blonde poker forum

Righty, I am reading Harrington on hold'em volume 1.

I am at the Hand analysis page 135, and I cant get my head round the math for winning probablilities, Aand before I go and learn it inside and out I want to know if its a worthwhile tool. 

I have never come accross this in the past and I could do with some insight from those who use this method of working probability.

I look forward to your replies of " billy you stupid wanker it's so straight forward" and the like.

Billy you stupid w*nker, it's so straightforward... ;)

I haven't got that far yet so can't help, I'll leave that up to the other blondies! xxx

you know when people talk about putting people on "range of hands"? thats basically enumerating their process. Essentially, if you repeat it over x trials, a certain amount of time he has a high pair, then trips, then a bluff. It then weights the chances of us winning the pot when he holds the relevant hands, and gives us an overall equity figure against that range.

Is it useful? most certainly. In a game of incomplete information, we cant really ever know our opponents hands, so we have to make intelligent estimations, and this is the manner in which people make those *guesses* and work out our equity against that range, which ultimately shows us whether a call is + or - EV. When i first started playing poker, I used to wonder why people took so long to make decisions in live games, and this is probably one of the reasons why. Obviously most people just do it to hollywood/pretend like they are thinking when in reality they are just working up the courage to call or fold, but the better players are thinking all this through. It helps them to maxmize their EV over every decision, and thats pretty much the goal of all professional players.

It becomes even more important in online games, where you cant look into someones soul and tell if they are bluffing or not, so reliance on math like this, and pattern recognition in betting patterns, becomes a LOT more paramount. A lot of people complain that they can win live, but not online, this is probably the main reason (apart from the other main reason that online poker is rigged)

not sure if this is even answering your question, I got on a bit of a typing roll hah

This is more or less it, however does this system the advocate the call all in if you are way behind, I usually only call all in when i am behind if I know I have 12 outs or more.

You have highlighted another thing for me, this slice of math is what my online game has been missing, as i have a good record live i could never counter the balance of not having physical tells to aid in my decision. Looks like this could help counter that problem.

Cheers mate

Once you have worked out your equity in that manner, then it becomes a core math problem***. If you have conjured up a equity of lets say 33.3%, then that means the pot needs to be laying you 2/1 to be a break even call.. ie.. if someone bets 100 on the flop, and the pot is 100, you have to call 100 to win 200, so you are getting the 2/1 there.


The problem most players have, is that they work out the pot odds, and THEN put the other players on ranges. They will be like, hmm... $200 to win $700 pot, that gives me 7/2 odds, yep, i think hes bluffing enough for me to call, rather then saying "ok, he probably bluffs the river 15% of the time, I need around 6/1 to call here, am I getting that? no? ok, guess i better fold otherwise im jazzing money down the drain" Dont do that



**naturally if there is more betting to come on future streets, its not quite this simple... but for simplicity it is assumed that the player is all in when you are making these decisions.