So, I’ve been trying to work on my “why” of the actions I do at the table and not just say “I have the best hand, I can” but rather I have the best hand x% of the time so I should call in this spot.

Wanted to check if my post play thought process makes sense for a hand I posted yesterday.

I have QQ in the BB. UTG +1 raised, BTN calls, I re-raise, both call.

Flop is J rag rag, flush isn’t in play ATM.

I bet, UTG+1 shoves all in.

Not including my flop bet, I have to call ~$2.50 to win a pot of ~8.50

If I think about his range, AA, KK, and JJ has me beat. 6 combos each of AA, KK and 3 of JJ, so 15 total that beats me. If I feel he will also shove here with an over pair like AK, AQ, KQ Suited or a hand like TT or 99 that gives him an additional 48 combos. So 15/48 is about 33% (slightly less), so I have the best hand about 66% of the time.

When I have the best hand, let’s say I win about 80% of the time. (Didn’t do the math against his combos, just using an easy number I feel is close).

I have the best hand 66% of the time and win that 80% of the time which means I will win slightly more than 50% of the time, which makes this a call with the pot odds.

Is this accurate thinking? Or the ramblings of a madman lol.


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Seems fine. This is the raw equity analysis. You are calculating the value of your hand, versus the entire range of the opponent, and deciding the call is +EV.

This method is easiest when the decision involves ranges that are fairly obvious.

Much more complicated decisions happen on the river after a complicated board that could favor either player. When that happens, the more appropriate method is called MDF calculation. MDF would be locating your hand within all the combos you hold, ranked in value from best to worst, and calling above the breakeven point to keep your opponent indifferent.

For a straight- forward situation, deciding to call an all-in bet, the criterion is to do so if the call has positive expectation (+EV). EV in this situation is:

EV= eq*(Pot + 2*Bet) – Bet,

where Pot is the pot amount before villain makes a bet of Bet. Set EV to > 0, and you can state the criterion in several ways:

1. Call if your equity is greater than the fraction your investment is of the total pot i./e., eq > Bet/(Pot+2*Bet)

2. Call if the pot odds are greater than your card odds: i.e., (Pot + Bet)/Bet > (1- eq)/eq.

3. Call if eq > 1/(Pot Odds + 1)

For your example, the pot odds are 8.50/2.50 = 3.4. Using criterion 3, you need equity of at least 1/4.4= 22.7%, which your queen pair easily provides.

For the most part I prefer to think of this in a different way than I feel what is typically done. Instead of trying to guess the villian's range to determine equity I prefer a strategy where I know where I am at in my range and ask a question more like "how often do I need to continue to make my opponent indifferent to bluffing".

the equation I use is 1/(1+(bet/pot))=~0.77 or 77% of our range that beats a bluff. In this example I'll just use a bb defense range from the default examples in equilab(poker strategy.com bb defense against ep raise): TT+, AJs+, AQo+ but if you look at snowie for example the range is pretty different and includes hands for balance a percentage of the time(15-25%) like 87s, 76s, 65s. Now that we have a range and a continuation % we rank the hands in our range as they relate to the flop. Since you said "J-rag-rag rainbow" we can rank our simple range like this: JJ,AA,KK,QQ,AJs,TT,AKs,AKo,AQs,AQo. If we used a more balanced range this ranking would obviously be different and the rag cards(as well as suits) would matter more. Basically assuming we were using the simple range given above you should be continuing with AJs,JJ+ and maybe TT some of the time.

I would say that generally it is more important to understand where you are at in your range than it is try and define the villian's range. This takes some work off the table but after a while it becomes easier to say something like "I'm in the top 40% of my range" and then "how often do I need to continue to make my opponent indifferent to bluffing". Continuing includes calling and raising but in this case call/fold are the only options?