QUOTE ]

If both players are gaining, where is the money coming from? I'm sure this is a ridiculously stupid question, so please be gentle with me /images/graemlins/smile.gif

[/ QUOTE ]

Both maybe making EV+ plays in that particular hand but that doesn't mean that both will make money on that hand. But in the long run, if they make the same plays in all similar situations, they will win more than they lose and make money.

[AlmightyJay]

Thanks everyone. I thought it had something to do with dead money in the pot from earlier plays in the hand, but I couldn't seem to explain it correctly, and my friend wouldn't buy it. I guess I was right after all /images/graemlins/smile.gif