Poker Expectation – A Key Poker Concept

Poker Is A Game Of The Long Run And Key To Understanding Where Those Long-Term Profits
Come From Is To Become Familiar With The Concept Of Expectation.

Poker Expectation is absolutely key to both understanding the fundamental purpose of the game and becoming a long-term winner in it. Many of your opponents will not understand even the basics of expectation and will consistently find themselves in situations where money will be lost over time. This article explains expectation and goes on to provide examples of how you can benefit from this understanding and improve your poker profits over the long run.

First a definitions of expectation, then we will give you some more concrete examples:

Expectation: The average gain or loss of a specified action over the long-run.

In poker that action could be raising, calling, bluffing or any combination of these during the play of a hand. ‘Long run’ describes many 1000’s of attempts, since short-term fluctuations depend on the chance turn of cards in many poker situations the long-run should be the only consideration when deciding whether a play is profitable.

Let us look at an example involving a draw, there is one card to come and you have 4-cards to a flush. You somehow ‘know’ your opponent has aces and so only a heart on the river will win the pot for you. Your opponent bets $20 into a pot of $200 and you make an easy mathematical call. By combining the pot-odds with the price to call we can see that you will make a profit over the long run, this is your expectation – see our article explaining Pot-Odds And Outs  In Texas Holdem Poker for more.

Conversely, you might call those same bets when you do not have the correct odds. Here your expectation is negative, that is to say that over the long run you will lose money – no matter how many big pots you scoop in the short-term!

When you look at poker starting hands charts you will see advice that hands should be folded from early position that you would prefer to play. Over time, and with information from many players, it is possible to work out an average profit or loss for hands pre-flop. While a pair of aces on the button might win you 15 blinds in your game on average, Ace-Ten from first position will lose money over time on average, that is to say that the expectation for playing this hand is negative.

You will often see the terms ‘+EV’ and ‘-EV’ mentioned in forums and Texas Holdem Poker Strategy Articles. These refer to positive and negative expected value respectively. If you try to bluff a player who never folds your move might be said to have a negative expected value over time, however playing premium starting hands in a positive and aggressive manner is usually ‘+EV’ for the player.

An important caveat when thinking in terms of expectation is that poker is a game of incomplete information. That is to say that you will rarely be in a position to make a ‘perfect’ mathematical play in terms of your expectation every time. Experience and a good understanding of the probabilities and simple math involved in the game – as well as dealing with different types of opponents – can help with this.

To summarize, poker is all about the long run. While anyone can get lucky in the short-term, only players who consistently take positive expectation situations will be profitable over time. Understanding the odds, probabilities and playing in such a way as to maximize your wins while ignoring the short-term noise require many skills – not least solid NLHE poker bankroll management and the ability to avoid poker tilt!