This becomes easier and easier as the hand develops, as you become more aware of the other players’ potential holdings with every passing street and every bet that is placed. This is why you must assume your equity based on the potential range of hands your opponents could have. Knowing your exact equity in a hand is usually not possible since you don’t see your opponents’ cards. Of course, more betting will come, and players can fold their hands, but understanding poker equity is the first step in understanding the game of poker. This means that pocket Aces have an 80% chance of winning the hand should it go to showdown.

If you have watched TV poker shows, you have seen these percentages next to players’ cards and have probably noticed that pocket Aces get that 80% mark or higher before the flop is dealt. This value is called equity, and it represents the likelihood of a hand winning by showdown. However, you should not be looking at the game from this perspective at all.īefore the flop is even dealt, poker hands have a certain value, which can be expressed in percentages. What is Poker EV?Įvery hand in poker ends up with one player winning the pot and others losing it (apart from the occasional chopped pot). Keep reading and find out more about poker EV, how poker equity works, and how you can use this knowledge to your advantage in the actual game.

If you have heard the pros talk about the decision being “marginally plus EV” and didn’t understand what they were talking about, I am going to explain it in this article. This brings us to the concept of poker EV, the term used by professional poker players to determine the theoretical value of their decisions in the long run.

Poker hand equity calculator