SSHE Book Club Discussion - Part One: Gambling Concepts

[MEbenhoe]

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As for my introduction, I am a 23 year old college student from Milwaukee.

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Ahh my wonderful hometown. I'm currently in La Crosse for college though. I have to say I've been surprised by the amount of 2+2ers in the WI and MN area. I think sometime in the future a massive meet up should be in order, or possibly a 2+2 WI vs MN battle. Either way glad to have another WI guy on the boards.

[paperboy]

I just started playing a couple of months ago to see what my kids would be getting into. SSHE has improved my game considerably. Having this discussion with the author involved is just wonderful.

[johnnybeef]

Hi all,

My name is John (in case you haven't figured that out yet). I live in Columbus Ohio, and i am 24 yrs old. I've been playing poker for about 4 years or so, however for the first 3 i had gills. Like MEBenhoe said, most of this chapter is review for those who have read TOP like myself. However the one theory that was not included in TOP was that of pot equity. That being said, pot equity is something that i understand how to compute, however i am still very much in the grey as how to apply it.

[johnnybeef]

Alright,

i went back and reread the section on pot equity. I am going to present how i understood it, would someone please comment on if it is correct or not:

Pot Equity is a concept that is used to determine whether or not a raise is mathematically correct in a multiway pot.

An Example: Assume you see a flop with 3 other opponents that contains 10 bets. Also assume that you will win this pot 35% of the time whereas your other opponents will win 25%, 25%, and 15% respectively. Because you have the highest pot equity the correct play in this case is to raise.

Is this correct? Also from my estimation this is not so much a concept that is literally calculated at the table, moreover it is a theory that determines the correctness in such plays as raising your strong draws for value.

Furthermore, for those that are struggling with the principle of reverse implied odds, reverse implied odds define the reason why it is sometimes correct to fold the current best hand in a small pot, i.e. you see the flop with a three bet pot with 33 and the board is Jc Tc 7h.

Good luck everybody
John

[DonkeyKong]

Johnny,

no that isn't quite right.

you need to convert the percentages to dollars to determine the dollar value of your hand and then compare that to the cost of the next bet.

you may be an underdog at 10% but if the next bet is $3 and the pot is $40, your hand is worth $4 ($40 x 10%) so you should call.

also, it doesn't matter if its multiway or heads-up.

the best way to think about it in my opinion is to think about how much on average your hand is worth if you played it vs a weighted average of your opponents range of hands.

For example, if the board is T[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img]7[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img]2[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img] and your opponent has bet into you, there is a range of hands you might put this player on. It doesn't really matter what he actually holds, it matters what he could hold here.

Your 'pot equity' is higher if you have AT then if you have QT because your opponent could very well have KT or QT. AT still loses to something like a set of sevens but if you were in this hand repeatedly, AT would win money against the range of hands your opponent could have.

Now the pot gets especially important on marginal situations. Say you have QT. QT is a good hand if the pot is big but its borderline if the pot is small.

The important takeaway from SSH is that when you fold, you are forefeiting your equity so... don't do it if your hand has winning chances and the pot is big. if the pot is small, folding a marginally profitable situation is a small mistake --- but folding a hand with winning chances in a big pot for one extra bet can be a big mistake.

[Derek in NYC]

The point about estimating your pot equity for most hands seems to come about because you necessarily must make simplifying assumptions about what the ultimate winning hand on the river will be.

Ed shows you a complex version of this calculation on page 187, note 76. As you can see from Ed's example, a true pot equity calculation appears to go beyond broad simplifying assumptions like "a flush will hit 2:1 by the river, so my pot equity on the flop is 35%".

Implicit in Ed's example, is that your pot equity calculation must consider not only your hand, but also the hands your opponents hold, and what they are likely to be drawing to.

While Ed's example makes sense when I read it, how many of us can actually make those calculations on the fly? Is there an easy way of estimating pot equity possibly from pattern recognition of flops?

Discuss.

[twankerr]

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Conclusion: While raising does increase the chance that your opponent makes a mistake, the goal is not necessarily to get your opponent to make a mistake, but to lower the EV of even his best available choice.

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This concept is laid out subtledly in the book, possibly a little to subtledly. I believe there is a quiz hand in the book (I'll have to search it out) where we are presented with two -EV situations and forced to pick the one that minimizes our damage.

I think the situation where the opponent has +EV no matter what his choice is comes up often in poker, especially given the amount of multi-way pots in small stakes. I just really thought I liked the way you worded that passage, and decided to re-emphasize it.

[pistol78]

Hey All, I also am a 22yr old college student in the Chicago area, have been playing poker semi-seriously for about a year now. I haven’t really looked into my game as deeply as I would like to but I feel that the time has come and I really need to improve my game incredibly.

I remember when I first started playing I had no regard for outs, or odds I just played just like every other newbie, (check-call with a draw - bet, raise with a made hand). I started learning outs and odds and they really helped my game. I managed to get away from unprofitable "chasing" situations thanks to HEFAP and WLLHE.

The problem I am facing now is that, to be a "better than average" poker player you need to do more math than just calculating pot odds and correlating them with your winning chances. After reading SSHE, my mind was really in a loop.

I mean, here I thought that just knowing outs vs. odds was enough to be successful, but after reading SSHE I realized that I need to start considering things like,

1. Pot Equity
2. Plays that yield a +EV over time.

in order to enhance my playing. Calculating Pot equity seems pretty straightforward for a good flush or straight draw. Now my real question is figuring out your EV. Of course, I understand the concept of making +EV plays, however, I am having a real hard time in understanding how you calculate EV for a certain play? Furthermore, how long did it take you guys to really get sharp with the math involved?

[twankerr]

Pot equity is what I would consider a theoretical nuance to the game of poker. The best players in the world are perhaps the best because of their ability to understand equity. Gus Hansen has become a pseudo-revolutionary in some circles because of the way he approaches poker as a game of equity. When you consider pot equity, you must consider many factors. I offer that making an error at the beginning is more costly than making an error at the end.

In the footnotes, Ed Miller points out the possible holdings of your opponents. I offer that it is more important (at a small stakes level) to keep the players that are drawing dead in the pot, than it is to lower the drawing opponents EV. 5 people (including you) have entered the pot for two bets each. You hold A[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] A[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] and the flop comes 9[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] 7[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] 3[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img] (I'm not following the betting pattern from the book, however). It is obvious you have the best hand here the majority of the time. You are in MP with two players ahead of you and two players behind you. The first player open bets and the second player raises. In order to determine your pot equity, you now must digest the information:

1. Is your hand good?
2. What kind of hand does the first opponent need to open?
3. What kind of hand does the second opponent need to raise?
4. What will the other two limp-callers call with?

The step that I consider the most important is step four(does this change if the plays are on the turn?). It would be a huge mistake to raise if your opponent were to call two bets with K[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] J[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img], but he would not call three bets. A hand like his would certaintly not lower your equity in any way, so in this situation the two limpers behind you have such low equity in the pot, that it cannot be harmful to let them remain in, correct?

Discuss.

[Francis]

Wow,

all these young turks in their 20's playing the game. I'm envious of you guys who started poker so early.

I just started playing poker in Sept at the age of 43, and have a few thousand hands at Pokerstars and Party. Prior to this, I had never played poker, but did play a lot of BJ.

Anyway, I've read WLLH, and SSH, and am looking to really digging into the material in SSH. So far the discussion looks good.

There's a big difference between reading a book, and being able to apply the info into correct action at the tables. I'm hoping this review will move me from being a break even newbie to starting to show a positive result.. WLLH was a great start, and on a good day, I show a modest profit, but my post flop play is still very weak...

I'm sure putting in the effort here to study with the group will help with that.

Regards,
Francis