Which is the EV of this call?
I did this mental calculation fast:
Ace probability in his hand: 34=12%
Probability of 4 in his hand= 24=8%
Total EV for me: 80%
Is this correct?
The opponent, after I won the hand, wrote in the chat “really?” like if the play was 180IQ, but I think it was quite easy.
I meant:
3 * 4=12%
2 * 4=8%
I dont know why the editor didnt get the simbols.
Hi @Topav,
You can’t calculate the equity for the other player to make a draw - you have to estimate their range and how the flop hit their range.
Value hands that the villain may have had include 65, Ax, JJ+, 8x, 7x … that is, you may well have been against a straight, 2 pair or a single pair that dominates you and I’d need a player-specific read before I eliminated any of those on a 1/2 pot river bet.
Having said that, you need to defend against a 1/2 pot bet 50% of the time to stop villain from automatically profiting with any 2 cards. If you, for example, only defend 30% of the time in that position, villain is making a profit even when you have the best cards.
TT has plenty of show down equity so it was probably a good call depending on your previous defending frequency.
Hope this helps.
Regards,
TA
You are correct that @Topav is not applying the concept of pot odds, expected value (EV), and equity correctly here, which I will try to unpack below. You are also not applying the concept of minimum defense frequency correctly. First, the minimum defense frequency for a half pot bet is 67% (see here Minimum Defense Frequency vs Pot Odds in Poker). And second, your statement about needing to call that % of the time is only true if villain is always bluffing. When villain bluffs, they need you to fold 33% of the time for the bluff to be profitable. But players on Replay are not balanced. For some players, they may never be bluffing, so if you want to call a half pot bet you need to beat at least 33% of hands they would bet for value. Other players may bluff 5 times to every 1 value bet, and you need to call these players much lighter. The concept of MDF is frequently overused, and while it is definitely useful to understand, it only needs to be applied to opponents who correctly balance value bets and bluffs (which is almost nobody on Replay). The article I linked has more info about MDF and how to use it (they say rarely use it in practice).
Going back to the original question, I would fold TT here because against this many opponents there is a very high probability that at least one of them has top pair or better. So, good job winning this pot. A direct calculation of equity requires you to know all players’ exact hands, which is never the case during actual play. You may be basing your calculations on range assumptions, which is the right way to make equity calculations on the fly, as @theanalyst01 points out. Your opponents are most likely not playing any random hand, but choosing to play hands that are better than average.
Equity calculation is useful in the case of a draw. For instance, using your exact hand and the flop, if you thought villain (hypothetically) only continues with spade draws and a range that I made up, you would have 49.6% equity against that range.
What you seem to be calculating is EV. Here is a link to a simple EV calculator (Simple Poker EV Calculator | Red Chip Poker). However, you need to make a good assumption about how often you will win (your equity) in order for it to be useful. Against multiple opponents, with the tiny bet sizes used, you really can’t have any idea what villain has or how often they are bluffing.
My advice in this hand, raise much bigger preflop. With a limper, a min-raise, and a caller, I would raise to at least 425, and 550 would be even better. Raising to 150 does nothing but reduce the value you get from calls and invite multiple callers, which reduces your overall equity in the pot and forces you into tough spots later in the hand.
As played, I would go into showdown value mode and not raise throughout the hand. The probability is high that at least one opponent has an ace (though you can’t calculate the likelihood without knowing all of their ranges), so you won’t get much value from worse hands (except flush draws), but could be way behind. It worked out great this time, though.
For the record, never make min bets and never bet like 200 into a pot of 1800. You are getting minimal value and giving your opponents fantastic odds to improve to beat you. For example, if you have AhAd, and I have 2c7s. I am in the big blind for 50 and you raise to 150 with 325 already in the pot in front of you and get another caller. I now have to call 100 to potentially win 625 (or 825 once the other limpers/raisers call). So, that price is good to call with any two cards. The flop comes 2h5c6c and I now have 26.7% equity against your hand. You bet 200 into 925, so I only need 18% equity to call. Of course, the actual equity and pot odds are different because there are multiple callers each time, but having more players in the pot actually makes the decision to call better for your opponents and worse for you.
Thanks for the correction Joe!
In my defence, I banged out this reply as I was racing to get ready for work and it was going to be just the first line. My single sentence reply, I felt, seemed to convey some impatience with the querent, so I just kept on writing lmao
As you have noted here and elsewhere, most players on Replay do not bluff anywhere near enough which makes the whole concept of MDF mostly irrelevant. As the article says, having a decent read on your opponents and playing accordingly is far more valuable.
As I indicated in my second paragraph, there were just too many hands that the villain could have and a fold, just as fast as you can muck your cards, is in order here.
@Topav, as always, the best advise that I can give you is to listen to Joe and apply his suggestions!
Regards,
TA
Thats interesting, I think it must be true, but I see that in 25/50 tables almost everybody calls the BB.
I would like to earn some real money in the future with poker, ¿maybe $20 per month? Maybe its too optimistic. What level of table in replaypoker do you recommend me for learning?
The higher the better?
This is quite amazing for me! =D.
What is the exact relatioship between bet/pot to call with any cards?
You said 1/6 aprox or it was true?
Your last question is not an easy one. Sometimes the direct odds you are getting might make it fine to call, but some hands/positions/opponents can change that decision. You can use the calculator I linked to see how much equity you need to make a call break-even or profitable. Then you can use Equilab or a website to estimate what your equity is, but it isn’t that simple.
In the example I gave, I call with 27o, but in reality you may not want to do that even with the best price. The reason being, 27o can get you into a lot of trouble and be tough to win with, even if you hit the board. Even if you have two pair or trips, you can be way behind, and you will never have two-card flushes or straights. Hands like suited cards and connected cards hit boards better and have better playability than other hands. For example, I love 54s and hate A6o, even though A6o has a much greater overall equity preflop.
Against one opponent with a strong range, the worst hand is 27o with about 21% equity against a range I assigned. If you needed to call 100 to win 400, you would be getting the right price. BUT, for the pot to be that big relative to your call, there would have to be multiple opponents, so your equity share would be even smaller. So, the guess of about 6 to 1 seems about right, but playing any two cards is rarely a good decision. I used that example to put the small bet size into perspective.
To answer your first question, because everyone calls the big blind in your 25/50 game, that is a reason to bet even bigger. Punish them for playing passively, apply pressure, have fewer multi-way pots, and win bigger pots when you have a good hand. My default raise size is 3.5 big blinds +1 for every limper, but in that game I might start with 5 big blinds and go up from there.
Equating Replay to real money poker is difficult because even the best players here are often not experienced real-money players. I have played maybe a few thousand hands of $1/2 live in casinos and won a few hundred dollars. From what I saw of the play, it is most similar to about the 50000/100000 chip stakes here on Replay. Players there are a bit less passive than Replay, but some of them are quite bad and a few are good.
Learning the basic skills on The Poker Bank and Upswing Poker will enable you to beat Replay by playing ABC poker, and it should enable you to also beat live $1/2 games. With the skills to accrue hundreds of millions or billions of chips on Replay, it should be possible to make a few hundred dollars a week consistently at live $1/2 if you play 3+ hour sessions every day. This is just speculation on my part, and I highly doubt that it would be possible to earn a living in the United States doing this as a full time job.
Online is a whole other beast, and the skill level is much higher. I have only played about 15k hands of 2NL/5NL/10NL on ACR, and was able to win consistently, but it is a small sample size. The play was much more active than Replay and probably stronger than live $1/2. I have also played a few hundred hands of 25NL, but not enough to get a sense of it. The game supposedly gets much harder each level from 25NL up, even there you are not winning significant amounts of money. Even with the high winrate I had at 5NL/10NL, I was winning like $10 or $20 in a session. It does seem possible to win like $20 a week pretty easily if you played 10NL for like 20 hours a week, but again, just speculating, and that is not a great hourly rate compared to any job.
Thank you very much for all the information you wrote here, I am in love with this community because of people like you, who take time to help others :3
At some point in my life I want to spend like $100 and see how far I can go. I only play because I find it funny, otherwise I wouldnt be here. As you said, I find making a living from poker quite impossible 
You’re welcome! The value of Replay is to learn and have fun.
I have always wanted to try the same thing, see how far I can go with that original buy-in. But, casinos aren’t nice places and the only times I have found myself playing there was for a few hours between bachelor’s party activities (which were much more expensive and not nearly as much fun as poker…)
Unfortunately, online play is not legal where I live, though there are ways to play. It is a time commitment though, especially the tournaments; it is easier for me to write some quick forum posts than to even find 30 consecutive minutes to sit at a Replay table.