I've been playing around with this for a couple of days now but have real difficulty finding/understanding an easy mental way to do this at the table (or to being with just using HEM to do it mentally with no time constraints). Mainly with step 2

STEP 2: pairing up combos; in the video they suggest cancelling out equities where for example you could say I have 4 combos where I have 50% equity and he has 4 combos where I have 0% equity so in total I have 25% equity. But often its not so easy as you wont have an equal number of combos.

The slider technique of visualizing equities is also cool and I like to use it, but for that you need to reduce everything so that you only have two sets of equities/combos left, and I often find that to get to this point I don't know which sets of combos/equities to reduce/cancel out so that I make it the most easiest for me.

I probably didn't explain myself that well, but essentially are there any tips or advice people can give for finding the easiest/shortest route to get to the slider technique as when your dealing with a large range of different hands you could in theory just pair different hands together and work out their respective weighted averages until your left with two and then use the visualization technique?

You're describing it quite well actually and your process is good. I experienced the same difficulties and still do with wider ranges. A third option is to just multiply the equity of each group by it's proportion of the total range. For example, if group A has 10 combos, group B has 20 combos, and group C has 20 combos, then there are a total of 50 combos, so you can convert group A's multiplier to 10/50 or 0.2, group B's multipler becomes 0.4, and group C's 0.4. Obviously they should add up to 1. So, if the equity of group A is 60% equity, then multiply 60% x 0.2 and you get 12%. If Group B's equity is 40%, multiply 40% x 0.4 and you get 16%. If Group C's equity is 10%, multiply 10% x 0.4 and you get 4%.

4% + 16% + 12% = 32% average equity

It's best to drill narrower ranges first, do this over and over until you can do it quickly enough at the tables. Then very gradually expand to slightly wider ranges. Baby steps.

With wider ranges, I don't do the hard mental estimations at the table. Instead, I grind pokerstove and estimate by feel. Based on experience and your visualization of the villain's range, what does it feel like your equity is? Then compare your estimate with the actual equity in Pokerstove. Repeat, repeat, repeat, and your feel at the tables will get better and better.

I do A, B, C and D pretty regularly.

E... no never done this but I do sometimes commentate to myself for fun and it helps me focus.

F. Hmm... I fall in and out of love with the poker mental game. I've read Jared's book twice and watched the eightfold path twice and neither have had a lasting impact. It also makes poker too constricting and upholds the notion that making mistakes in poker is bad which I defo disagree with. Might go read Jared's book again though.

G. Yeah I do this but with Combinator. It's the same program but allows you to go from preflop--> river. And it's free.

H. Done a little bit I will defo investigate more when I have 100k hands (only 40k atm).

I'm pretty surprised by how many ppl ITT don't do most of this stuff regularly or criticise people who do.

great post OP!

p.s The EV exel files don't contain any formulas, so when typing numbers, nothing happens, lol. Am i wrong?

Just found this thread and love it's content. Going to start doing this for sure. Certainly more than I do or have up to now.

wrt TUPAC above. Why are we not treating JJ same as QQ with combos etc as it is also a set?

I meant to comment on this. I haven't done any deep research on the topic but my quick research yielded that the brain may actually work better if it gets some rest (to build the myelin connections, kind of like muscle growth requires some rest). Eventhough athletics etc. also requires myelin I'd guess more rest is more important if the activity is mostly mental.

Also you said that Liona Boyd warmed up for 4 hours. That reminds me that warming up shouldn't be underestimated for poker. You'll probably have better results if you do a 30 minute EV calc or hand analysis session before you start playing each day just because your brain will be "hot" from the getgo.

Best post ever on 2+2. Not even close.

Sweet post, thanks OP. Can we delete this thread? I don't want other regs to get their hands on this information haha

One of the most helpful items I have read anywhere. Learning what things to think about, how to think about them and their practical application seems to be the key to me. Thanks for sharing.

I've received a couple pm's mentioning that the auto-calculating formulas aren't working in Excel. The documents I linked above are for OpenOffice's version of excel. If you have problems in Excel, you can try copy-pasting this formula into cell A2, then copy-paste that into cells A3 through A20 for the "EV Bet or Raise" document:

=B2*C2+G2*D2*(C2+F2)-G2*(1-D2)*E2

Also make sure the cell for "1-FE" has the formula "1-B2" or "1-C2" entered in each cell.

For the "EV Call" document, here is the EV formula for cells A2 through A20:
=E2*(D2+B2)-(1-E2)*B2

Bump to avoid archiving (I'm assuming it's not just a couple forums but site-wide?).
Great article OP. I'm glad I randomly stumbled onto it.

I asked you this today at DC as well, but want to sub to this thread anyway. The links at Megaupload have been (lol duh, who aint noticed by now...) seized by our infallible FBI.....:-( so would like to get these if poss. FWIW I use openoffice as well.

TIP to EXCEL users... If you keep having problems, openoffice is free and fast to DL...... Problem solved....

Also wanna say thanks for the great OP, and cant really see why there is some hate ITT. He/she who dont wanna do this kind of effort, well, dont. Pretty easy. OP put some thought and great content into this IMO. To then take the time to read, and THEN to piss on the effort, I dont get it.....

In the spirit of this thread, you should do your own odf or excel sheet for those calcs
I was about to ask the same thing, but then remembered that, mathematically, those are really simple calcs, and should be easy to do on my own.

OK, I can try that. TBO, its not the math, its that I dont have any idea how either excel or the openoffice equivalent work. I have only ever use tables that were already set up, and all I have to do is change input. But I am assuming it aint rocket science, and I will know something new when it is done

The excel work has been done in post #85. You just need to copy/paste this into excel field A2
=E2*(D2+B2)-(1-E2)*B2

and of course make sure that B2 is amount to call, D2 is pot size (before the bet), E2 is your probability of winning, thus 1-E2 is probability of losing. We are doing this in row 2, because row 1 is for labels, ofc. So, A2 will be your EV of call.

I just have no idea what is supposed to go into C2. Probably bet or raise amount for the other calc.