How to interpret the E.V. (expected value)?

I while ago i readed an article that contains a chart of starting hands and they expected value or E.V. What i understand was that some hole cards are better than other, but that is not a mystery. My question is: Does anyone of you know how to interpret the expected value of the cards?

andosalado said:

I while ago i readed an article that contains a chart of starting hands and they expected value or E.V. What i understand was that some hole cards are better than other, but that is not a mystery. My question is: Does anyone of you know how to interpret the expected value of the cards?

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I don't know quite what you're asking--what do you mean by "the expected (EV) value of cards?? Poker Stove can help you with percentages of what will happen, if that's what you're looking for. Go to our 'Strategies Articles' to learn about it. Fred Paulsson will show you how it works.

RickH2005 said:

Fred Paulsson will show you how it works.

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Hey, that's me!

andosalado, it's possible that the chart you saw contained some data of how much money the hands had won for some player over a large sample.

For instance, I might win on average $2 when I'm dealt AKs. So in a sense, AKs has an "expected value" (based on past plays) of $2. This value is a bit dubious because it doesn't take into account the present conditions (position, opponents, image, stack sizes) but it can serve as a general idea of what a hand is "worth."

There's no real other way to determine EV of individual hands before the flop. In the future, with much more powerful computers and very advanced programs, it ought to be possible to set up simulations to calculate it, but today the value can mostly be divided into "positive," "probably positive," "neutral," "probably negative" and "negative" and the divisions will be a little bit off depending on the specific circumstances.

The only way to determine EV is after showdown, going back through the hand. You have to know what both player's hole cards are so that you can determine winning probabilities.

Simple example:
$1/$2 NL
Hero: $225
Villain:$212

You shove all in with AA, villain calls with KK. There is $3 from the blinds making the total pot $427

You will win $215 81.95% of the time, ($215) * (.8195) = $176.1925
and lose $212 18.05% of the time (-$212)* (.1805) = -$38.266

Which totals $137.93, the expected value of this play. EV is simply what you would win "on average" if you made this play over and over. Obviously if you run it once, the result is nowhere near the EV of the play. You either win a $427 pot, making $215, or lose $212 of your own stack. But if you were in this exact situation 100 times, you could expect that the amount you'd made off of this scenario would be fairly close to $13,793.

Mase31683 said:

The only way to determine EV is after showdown, going back through the hand.

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Expected... what you expect the hole cards to earn (before the flop) determined by what those cards have been worth in the past. Not actual value of 1 single hand after the hand is played out. In other words, by saying EV we're looking at future possiblities of the hole cards we hold now by looking at the past average of the same cards.

FP's post is right on the spot as always, can't say it any better than he did.

Thank you for the info, but maybe it's too much for me right now, i'm just starting in poker and i i'm not quiet ready to learn this complicated aspects of the game yet.

I vaguely remember a chart like this on the internet somewhere that I saw when I just started out. The one I saw had collected the results of hands from some poker site, listed every hand and a chart based on the number of players preflop, but I don't recall much else, other than it didn't make much sense to me at the time either.

And now I don't remember it well enough so I don't know if it makes sense to me now either.

F Paulsson said:

Hey, that's me!

andosalado, it's possible that the chart you saw contained some data of how much money the hands had won for some player over a large sample.

This value is a bit dubious because it doesn't take into account the present conditions (position, opponents, image, stack sizes) but it can serve as a general idea of what a hand is "worth."

There's no real other way to determine EV of individual hands before the flop. In the future, with much more powerful computers and very advanced programs, it ought to be possible to set up simulations to calculate it, but today the value can mostly be divided into "positive," "probably positive," "neutral," "probably negative" and "negative" and the divisions will be a little bit off depending on the specific circumstances.

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Wouldn't you also take into account how you played the hand? In other words, it seems impossible to me to have all those conditions (position, opponents, etc) the same enough for me to get a large enough statistical sample to determine with any accuracy better than 'probably, neutral, negative' as you mention, how I played just one particular hand.

Not sure if I could explain it well but, in any hand, there are (hopefully) many mental processes going on at once, based upon the variances of all those factors or conditions. Insight and experience at the table (and your ability to interpret the outcome) seems to me, ultimately the most powerful tool. But I guess any tool is better than none.

Eenie, Meanie, miney mo

andosalado said:

Thank you for the info, but maybe it's too much for me right now, i'm just starting in poker and i i'm not quiet ready to learn this complicated aspects of the game yet.

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So how do you determine what hands to play? Queens or better, Ax, suited connectors over 9-10 or just how the cards look to you at the moment?

I was pretty much a break-even player (ok, I lost a lot) until I got into the mathematical aspects of the game. Not that other factors don't play a huge part, mostly the other players' history & playing style, position & stack size. Just I won't challenge a TAG's pot raise unless I get the proper odds, and knowing those odds gives me the confidence I need to do so.

Spend some time in the Strategy section of this forum and you'll learn a lot!

adventurebound said:

Expected... what you expect the hole cards to earn (before the flop) determined by what those cards have been worth in the past. Not actual value of 1 single hand after the hand is played out. In other words, by saying EV we're looking at future possiblities of the hole cards we hold now by looking at the past average of the same cards.

FP's post is right on the spot as always, can't say it any better than he did.

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I fail to see the relevance of this. A hand's EV in the terms you're saying is going to be different for every player. You can't just say, KQs is going to net you on average .85bb/hand so play it and that's what you're going to get. It doesn't work like that. There are so many factors going on in a hand that changes the situation.

Suited connectors, on average I make 0.87bb/hand with them. Does that mean you will? No, you might do better, you might do worse.

Does it mean I should always play suited connectors because I win with them? Of course not! I wouldn't win with them if I played them all the time. My play affects my winrate with them not the other way around.

Ando, you're on the money now. Don't even bother with this stuff. Sure you can look at it, but there's no need to. If you play solid poker, and make good decisions, then you'll win, it's easy. I've never once tried to assess the "EV" of my preflop cards, and I do just fine.