Explain Fold Equity

D

dlam

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I am trying to understand what fold equity means. Can someone explain it in down to earth terms?
 
WVHillbilly

WVHillbilly

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It's basically how often you think someone will fold if you bet.
 
BrentD22

BrentD22

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It's the equity you gain when villain/s fold.

The better you can estimate fold equity the better your 3 bet/4 bet jam game will be and it also helps you fast play draws. You fast play a big draw to not only build a pot if u get there, but to get better hands, but weak hands to fold. The x% he folds is the added equity to ur actual equity aka your equity vs. Villains expected range.
 
takethepain

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As I understand fold equity, it is added equity in the pot depending on how often you can get the villain to fold from betting out/shoving.

So for example, say you have 10 8 offsuit on the button and you have 2BB and you shove all in. You are not going to have any fold equity there as its only another blind and a half for the SB and a blind for the BB to play. You are not going to get that pot without going to showdown.

Now lets say same situation but this time you have 12BB. This time you have fold equity. 12 BB would probably be a reasonable size of an SNG stack and if they called and lost, they could be in trouble. So they may very well fold hands that are better than your 10 8 like K7 or A4 not willing to risk that you have woken up with a *real* hand. In other words, 10 8 is typically not a profitable hand to shove with, but if you include the added equity you gain from people if they fold, it becomes a profitable move.

Hope this helps, and I hope that I am right in thinking that this is what fold equity is :p
 
C

Chemist

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Fold equity refers to your chances of causing your opponent to fold.

If your stack is really small then you have very little fold equity.
If your opponents call anything you also have little fold equity.

If you can bet enough (and have enough credibility in table image) to make your opponents fold reasonable hands then you do have fold equity.
 
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Lofwyr

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A very simple example to illustrate fold equity. You're in the BB, the BTN makes a 3x raise and SB folds. Pot right now is 4.5bb. You know for certain the BTN has one of three hands: AA, JTo or 72o and if you re-raise BTN will always fold JT and 72.

In this example, then, your raise will fold out 2/3 (67%) of the BTN's possible hands. Often that is what is thought of as your Fold Equity (67%). The raw value of that fold equity would be 3bb in this case (4.5bb pot * 67% FE).
 
Folding in Poker
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