Two ways to look at odds - Which is the right way?

Its best to show the problem with examples.

Example 1
You have 50% chance of taking down the hand - odds are even money.
Do you play?
Pot $100 and cost you $100 to play. Return on your $1 is $1 BUT at that the time of your bet you can double up.
In other words if you put a $100 bet on ten times at 50% chance of winning you will win $500 and lose $500. Profit $0

Example 2
You have 35% of winning - odds 2-1
Do you play?
Pot $200 and will cost $100. Return on your dollar is $1.05 BUT you can win $200 right there and then.
In other words if you put a $100 bet on ten times at 35% @ 2-1 odds you will win $525 and lose $500. Profit $25

Example 3
You have 35% chance of winning - odds 4-1
Do you play?
Pot $800 and will cost you $200. Return on your dollar is $1.75 BUT you can win $800.
In other words if you a $100 bet ten times at 35% @ 4-1 you will win $875 and lose $500. Profit $375......If you spend $1000 you will get $1750back....not even double your money

So my question is which way do you look at your odds. In the long run or there and then

These examples highlight the fact that your return isn't that great in the LONG RUN but plenty of us have played them.

Example 3 is very common but in reality you aren't even doubling your money!!!

I would suggest that the size of your pot has something to do with it.

I would love to hear from someone who knows more about this stuff than me

Isn’t it the same thing? Yeah, right there you CAN win $800, but you can also lose $200. And you can expect to lose $200 because it’s more likely that you lose.

Your numbers don't make sense.

Example 1 is imposible, example 2 is only possible if you're calling but not if you're shoving, example 3 you need 20% equity to call, so yeah it's a call.


The numbers are too low to be tournament all ins and this only makes sense if they're all in situations so I'm assuming cash game...

I don't think OP is hitting the point he's trying to make...

You have pot odds, and implied pot odds... if all the money you can win is already in the pot, then the two values are the same. If there is more money behind, implied pot odds say we can win that money, too, especially as stackot ratio gets closer and closer to even, and eventually stacks become less than the pot (pot commited)...

I'd love to go into further discussion on this, but I don't really understand the question. I'd rather take QQ vs AK heads up, then 99 vs AKx2 and QQ four way...

But I'm known to call with some pretty shady hands to 24o... in multiway pots with high effective stacks and a small preflop raise.

OP, if you post more specific examples, you might get more insight. And by more specific, I mean specificer.

What street are we on, what do we hold, what do we know about villains, what are our chances of being ahead, and what are our outs?

If we have a NFD on the turn against suspected hands like sets, two pair, and TP, that changes things alot rather than being in a five-way pot with a low pocket pair preflop, where most people would tell you to save yourself the money and not worry about trying to add 4 stacks to your stack with a miracle card. Personally I'm on the fence about it, if I have 55 and four people are all-in ahead of me and there is somehow NO dead money in the pot, the math says there's not an incorrect play, if you call and hit your 5 and aren't up against a bigger set, you win 400 BBs, provided everybody has 100 BBs, or lose 100 BBs.

You'll win 400 BBs 20% of the time, and lose 100 BBs 80% of the time, roughly, but most people would rather get their money in with an edge, and this decision seperates a poker player from a gambler.

I think this concept makes total sense and should be understood by any good poker player. I'm only new and trying to get my head around it.

I believe its called an EV calculation.

EV by definition is a long run measure. For each one of my examples, I will either win the pot or lose my bet. EV is simply an average of what will happen if you made the same decision a number of times accounting for my winning chances.

My question is whether EV is the proper decision metric?

Yes, EV is the defining factor of a good or bad decision.

Your numbers however don't make sense.
As I said, the first two situations are impossible (can not occur) and so I can't give a useful answer about them, the third is a clear call.

Possibly you could restate the problem you perceive in using EV.

Edit: correction, the first is possible if villain open shoves and we have 50% equity against his range. Which makes calling -EV due to the rake. In this case, the best move is to fold to lower variance but there are advantages to looking him up (getting a more accurate perception of his range in this spot).

thepokerkid123 said:

Yes, EV is the defining factor of a good or bad decision.

Your numbers however don't make sense.
As I said, the first two situations are impossible (can not occur) and so I can't give a useful answer about them, the third is a clear call.

Possibly you could restate the problem you perceive in using EV.

Edit: correction, the first is possible if villain open shoves and we have 50% equity against his range. Which makes calling -EV due to the rake. In this case, the best move is to fold to lower variance but there are advantages to looking him up (getting a more accurate perception of his range in this spot).

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Yes sorry.
Maybe these situations can't occur but I was more trying to understand the concept of EV

So your saying you can never have a situation were you are getting even money or 2-1 with those percentages to win the hand?

I thought you would.

So my question is do you have a limit on your payback?

Would you be happy making $200 for very $1000 spent?

As long as its +EV....is that all that counts??

Apologies if I'm way off the mark.

It's the stack and pot size that's impossible in 2.
If we've got an effective stack of $100, and can win $200 outright if villain folds then we're playing a $400 pot. If we're not, then we can't win $200 outright if we win. My problem with hand 1 is similar, the only time we're getting 1:1 on our money is when facing an open shove which is going to happen extremely rarely when we've got a range that's balanced to around 50% equity against our hand.
Regardless, the situation in example 2 where we can win the pot outright adds what we call fold equity into the equation, where our equity isn't just the chance of our hand winning (our equity for which would be 35% of $400 = $140) but also our chance of a fold, say that's 50%, we have 50% of the current pot, which is $150 of fold equity + our $140 of hand equity.


But yeah, EV is the only reasonable measure of a good or bad decision. Yes, you're going to put money in sometimes in situations where it's going to take a hell of a long time for the variance to even out but when the alternative is doing something that's going to be less profitable you've got to man up and accept the variance.
If you ever find yourself unwilling to take high variance, move down in stakes. I personally play with a very deep bankroll for this reason, there are a whole ton of common spots where I'm going to be flipping for stacks and variance will (and often does) hurt for the tune of a lot of buy ins and I have to still be willing to keep putting my stack in.

thepokerkid123 said:

It's the stack and pot size that's impossible in 2.
If we've got an effective stack of $100, and can win $200 outright if villain folds then we're playing a $400 pot. If we're not, then we can't win $200 outright if we win. My problem with hand 1 is similar, the only time we're getting 1:1 on our money is when facing an open shove which is going to happen extremely rarely when we've got a range that's balanced to around 50% equity against our hand.
Regardless, the situation in example 2 where we can win the pot outright adds what we call fold equity into the equation, where our equity isn't just the chance of our hand winning (our equity for which would be 35% of $400 = $140) but also our chance of a fold, say that's 50%, we have 50% of the current pot, which is $150 of fold equity + our $140 of hand equity.


But yeah, EV is the only reasonable measure of a good or bad decision. Yes, you're going to put money in sometimes in situations where it's going to take a hell of a long time for the variance to even out but when the alternative is doing something that's going to be less profitable you've got to man up and accept the variance.
If you ever find yourself unwilling to take high variance, move down in stakes. I personally play with a very deep bankroll for this reason, there are a whole ton of common spots where I'm going to be flipping for stacks and variance will (and often does) hurt for the tune of a lot of buy ins and I have to still be willing to keep putting my stack in.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the advice