Poker Doesn't Stop When the Money Goes In: A Look at Pot Equity
Having the right mindset about winning, losing, and the reality of the odds and math behind poker is an important part of understanding the game and keeping yourself in the right frame of mind. Players who often complain about bad beats and bad luck are often just expressing frustration or showing that they really don’t understand, or even care to understand, the math behind the game.
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For example, you get your $1,000 stack all-in pre-flop against another player with a $1,000 stack and the pot has $2,000 in it. You have A-A and he has J-J. You are the favorite in the hand, about as big of a favorite as you can be that early in a hand. You should win this hand. But, if you average it out over the long-run, this exact situation will only, on average, get you $1,600 each time you run it. And $1,000 of that $1,600 is money that you put in. Your hand will not, and should not, win 100% of the time. It will only win 80% of the time, meaning your equity is only 80% of the pot, even though you got it in as good as you possibly could.
The good news is this works both ways. Even when you are on the bad end of things, you still have much more equity in the pot than you realize, which is one of many reasons that an aggressive pressuring style is so effective. Even when you get caught with the worst hand, you still have equity in the pot, and often a good bit of equity.
Poker doesn’t stop when the money goes in. Instead, the hand is run out and we are all left to hear the constant and never-ending barrage of “You won’t believe this” bad beat stories. To anyone who feels like they are running badly or always on the losing end of bad beats, I would suggest you do something to change your focus and see if your mindset and understanding don’t change along the way.
The next time you are all-in, quickly figure up what the pot is and note the hands accurately. Then, use an odds calculator to run the hand and see what your odds are of winning. Do the math and take the total pot multiplied by your percent to win to see how much, over time, you should be getting out of that pot. You may be surprised with how little your good hands are getting in return over time and maybe even more surprised by the amount you actually get back out of each pot when you get it in bad.
It is a worthwhile exercise to continue to evolve your hand valuations and change your mindset from an emotional one to an analytical one. Instead of thinking about all of the bad beats you are taking and how unlucky you are, focus on doing the math and evaluating the numbers. This will distract you from the emotion of the situation that can lead to tilt. Plus, actively adding accurate data to your knowledge base can improve your game.
Poker is not an all-or-nothing game. There are multiple betting streets and it isn’t all that often that you are actually playing all-in pots, but it comes up often enough that this process can be a good base to build on to apply more advanced theories and concepts down the road.
Court Harrington has worked on the business side of the poker industry in roles including tournament reporting for PocketFives, radio hosting for PokerRoad Radio, coaching for the WSOP Academy and privately, and a variety of behind-the-scenes responsibilities for poker media businesses. He also plays in cash games and tournaments. Harrington is currently doing consulting work and exploring business opportunities outside of the poker industry. You can contact him at Court@CourtHarrington.com.
