Should good players run below EV?

I'm not sure if this is nonsensical or pointless but its something that has gotten me thinking. Isn't it logical that good players should run below EV. I say this because they are less likely to get into situations where they pull off bad beats. Where a bad player might whimsically push it all in with 99 only to crack a hero's AA, a good player would make the lay down. Discuss, Set me straight, Do something.

Over a long enough period of play, everyone should run AT expectation.

KK versus AA matchups illustrate my point I'm about to make. Unless you only play AA, you are eventually going to put your chips in in a negative ev situation. No one plays perfect. A good player will have a good reason to put his/her chips in bad, bad players may not.

Er, everyone will necessarily run both above and below their EV at different points. That's the nature of EV...

Yes, poker is rigged so that good players run below all-in EV.

I believe ANY poker play will eventually run below EV, after all like someone said that's what EV is all about, you cannot expect always to be right on the spot.

I suppose that makes sense, we all run AT it in the long run. I would like to thank c9 for actually reading my post, you did A LOT to clarify my confusion.

c9h13no3 said:

Yes, poker is rigged so that good players run below all-in EV.

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just noticed the dying fetus..

wait, does that mean everyone is solid?

People really need to grasp what the long run is though. It's not 10k hands, 50k or even 250k hands. Most of us may never see the long run in terms of EV, so it's possible some good players will never run at ev or even above it.

WVHillbilly said:

Over a long enough period of play, everyone should run AT expectation.

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yeah, this.

a good player's profit comes from getting money in when they can expect to see a profit on it. in the long run they will run at their expectiation, and they will be expected to win, and hence they will make monies.

if someone has a 60% chance to win a hand, over many iterations of the hand the number of times they will win the hand will converge on 60%. yeah of course bad players will pull out more bad beats, but they too will converge on their expectancy over time (their expectancy being losing monies to some extent). that doesn't stop those 5% shots coming off once in a while, but as they're losing money in such cases 95% of the time their EV will be negative, and over time they will approach it.

Also keep in mind that EV isn't static, but rather situational. When you play softer opposition, your situational EV is above your overall, and conversely, it's lower against tougher fields and tables. That's a key reason why it's profitable to table- and game-select. By playing more often where your EV is above your average, you raise said average.

TheWall said:

I'm not sure if this is nonsensical or pointless but its something that has gotten me thinking. Isn't it logical that good players should run below EV. I say this because they are less likely to get into situations where they pull off bad beats. Where a bad player might whimsically push it all in with 99 only to crack a hero's AA, a good player would make the lay down. Discuss, Set me straight, Do something.

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I, too, used to think along these lines. But over a long enough period of time everyone should run at expectation. I think you're making the same error in thinking as I did. I'll try and explain:

Imagine (the unlikely scenario) that a particular player only ever gets himself all-in with AA. He was so tight he wouldn't even consider it with any other cards. My thought process, and presumably yours, was that he could only either win, which was 'expected', or get sucked-out on, which was -ev. There was no hand that he would ever be behind against for him to suck out and create any +ev.

But this isn't actually the case. Imagine AA versus 55. For ease of argument, let's say that AA is 80% favourite to win. If we play this hand 1 time, head-up and AA wins we are actually running ABOVE expectation for that hand. We have 100% value when, over a long enough sample of games, we should only actually be at 80%. In a slightly strange, counter-intuitive sense, you could say we are getting lucky every time our aces hold up as we are running at 20% over expected.

Now imagine AA versus 55 a 'typical' 10 times. The first 8 times we run it we win every time. That's 8 times we've run at 20% +ev That's 8X20 = 160% +ev. When lose the final 2 in a row we're running 80% below ev. 80X2 = 160% -ev. Thus cancelling each other out and we're running as expected. It's also worth noting that, obviously, we're not going to reach expected value after 10 hands, or after 10000 hands or even after 1000000 hands. But...the longer we play, the more likely we are to converge at this true point.

So the general conclusion is that it doesn't matter how strong a pre-all-in holding is - you should always expect to run at expected value after la ong enough sample.

I'm not sure that's a great explanation - my use of poker terminology isn't always spot-on so if anyone cares to correct me then fire away. I think the general theory is right though...

The Spillage said:

But this isn't actually the case. Imagine AA versus 55. For ease of argument, let's say that AA is 80% favourite to win. If we play this hand 1 time, head-up and AA wins we are actually running ABOVE expectation for that hand. We have 100% value when, over a long enough sample of games, we should only actually be at 80%. In a slightly strange, counter-intuitive sense, you could say we are getting lucky every time our aces hold up as we are running at 20% over expected.

Now imagine AA versus 55 a 'typical' 10 times. The first 8 times we run it we win every time. That's 8 times we've run at 20% +ev That's 8X20 = 160% +ev. When lose the final 2 in a row we're running 80% below ev. 80X2 = 160% -ev. Thus cancelling each other out and we're running as expected. It's also worth noting that, obviously, we're not going to reach expected value after 10 hands, or after 10000 hands or even after 1000000 hands. But...the longer we play, the more likely we are to converge at this true point.

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This answers the question very well. People don't realize that when your hand holds up, you are almost 100% of the time running above EV. That coupled with the fact that most people don't realize how long the long run is leads to wondering if luck plays a much larger roll long term.