how do you work out your EV?

... and what is it?

From my understanding, your all-in EV is calculated by Poker tracker as part of it's graphing function...
As an example if you get it all in preflop AA over KK you are approx... 85-15 to win...
Therefore if the pot is $100 - variance says $85 should be yours and $15 belongs to your opponent... of course the actual outcome will either be $100 for you or $100 for your opponent if he/she sucks out...
Your all in adjusted EV tells you what your winnings should be according to the percentages of your hand winning at the time you and your opponent went all in. You can compare your actually winnings to the all in EV figure to see if you have been experiencing good variance(luck) or bad variance(luck).
I believe hold em manager has this stat as a column rather than as part of the graph function on poker tracker.
Hope this helps... and please let me know if i'm off the mark

EV is not only about all-in. I'm not up to the point of figuring out real time if my call or bet or shove or check is +EV or -EV and I only did it a couple of times when reviewing my hands.

But the formula to calculate EV is (as far as I know please correct if wrong):

(% of win x pot) - (% of loss x call or bet value)

So let's say in a given hand you have 20% chance of winning a hand and 80% of loosing a hand. The pot is $100 and the villain bets $50.

(0.2 x $150) - (0.8 x $50) = $30 - $40 = -$10 is the EV so folding is the correct play because it is neutral EV.

Its got both. You just have to enable the checkbox but it'll show you your All-in EV on the graph as well.

I see thanks! how do you know your' chance of winning / losing? do you have to assign a range and then work out the EV of the hands you put them on? I would never be able to do all that in real time lol. My timer runs out working out pots odds !

Yeah you learn this stuff away from the table so you have an idea when it happens in real play

I don't think it's possible to calculate EV exactly while playing online. I mean, you could have PokerStove open and all, but I'm pretty sure it would be more of a distraction than anything else.

Here's a example that I reviewed just some hours ago, check the hand and then get here and fire up PokerStove.

So I had Qc8s and flop came 2d 8d Qs. I didn't know what he had and I had a top 2 pair. I bet he called. I put him on any suited connector, any queen, any broadway with a 8 and any pair.

If you evaluate my hand in this flop against that range that gives roughly 85% win for my hand.

The turn completed the flush, so yeah in a way that worried me but didn't change the range since I bet and he called, although now there was also a straight draw. Then the river confirming the straight, but again, his range didn't change much. Him calling my bets never really changed the range I put him on.

But putting the whole board on PokerStove gives 82% to my hand. He had $0.43 left and the pot was $1.86 so EV was:

0.82 x $2.29 - 0.18 x $0.43 = $1.88 - $0.07 = $1.81

Almost a full buy-in worth of EV it's a real easy call.

Let me be honest, I really thought his range through, but I did not calculate EV during the hand, just that I was ahead against the range.

Funny though, I didn't put the actual hand he played in the range (T9o) although I had T9s, but it was close enough. I don't even understand what the hell he was chasing to be honest.

Depends how they play too, sometimes saying you're ahead of their range isnt good enough. e.g. you have a starting range for him, bet flop he calls, we narrow it down like what you did which was good..we bet again fair enough might not of changed or we could probably knock some low crappy pairs out... river, say you bet and he reraises you, this is where you knock his range down.... you think what type of player is he... is he loose passive then we knock his range down to hands that have our 2 pair crushed etc, so we can never add hands into a range we only cut them down based on how we think he would play the hand.

Basically always think how his range reacts to how you bet and what parts he folds and what parts he calls and what parts he raises

That's the tough part for me.

If I'm HU against a player that is position aware and tight, it's easier to picture where it is going. But against a maniac I just call TPTK to the river and fold less than that.

Notes help a lot, but I never had the pleasure of meeting a maniac I saw busting later on. I guess there are too many players that get in the 2NL tables, bust and never return.