What is ev in poker

The both seem to involve odds and help to show you whether or not your hand or decision is a profitable one. Despite some similarities, there is a difference between the two and they often work together to help you make profitable decisions which is probably where the confusion comes in. In this article I will explain the difference between equity and EV and show you how they are used in poker. Think of expected value as a more advanced version of equity that gives you figures that are easier to work with and use at the table.

Equity is the basic raw material that you need to help you create more effective numbers to work with. When you combine equity with the money you could potentially win or lose after making a certain decision, you come up with your expected value. Equity is the raw material. If you do a little work with it you end up with EV, which is a more useful value.

Good stuff. To work out how much we expect to win or lose on average every time we call, we need to work out our expected value. For information on how EV is worked out in more detail, see the main expected value article. Or, for the more mathsy stuff, check out my handy "boxes" method for calculating EV. However, if we work out the EV of calling:.

Some of these plays will win money, whereas others will lose you money. Out of the actions that will win you money, some will win more money than others on average.

You multiply the results of the possible outcomes by their probability of happening, and then you add all of them together. What is the expected value of each and every coin flip? How much do we expect to win or lose on each individual flip? Is it a profitable game for us? To work out our expected value for this game, we need to look at the results of each possible outcome and their probability of happening. Guess what p Tails means.

All we have to do now is multiply these outcomes the amount we win in each possible outcome by their probability and add them together to find the EV for each coin flip. There will be variance , but over a big enough number of trials the amount we have won should be very close to our expected value for those trials. Our hand: A 2 Board: Q K 3 7. Assuming that the only way for us to win the hand is by hitting our flush on the last card, what is the expected value of calling?

In other words, is it profitable for us to call? The probability of hitting a flush on the river is 4. Therefore, the odds of not hitting a flush will be 1 - 0.

EV is the most important mathematical concept in poker. Like I mentioned earlier, EV stands for expected value. This is one of the simpler EV equations we will use in poker:. Not too bad right? But how can we actually use this? You and I are going to play a game. If we pull out our EV formula again we can start filling in the variables and solve it.

In poker we focus on the longrun , not the short term. We recognize that the results can vary wildly in small samples, but we know that in the longrun the math will bring everything back to expected value. Which means two very important things:.

In this hand it folds around to the small blind who goes all-in. We hold AQ and are debating what we want to do.