Are you automatic all-in when your hand is better than a 50% favorite?

Currently, I only play tournaments. But in considering ring play, the following occurred to me (this excludes any ICM considerations that may exist at a given stage of a tournament):

When your hand is better than a 50% favorite, you ALWAYS have pot odds, no matter how little or how much money you put into the pot.

So, wouldn't it follow that when you are a better than 50% favorite, you should be all-in whenever possible?

If you are in position to get all-in first, you also have some fold equity going for you.

So for instance, let's say after the flop I have open ended straight and flush draws and my opponent has top pair giving me a 54% chance of hitting and winning. Especially if I'm betting first, shouldn't I always shove?

I'm curious to hear from the ring players. Because ICM is not a factor, is this generally what people are thinking? It's +EV, right?

I am a nit, but I am not all in in ring games unless I already have the made hand.

well, even if your 60% to win, still means you'll lose 4 out of 10
i dont like risking everything on a draw (like a str8 & flush draw is still a draw where to me a pr is still better- id all in to push out the chasers-not that id all in with just a pr)
also if you have a winner, wouldnt just a nice bet be more profitable (than every1 folding to an allin?)
dunno, i'm still waiting for my balls to drop tho

Wow! I have to admit that I'm a little surprised by the responses so far. It makes me glad that I asked the question. That's what I love about CC... it's a rare opportunity to see into other players' minds.

That is being a nit! But that's OK, I have to fight nit-like tendencies all the time!

So let me get this straight... you'd rather be a 46% favorite with the made hand instead of a 54% favorite with the drawing hand? Granted, you're probably never going to put someone on a straight and flush draw, but if you knew... I've got to go with the better probability.

Good question. I don't know. Personally, I guess that's where I like my fold equity because I don't really have a winner, I just have a 54% favorite. And here's the problem I see with just betting: there's a 68% chance that I don't hit on the turn. Then that leaves me in a bit of a tougher spot as then I'm only a 33% favorite. I guess as long as the pot odds are at least 2:1 on the next bet, then I'm still OK. But if not, I should be bailing at that point. It just seems as though I'm taking a 68% chance that I'm going to lose control of the hand. But, in all fairness, I'm still a bit rusty with my pot odds work and I do REALLY LIKE fold equity.

Thinking about it some more, it looks like the draw has the power over the pair before the turn and the pair has the power over the draw after the turn (assuming the draw didn't hit). So whichever hand you have, play from a position of power when you have it.

LOL! You're killing me!

-Dave

You need to better than x% against your opponent's range, not the specific hand he has, though that x isn't 50. It is determined by the pot odds that are present at the time.

For example, if you and your opponent both have $40 in your stack, there is $20 in the middle, and your opponent bets $10, you can shove your $40 all-in with only 40% equity and breakeven longterm. You're putting $40 in the middle with the expectation to win $100 (well...$97 after the rake is taken) when your hand is the best at showdown. Factor in fold equity and that 40% breakeven figure goes down even further. Remember, this is against your opponent's perceived range, not his specific hand.

So, if you flop an open-ended straight flush draw and have an opportunity to get all your money in on the flop, you should pretty much do it 100% of the time. Even if you're up against a set, you still have 42% equity. If you have overcards as well and you're up against top pair (say JsQs vs AdTd on a Ts 9s 4h flop), you have 69% equity.

Get your money in the middle now, unless you hate money.

I like being aggressive with draws, like it was previously said there is fold equity on top of your % to win. Lets replay a hand that I played earlier in the week, although I don't feel like searching for hand history so i'll just tell it.

I had 54s on the button in a 6 max $5NL game, a nitty player in the cutoff raised it up 3X the BB I called and it was just us 2 to the flop. The flop went 6 4 3 and he went ahead and bet pot into me, I quickly did the math of my outs in my head, if he had 10 10+ which I assumed he did have. Any 7, 2, 5, or 4 gave me the win adding up to 13 outs making me 51% to win against his overpair.

Now this might sound a little reckless pushing such a slight favorite but what I did was I raised him all-in. I decided in my mind that there was a chance he was betting AK and right there is my fold equity, on top of that putting such pressure on him with such a wet flop and a pretty good table image really could get hands like 10 10 and JJ to fold. If he did have QQ, KK, or AA, which was what I put him on to be honest, then I was still a slight favorite by my odds calculation. (although if I check the real odds calculator he is 53% to win)

Another reason behind my move was that I knew that if a 5, 7, 2, or 4 comes out that kills my action totally, so might as well stay aggressive.

He called with KK and the river card came a 4.

Not my best example of being aggressive with draws, but just one to look at.

This is an interesting conversation.

It seems like it involves the fundamental philosophical question of, even if you're the odds-on favorite to win the hand, do you put all of your chips in to attempt to grow your stack to the maximum extent possible?

Or do you look more big-picture and still hedge without the nuts so you can live to play some more if it doesn't go well?

I personally would not go all in unless I was at least a 4/1 fav. w/ made hand or maybe if I was pot committed w/ a hand like ace high draw. If not pot committed, I do not think 60 percent favorite is high enough odds to go all in at all cost.

So much horrible horrible advice ITT.

You NEVER need more than 50% equity to make a call profitable. If there is $3 ($2/$1) in the pot as blinds and the BTN shoves making it $1MILLION $$ you "only" need 49.99998% equity against his range to call in the BB because of the $1 posted by the small blind! Needing 4/1 or wanting a made hand is just ****ing stupid. If you're ahead of you opponents range OR you're behind his range but you're getting the correct odds to call anyway doing anything else is burning $$.

I agree with this - your equity is all that matters.

How does it work though if your shove a million into a 3-dollar pot? Surely that's not the same as calling a million.

I don't understand all this talk you guys are at a different level than me.

No it's not but it depends on what you're shoving your million with. If' you shove with 72o and your opponent only calls with KK+ ~1% it's going to be a losing shove (even factoring in your ~12% equity with 72o when called). But if you're only shoving AA and he still calls with KK+ it will be profitable.

So for 72o our equity calc looks like this:

99% of the time we win $3 or ($2.97) and 1% of the time we lose -$880000 on average (-$8800) so shoving $1Mil into $3 with 72o has an expectation of -$8797.03.

Our AA calc would be 99.5% win $3 (2.99), .05% we win $773000 on average ($3865) for a total expectation of $3868.99.

Do you take the rake into account when pushing such thin margins?

if your ever over 50% u should always be making the call/shove/whateva/ cuz ur ahead ldo....christ get it in

I admit it's late and I'm tired, but... if you have $40, I have $40, and $20 is in the pot, if I shove my $40, aren't I expecting to win $60?

Oh... I think I see what's going on. It looks like to compute your equity, you can just do this:

equity = bet / (gain + bet) -OR-
equity = bet / (total pot)

So in this case, equity = 40 / 100 = 40% (like you said).

I've always had trouble with this. I guess there are two ways to look at it:

(1) EV = (.4 * 60) + (.6 * -40) = 0
(2) EV = (1 * -40) + (.4 * 100) + (.6 * 0) = 0

In case (1), you're 40% to win $60 and 60% to lose $40. In case (2), you are 100% to lose $40 (i.e. place your bet), but then after that you are 40% to win $100 and 60% to win $0.

So it looks like you can consider that $40 bet part of the pot or not depending on how you want to look at it. But your way is easier to do the math!

OK, so back to the topic at hand. I guess another way of putting what I was realizing is that you will ALWAYS have at least 50% equity due to the fact that any money you have at risk will always be matched by your opponent. So with 50% equity always, you can bet with a better than 50% favorite always.

Oh well, I'm sure this post will seem like complete nonsense in the morning.

Now there's language I understand!

Yeah basically been said by WV/CJ get it in with the right odds/any +ev situation/ slight edge just get it in. Think of the long term

Lol well yeah if you're pushing .0001% margins you should be but usually it's not enough of a difference to worry about.

Christ, do you guys have me on ignore or something?

Pretty sure I answered this one correctly. :-/

No, you're investing $40 to win a $100 pot (or really $97 after the rake is taken). As such, you need 40% equity or better.

So, if you have better than 50% equity, you should be happy to flip a coin with no money in the pot, or get your damn chips in the middle no matter what. Ever seen that clip where Hellmuth calls so fast he shoves his entire stack in the middle, toppling all his towers and splashing them around like mad? Do that!

This sentence is VERY wrong. You never need more than 50% equity to make a CALL. To make a bet you need a couple different things to be true. Either you need to think you have the best hand AND your opponent can call with worse (value betting) or you need to think your hand is probably not good but that if you bet your opponent can fold better (bluffing).

Here is an example where we have great equity against an opponent's entire range but we still shouldn't be betting.

Let's say you get to the river with a pot sized bet behind with KK on a board of AKQ3J rainbow. Your opponent is very loose and passive. His range for getting to the river is any 2pair,QQ,AT. That's combos 33 we beat and only 12 combos that beat us so we have 73% equity. We should bet right? Well maybe if we we think he'll call with that entire range. But now let's assume he checks the river with his entire range but he'll only call any river bet with QQ/AT. This means we should NOT bet because when he calls we only have 33% equity. So what you really need is >50% equity against the villian's CALLING range to make a bet.

That's excellent advice from WVH regarding value betting on the river. The question was with regards to betting on the flop though...

The sentence I was replying to said ALWAYS and we can't ALWAYS profitably bet even if we have >50% equity. The OP refers to ALWAYS as well and then tries to use a flop example to prove his ideas.

Good point. I was thinking about this a few minutes after posting and though, damn - that was poorly worded (by me).

Even on the flop, if you're shoving on the flop, you need to consider your opponent's calling range as well.

Ugh, it is wrong. I think I used the wrong terminology... but then again, I can't seem to get a reasonable sentence out of that using any terminology. I really thought I was on to something at the time. But between the various types of odds and equities... I think I'll just move on to what you posted since you seem to be constructing more coherent sentences.

Great example! OK, I see now why you talk about an opponent's range instead of a single specific hand. First of all, you can never put someone on a single hand so that's a bit contrived anyhow. But more importantly, someone's range *before* the river can be very different than their range *after* the river. That makes total sense, especially for a passive player. If they are chasing and they didn't hit, for example, a lot of times they are just done after that.

OK, so I definitely see this after the river. I guess it does hold after the flop as well. That's why you can't really do a proper analysis if you put your opponent on a single hand as opposed to a range.

So let's say your opponent is tight passive and he'll see the flop on pairs TT or better, AT/AJ/AQ/AK, and suited connectors TJ or better. You're in with 7h 8h. Let's consider two different flops:

(1) Flop is 2h 6h 9d.
(2) Flop is 9h Th Td.

How does the equity analysis work here? It just got a whole lot more complicated than just putting my opponent on "top pair". So even though I may complete my hand roughly 54% of the time, if I do shove, my opponent will only call that with a range that is different than the range that got him to see the flop in the first place. Am I following this correctly?

So how would you compute the equity against his calling range? I guess I need to come up with a calling range for him. And his calling range probably depends on my behavior after the flop. For instance, do I give up after the flop if I didn't make my hand, do I do continuation bets with nothing, etc. Am I following this line of thought? This seems to turn into more a read of your opponent (as usual) than an equity decision. Any thoughts on that?

Intuitively, if I place a good sized bet after the flop, and he calls, he might be on a better straight draw than me, he might have a full house draw, or he may have a monster. So that's why an all-in shove would not necessarily give me a win 54% of the times that he does call. In fact, I'm probably actually losing more times than I'm winning when he does call, so a shove is probably just a bad bet. Interesting. I really would be interested to see how you work the numbers on that.

Thanks a lot for the input! I do try to put people on ranges, but as the hand plays out, they'll call or raise with yet even different ranges at each stage. I think from here on out I'm going to completely disregard any analysis that puts the villain on a single hand. It just doesn't work that way. Thanks again!

Download pokerstove to figure you equity against a range. In your examples I'm betting both and I'm VERY willing to get it in on either flop.

OK, I just downloaded pokerstove. That has got to be the coolest poker analysis program EVER. Wow! Thanks, I'll be using that one a lot.

OK, here's what it gave me:

With 9h Th Td on the board (the board that may have caused me a little concern), my equity was 53.815% and my opponent's was 46.185%.

With 2h 6h 9d on the board, my equity was 60.707% and my opponent's was 39.293%.

OK, but that's my opponent's range for getting to the flop. After the flop, let's say the board is 9h Th Td and it's my bet. If his range for calling tightens up to TT+,ATs,JTs then my equity drops to 43.553% and his increases to 56.447%. So against that particular opponent, right after the flop, a shove would be a bad idea, right? Because if he calls, he's the favorite.

To get my actual equity, wouldn't I need to factor in my fold equity as well? Let's say his range tightened up so much that he's only going to be in his range and call 5% of the time. Then 95% of the time, the pot is mine. So if my all-in is only a 5X pot bet, and I get the pot 95% of the time with him folding, it seems like all-in is a good move. (In fact, that sounds like my short stack game!) But if my all-in would be 100X the pot, then maybe not. Any ideas on this? And any ideas on working those numbers?

I'm thinking I would have to compute the probability of being dealt each of the hands in his post-flop calling range and compare those to the probabilities of being dealt the hands in his pre-flop range. I'll give this some more thought (ugh, other duties call) but any additional thoughts would be appreciated.

Thanks again for all the help. I love trying to tie the various intuitions and theories to the math. Pokerstove is going to be a big help!

Yeah, you need to think about how often he'll fold as well (your fold equity). Also you shouldn't be thinking about always just shoving all-in.

Just making a normally sized raise work much better in most cases. Your goal is not always to make your opponent fold, it's to make him make a mistake, whether by folding when he should call or raise or by calling when he should fold or raise. So in your 2nd example if we shove and he folds pocket 5s for example, we're allowing him not to make the mistake of calling when he's behind in terms of equity.

That's what I thought. Great, I think I've got all parts of the equation now.

LOL! I know, I know. It just made the point I was trying to ask about originally a lot easier to work through. In an actual game, yes, we all do "the dance" of raising, re-raising, etc. to help us narrow down those ranges that we have to consider. Unless we're short stacked, of course.

Another good example. You're right, that's what we do when we try to "trap" someone, so this just furthers that thought. So much to consider when trying to capture someone's play with math. Ah well, the challenge is fun.

OK, I'm going to give this some time, work through some numbers, and then I'll probably use the results to start another thread asking some more fun questions!

Thanks again, and I'll see you around!

-Dave

In ring games, yes I always want to get as much money in when I have a positive ev. Now, with all things in poker, you have to keep your opponents in mind. If your opponent can fold later on when the draw is completed, it might be a good idea to apply the maximum pressure immediately. If your opponent has difficulty folding hands, it might be a good idea to see if you can make your draw before putting a lot in. You will still likely get paid, but will save some money the times you miss and you cant get your opponent to fold.

No way all in just because 50/50 odds or better. So much depending on opponents, stack, etc. Plus, I can go all-in and chase everybody off and earn nothing.

This is what I based my answer on, so the majority of you guys are shoving here in a cash game?
I am just asking, if this is the case I seriously need to grow a set and call alot more I think.

I would not shove all in on a ring game unless I had the nuts. Too risky, why chance your BR!

That's one reason why you're not very good at poker.

Just cause something has positive expectation doesnt mean that its the right move.
There might be another play that has greater EV.
But choosing lower variance over winning play is very seldom right.