It’s been a long time since my last concept of the week. I have a new topic I want to share with 2p2. I randomly put this together this afternoon, after seeing this hand. Enjoy!


Realizing Your Equity

A concept not brought up around the poker table for discussion often is “realizing your equity.” Knowing and familiarizing yourself with this idea will make you a much stronger player. This concept called "realizing your equity" has to do with the utility you get out of your hand’s equity. Not surprisingly, poker is a game of equities; this “math” behind the game often involves equity.

There are two kinds of equity in my book; there are Fold equity (FE), and Pot equity (PE). Equity is another word for “win the pot %.” Winning the pot at showdown or by villain folding before, the result is the same. For either outcome, we win what’s in the middle.
You’ll often here some of my friends say, “You need some kind of equity to bet in that situation.” We either need to have PE or FE. Sometimes, we can combine these two equity’s to make a solid bet; for example, barreling a draw on the turn!

So now that we have laid our foundation for equity, we can talk about “realizing our equity.” At the poker table, we are battling our opponents. The question becomes “What are we battling against them for? “

To answer, several things! At the poker table, in order to profit, there are a number of things we are trying to accomplish. We are trying to inflate pots in which we have the best hand (pressing an equity edge), take pots in which we don’t have the best hand (buying other players equity with bluffs), and finally, there is the “in between.”

“Realizing your equity” lies on the “in between” battle zone of poker. It’s like the silent hand that moves the market in economics. In war you could equate it to two submarine ships battling underneath the sea; no one sees it except those who are aware.

These “submarines” I’m talking about are simply our “in between” equity hands. If a hand like AK on K 5 6 flop is a high equity hand and 27o is a low equity hand, then something like 78, 89, or 67 would be the in between hands. These hands have “vulnerable equity” in that if we aren’t careful, villain could play in such a way that would force us to fold these hands before we get to see the river. For instance………….

We are in the BB, BUT steals, he’s a tag.
We hold 78hh to the flop HU
Flop comes
9 T 3

We check and call a bet by our opponent……..Turn 9 T 3 4

Our opponent bets again, and we…………..Fold, you have to! We could check raise turn, but without some kind of read, that’s burning money. We have no way to profit with our hand, even though we have a pretty nice draw. Villain did a good job of taking us off our equity here. Our only profitable option by calling was to peel flop, and check fold turn unimproved, BOOOOOOOOORING!

How about we explore some of our other options to see how they effectively help us realize our equity.

1. We could check raise flop, and barrel almost any turn (maybe river)
2. We could lead flop and barrel any turn (maybe river)

At this point, read’s are nice! To know whether to check raise or lead is simple; which line have you noticed work more in the past to get villain to fold?

Leading Flop-
Here, we can hopefully combine some FE and PE to make a +EV bet with a hand as strong as the OESD; it’s likely this is the case. On the turn, we can barrel and get even more hands to fold, and see the river card in a medium sized pot. We then have the option to shell out one last barrel if the run out is good or we can value bet if we hit. Many good things await our triumphant invasion of the river.

Check Raising-
Check Raising is the more expensive option, but it can be a nice strong arm line vs. villain who is ready to fold things as strong as top pair by the river. If done vs. the right villains, it can accomplish a lot by way of folding out their equity (when they fold as strong as top pair, wow that’s awesome!). Even if they don’t fold top pair, you can likely get many villains to bet fold hands on the flop, and fold a bit more of their range on the turn allowing you once again to see the river.

Now the last thing is……..what if our villain shoves the turn a lot………that would force us to fold hands that have equity on the turn! If we barrel the OESD + unders, we have to fold to a turn raise! Ohhh nooo Submarine Captain, the enemy has spotted us and has fired upon the ship……………


Good Luck At The Tables Everyone!

Jeremy

first

first

Thanks oldschool

this "dude" likes quotation "marks".

decent post though

thank you for this COTW oldschool

short but good. ty

Your Welcome!


I find the english language gets in the way of explaining things how I like. I love using quotes as a communication tool to explain my ideas, Evolving as a writer, is a goal I've set for myself this year. Thanks for Reading!

Your Welcome!

I dont waste time getting to the point! Glad you enjoyed!

This post kind of illustrates how no one at the micros semi-bluffs enough. Remember that it is a powerful weapon since it utilizes both types of equity.

So this post is saying play your hands in the most +ev (or least -ev way) possible?

Well, I think every post in this forums suggests that we make the most +EV play. My intent in writing this, was to help the reader determine what is the most +EV play in spots like this and why.

FYP (*smart-assing*)

but seriously, I really like the topic you've chosen. your example suggests that, in some spots, we can realize our equity by taking a more aggressive or, perhaps, more creative line. however, i think the more fundamental--although much more obvious--insight related to equity realization is that it's waaaay harder to realize our equity when OOP. very often, when we have close to our "fair" equity share (that is, 50% HU, 33% 3-way, etc.), we will be able to realize our equity IP but fail to realize our equity OOP.

agree with pretty much all of this

Read it. Great! Thanks a lot!

This is where it's sometimes necessary to differentiate between "nominal" equity and "real" equity. Because I would say that our equity OOP is lower than our equity in an identical spot IP. It's a slightly different framework.