Ashton Cartwright - The Habits of Winning Poker Players

Many playerslearn just enough to lose money that they wouldnt ordinarily risk.

Ian Andersen

Lets start with the centralpremise of successful poker decisions: EV.

EV is a poker term that standsfor Expected Value or Expectation Value.

Simply put, it is the amount ofmoney you can expect to win or lose by taking a specific action in a specificcircumstance, if you could repeat that action an infinite number of times.

Using dice games as an example,imagine a friend offers to pay you 6 timesyour bet if your number comes up on a single die. If you bet $1 that the number6 will come up, your EV will be 0. For every 6 times you roll the die, you willwin once, (Winning $6, minus the $1 you bet, for $5 profit on that roll), andlose 5 times (losing $1 each time =$5 loss). Therefore if you repeat thesituation an infinite number of times, you can expect to come out exactly evenin the long run. Your EV is therefore 0.

Now lets say that your friendoffers you $12 if your number comes up. If you make this bet an infinite numberof times, you can assume that for every 6 times you play, it will cost you $6,and you will win $12 once, for a net profit of $6. Your EV in this situation is100%, because for every dollar you bet, you stand to make $1 profit on average.Obviously you might get unlucky and lose 20 in a row, or you might get luckyand win 20 in a row. The important thing to understand is that mathematically,you can expect to make an average of 100% profit each time you roll the die.

The most common use for EV(Expected Value) in poker is to determine the long-term profit or loss oftaking a specific action in a specific situation. As a poker player, you goalshould be to only play hands in +EV situations (i.e. a situation where youexpect to win money in the long run, rather than lose money).

Heres an example of EV inaction.

Youre in a hand with 78,and the flop comes A 5 6, giving you an openended straight draw. There is $100 in the pot, and your opponent bets all infor $20, and everyone else folds. You are pretty sure that you are behind atthe moment (since you only have 8 high), but any 4 or 9 will give you astraight, which will give you the nuts, winning you the hand.

If you call, it will cost you $20to win $120. An open ended straight will complete about 31.4% of the time(lets call it a third of the time to make the math easy for this example), soif you call, you can expect to win about 1 time in 3. It turns out that your 33%equity in the $120 pot is worth about $40. Since it only cost you $20 to call,it proves that calling is a very +EV play in this situation.

If your opponent had bet all infor $300 however, it would be a different story. It would have cost you $300 tocall, making the pot $to win a $400 pot. 33% equity in a $400 pot works out at about$132, meaning that the $300 call would only return you $132 on average, for anet loss of $168 every time you called in this exact situation. This play wouldbe EV (or Neg. EV).

In practice its not usuallynecessary to work out the exact amount that a play is +EV or -EV. Its justimportant to work out which is which. If a play is +EV, you should usually doit, no matter if its +5% EV or +100% EV. If you will make money on the play,go ahead and do it.

Likewise its not necessary toknow exactly how EV a play is, because you dont want to do EV plays that are-1%, or 50%. Just knowing that a play is EV should be enough for you todecide not to play the hand in that particular way.

So how do you work out if a playis +EV or EV? It all comes down to knowing your outs.

Outs

An out is a card that willimprove your hand from a losing hand to a winning hand. Knowing how many likelyouts you have is an important part of being an effective poker player.

In the previous example with thestraight draw, you had eight outs to hit your straight; any 4 and any 9 bothcomplete your hand, and there are four of each of those cards left somewhere inthe deck.

Lets say instead that you hold A6 on a board that reads 9 J 4. Now any of theremaining nine hearts in the deck will give you the nut flush, which is almostcertainly enough to win the hand.

Additionally, any Ace might beenough to win as well. There are 3 Aces left in the deck, so thats potentiallyanother three outs that you have, giving you a total of eleven outs.

While most people will be able tocalculate outs at the table, its worth memorizing the 5 most common draws thatyoull use again and again.