Hey guys,

hoping for some help here.
So I want to know wether my shove is +EV or not.
It should be pretty easy but I dont understand the result to be honest...

Potsize River: 98.5bb
Villain has left: 40bb

Lets assume that Villain calls 100% of his Riverrange here.
We have 44.737% Equity against his callingrange.
So:
We shove and win:0.44737*136.5
We shove and lose: 0.55263*40

I always thought that we cant bet profitable unless we have >50% against a Range where we dont have Foldequity.
So the shove here is profitable because we collect the deadmoney alot of times when we shove and win ?

You have to compare the EV of shoving with the EV of checking

Can you tell me how to do that ?
I thought the EV of a check is 0 ?

Under your frame of reference for calculating EV(shove),

EV(check) = 0.44737*98.5

Which is higher than the EV(shove) which you calculated above.

I think you are getting confused - it is normally EV(fold) which is defined to be 0. Not EV(check).

[Here it is possible to define EV(check) = 0, in which case EV(shove) = 0.44737*40 - 0.55263*40 which you can see is less than zero.

In this case you are considering the investment on previous streets as a sunk, non-relevant cost. You can only do this because he is calling 100%. If he folds sometimes the pot size becomes relevant to the calc again]

I think it should be noted that the above EV_check calculation assumes that if hero checks, villain will follow. Since it was stated that villain will always call an all-in bet, it is not unlikely that V will shove if checked to him.

In that case, the EV equation for hero check assuming hero calls a villain shove is

EV_Hcheck = Pr(V shoves if H checks) * EV(shove) + Pr(V checks if H checks)*EV(check)

check/call a shove is very likely -EV in this specific case against this opponent. (I gave no infos on that because I thought it wouldnt matter in the initial posting)

So Villain is a loose passive fish and I assume that hes shoving only better hands

That means that checking is +EV even if we check/fold if he bets.
And the shove is +EV as well because he is calling worse as well (see Equity vs callingrange)
The question is now how I calculate whats actually best ?
I really suck at math so I hope someone helps me to break that spot abit down for a noob.

Aha. My post above assumes you were last to act. If you are first to act, it is possible that shove is better than check even if you have less than 50% equity vs his calling range.

I will write more later.

Yo dude,

Please dont forget me

Ok I'll start with the maths:

For shoving you have given enough info for us to calculate our EV. (Our equity vs his range and the fact he calls 100%.

EV (shove) = 0.44737 * (98.5+40) - 0.55263 * 40 = $39.86

However to work out the EV of c/c or c/f you need to specify 3 things:
1. How often he shoves? lets say x%
2. Your equity vs his check back range? Lets say y%
3. Your equity vs his shove range? Lets say z%

Then we can calculate

EV(check/fold) = [x% * 0] + [(100-x)% * y% * 98.5]
(The two terms are our equity when he shoves (which will be zero as he folds) and our equity when he checks back)

EV(check/call) = [x% * ((z% * 138.5) - ((100-z)% * 40))] + [(100-x)% * y% * 98.5]
(The two terms are our equity when he shoves and we call and our equity when he checks back)

The maths is a little complicated. If you don't get it, I wouldn't worry too much about it.

Basically depending on how often he shoves and what range he shoves with, either shove, c/c or c/f may be the best decision.

However, if you know he is calling a shove with 100% of range than shove will always be better than c/c unless he plays a strategy where his shove range is weaker than his check back range.

omg I ask a questions and then I dont answer. Im very sorry dude.


X = 20%
Y = 80%
Z = 10%

Even the math is quite difficult for me it would help alot to see the difference EV wise.