CO opens to 2.5x and we defend BB.
We filter for these spots in PT4. My All-in adjusted EV is -89 evbb/100 for the flat.
I'm not sure what figure to aim for. We need to do better than -100bb/100 with the call.
If we open folded every flop, we would end up at -250bb/100.
When I was reviewing cbet spots I realized that when I checked back and folded to probe bet, the tracker always showed i.e -250bb/100 for the hand. In the same way, is there certain amount of BB's "hidden"? Do we need to do better than -150bb?
We paid extra 1.5bb, but when we fold, we lose 2.5bb. Hope this makes sense.

But in the same way, when we win the pot, we win "extra" 1.5bb. So I think for that reason the -89bb/100 figure is correct.

If you choose to play preflop you want your EV over all possible outcomes to be less than -1bb per hand or -100bb/100.

The reason is that your only other option is folding and that costs you -1bb. So even if your return is -.89bb per hand or -89bb/100 you're still making more EV than folding, even though your EV is negative.

When you look at the flop, you now have to make sure that whatever all your future plays are they are more than your previous investment (i.e. 2.5 bb). The reason being is you paid 2.5bb to get to this point, so you need to at least recoup that cost.

Now that may seem confusing to you if you have ever done equity calculations because people will tell you "the money you already invested isn't included as a cost for your current decision" which is true when you're trying to calculate individual decision points through the hand. But over the course of the hand those individual decision points will account for all the money you have invested.

Or put it another way at whatever point you are in the hand you had to pay a price to get there, so your return over all future possible outcomes must be greater than that price, otherwise you would have been better off not paying part of that price earlier in the hand.

I think you're right that -89bb/100 is correct, as your aim is to lose less than 100bb/100, but I recall that PokerTracker is a bit different to HEM (which I use). I've seen PT screengrabs that show winnings in "cash without blinds", but that might just be a pre-flop stat that only appears in some PT reports. That said, you need to make sure your filters are absolutely correct if you're thinking of changing your strategy based on the numbers. It sounds like they are set up correctly for the situation you described.

In HEM, I set up this list of filters and my results indicate that I could profitably defend a lot more hands in that spot, so I'm glad you made this thread, as it gives me an opportunity to tweak my strat.


Naturally if I change the "Cold-call = true" bit to "VPIP = false", the result is -100bb/100. If I add "Flop action is check-fold" instead, it goes to -269bb/100, because the average open size in the CO in my games is evidently 2.69bb, so that's how much my stack size goes down when I pay the forced 1bb, call an additional 1.69bb and then check-fold to a c-bet.