SSHE Book Club Discussion - Part One: Gambling Concepts

[MEbenhoe]

This section should be mostly review for anyone who has read TOP, and I'm not sure that I'd advocate reading this book without reading TOP first. Because of this fact I'm expecting that there won't be too many questions or a ton of discussion on this first section. If there are any please still post them.

So to build conversation if you're participating in this book discussion maybe a nice little intro and background on your poker playing would be a nice way to kick things off.

As for myself:

My name is Matt, and I'm a 2nd year student at UW La Crosse. I'd played a lot of poker in HS (mostly stud and draw), but was first introduced to HE in college. I've been a winning player at the $0.50/$1 and $1/$2 6 max games as well as all limits from $0.25/$0.50 to $5/$10 of full ring games online. My B&M experience is somewhat limited. The only games I've played are the $3/$6 and $4/$8 games at Canterbury, which I've been pretty successful at also.

Well I'm hoping this book club will get good participation. Just as a refresher here's the schedule again that I posted about a week ago:

Part One: Gambling Concepts.....Nov 29-Nov 30

Part Two: Preflop Play.....Dec 1-4

Part Three: Postflop Concepts (Intro - Evaluating the Floprawing Hands).....Dec 5-8

Part Three: Postflop Concepts (Large Pots vs Small Pots - Afterthought).....Dec 9-12

Part Four: River Play.....Dec 13-16

Part Five: Miscellaneous Topics.....Dec 17-18

Part Six: Hand Quizzes.....Dec 19-....

[Twitch1977]

I'll kick in a little background about myself. I started playing poker in July when a friend gave me $10 on Paradise. I started at .02/.04 games and have moved up the limits (.02/.04 -> .05/.10 -> .10/.20 -> .25/.50 -> .50/1) following the 300x BB rule for bankroll management and I'm now playing .50/1 and having a bit of a crappy run.

Hard to find a decent game on Paradise for .50/1 it seems, all the tables with a high % of players seeing the flop has a huge waiting list. Plus it seems like every time I get a seat at a good table Paradise decides it's time to reboot the server [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

Anyhow looking forward to the discussion hope it goes better then ITH book club did.

T

[As Zehn]

I have a question ragarding pot equity. The concept makes sense, but how is the percentage calcualted? Also, am I correct in understanding that negative pot equity is "dead money"? Thanks for clearing this up for me.

[maryfield48]

41 years old, been playing a bit of poker on & off since high school, started a weekly home game about a year and a half ago, and started reading and taking it more seriously since then. Have worked up to from .25/50 (couldn't handle the nano-limits for very long, not the quality of play or anything, just not enough at stake to be enjoyable) to $1/$2. With 3 kids and a job I don't get to play as much as I'd like.


[ QUOTE ]
I have a question ragarding pot equity. The concept makes sense, but how is the percentage calcualted? Also, am I correct in understanding that negative pot equity is "dead money"? Thanks for clearing this up for me.

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My understanding is that it is based on your chance of winning the pot, expressed as a %. The simple example used in the book, IIRC, is having four to a flush on the flop (using both your hole cards, or if only using one, it is the Ace). In that situation you will make your flush by the river 35% of the time. Assuming your flush will win, you have 35% of every chip that goes in to the pot. Hence 35% pot equity. Once you have at least two opponents calling, you are making money off every bet.

[As Zehn]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I have a question ragarding pot equity. The concept makes sense, but how is the percentage calcualted? Also, am I correct in understanding that negative pot equity is "dead money"? Thanks for clearing this up for me.

[/ QUOTE ]

My understanding is that it is based on your chance of winning the pot, expressed as a %. The simple example used in the book, IIRC, is having four to a flush on the flop (using both your hole cards, or if only using one, it is the Ace). In that situation you will make your flush by the river 35% of the time. Assuming your flush will win, you have 35% of every chip that goes in to the pot. Hence 35% pot equity. Once you have at least two opponents calling, you are making money off every bet.

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How do you claculate the 35%?

[maryfield48]

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How do you claculate the 35%?

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Odds of one more of your suit coming by the river. The math whizzes will correct me, but, any of 9 cards make your flush (remaining cards of your suit).

There are 47 unknown cards (52 minus your hole cards & flop). 38 out of 47 cards don't help on the turn, and 37 out of 46 don't help on the river.

The odds of hitting one of your suit by the river are 1-(38/47*37/46)
=1-0.65
=.35
=35%

The math nerds can also explain why it doesn't work by using the cards that help instead of the cards that don't (i.e. 9/47*9/46), but just know that it doesn't, so don't do it that way. [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

Cheers,
Peter

[Svenungson]

[ QUOTE ]
How do you claculate the 35%?

[/ QUOTE ]

How to determine the chances of making a hand is explained in chapter 3. For now just accept that it is appr. 35% chance that you will make a flush by the river if you have four to a flush on the flop. If you are curious you might want to look it up.

Who am i? Im a 25 year old student who have played poker for 4 years, first 3.5 years very infrequently and very badly. Have just recently (and partly due to the book we are discussing) realized that poker is best played aggressivly. All in all my poker account shows red figures but i am working my way up. For those of you who think my spelling or grammar is weird, i am from Sweden so engligh is not my native language.

[Toonces]

OK...some quick background on me: I've been playing Hold'em for 10 years, but only seriously been studying the game for about 18 months now. Online, I play up to the $3/$6 normally, and in B&M rooms, I'll play $5/$10 in Vegas but up to $20/$40 in the weaker midwestern card rooms. In the past year, I've been profitable both in my online play and especially in B&Ms. Before that, I played too infrequently to know for sure.

However, I wanted to discuss a concept on p. 31. Ed is discussing how to play against an opponent who has 4 outs in an 11-bet pot. The player will probably call anyway, so you want it to be two bets to the player so that he will call unprofitably. Ed says:
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Much of your profit in small stakes games comes from players who call when they should fold with weak hands. Small stakes hold'em is often a game of attacking players with weak draws.

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Clearly, if you know that if he's going to call two bets, the raise is right, based on the theory that you benefit when your opponent makes a mistake. But what if you knew that he would correctly call one bet and correctly fold two bets. Well, you can create situations either way, based on how many of the other 47 outs favor you vs. the bettor (i.e. whether or not you want overcalls here). But I think that as a general rule, you would still want to raise.

The reason that I say that is that by calling, you leave your opponent with a choice between a +EV call and a 0 EV fold. If you raise, he chooses between a -EV call and a 0 EV fold. Even if he makes the proper call each time, he is in a worse situation EV wise than he was before. Now whether the difference in EV goes to you or the bettor depends on the particular situation, but as a group, your EV improves even when your opponent does not make a mistake, I believe.

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.

Thoughts?

[Toonces]

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Also, am I correct in understanding that negative pot equity is "dead money"? Thanks for clearing this up for me.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm not sure what you mean by negative pot equity. Pot equity is always positive, unless you are drawing dead, in which case it is zero. Dead money, in this context, is referring to the money already in the pot, possibly by opponents who have now folded, that you are entitled to a share of.

Negatives do come into the scene when you are thinking of whether or not to fold. If you fold, you "lose" whetever pot equity you have. You have to compare that to the increase of pot equity you get by calling, subtracted by the cost of the bet.

For example, the pot is 6 bets, and the chance of you winning heads-up is 10%. If you fold, you lose 0.6 of pot equity. If you call a bet, you gain 0.1 of pot equity (1 bet * 10%) but lose a full bet, for an overall cost of 0.9.

[LALDAAS]

Toonces that was an excellent post. I personally have yet to read POT yet, However I have read SSH about six times. Gambling concepts was a strugle section for me. Toonces post cleared up page 31. [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

I am 26 and went to a bachleor party for my girls cousin they kicked off the night with a Hold'em turney.....BOOM! I'm hooked. After losing my arse, I made a promise to my self that I would study the game inside and out. After 4 months of hardcore studing and constant playing, I just bought PokerTracker wow great program and Online I am showing a modest profit and my friends fear me.

Thank you very much Ed Miller and all of you here at 2+2!

Also to MEbenhoe great Idea for a thread I enjoy this one.