PokerBug: EV Made EZ

I've been meaning to post the following EV images (courtesy of Mr. Multi) for a few weeks now, but life has kept getting in the way. Funny how I always have time to play 200+ hands of cash, and at least 1 SnG per day, but I don't have time to post a few notes to this blog.... :-)

Anyway, back to the images. Mr. Multi spent a fair bit of time running EV calcs for various categories of hand types vs. number of opponents and then created these charts. Note that the higher the EV, the darker green the cell turns color. Conversely, low EV hands are shaded progressively lighter. Negative EV hands turn orange to red, depending upon how bad they play. In simpler terms: you want to be in situations where you're dark green, and avoid the yellow and red zones.

The other thing to note in the charts is that the examples all assume that the hands are run hot-and-cold (i.e., they're run out through the river) and that the opponents all have top-20% hand. This latter item is why Mr. Multi's numbers for AA are slightly different than the numbers I posted a few weeks ago; i.e., I assumed that the opponents held random hands, not top-20. MM and discussed this, and we think the "right" way to actually run these calcs would be to assign the first opponent as having, say, a top-20 hand. Then, when a second opponent is added, he would be assigned a top 25% hand. A third opp would get a top-30% hand and so on. In other words, as the limpede builds in a multiway pot preflop, more and more weaker hands start to get priced in. At some point, in fact, the opp's hands should almost be considered random.

Okay, enough of that. First up is the chart for wired pairs. Note how poorly TT does in multi-way pots when compared to hands like 88. We think the reason for this is that TT gets counterfeited by other opponents' big cards; i.e., remember that the opponents hold top-20% hands, which are largely big face cards. I imagine that if the opponents here held random cards, then this effect would mostly go away. It's also interesting to see how poorly small pocket pairs do against a small number of opponents. This reinforces the whole no-set-no-bet strategy when playing the small wired cards.

The next set of EV numbers is for suited aces. I think the lessons to be learned here boil down to this: play AKs in most situations, and also play AQs and AJs, but against a limited number of opponents. If there are 4 or more players in the pot ahead of you and your AJs, you should start getting nervous. You should also pretty much throw away all other suited aces, except for A2-A5s, but only if there are seven or more opponents. In other words, you should be pretty much folding these hands a lot; i.e., suited aces look pretty, but they're actually pretty damn weak.

Next up is unsuited aces. The lesson here? Only play AK and AQ, and only do so against 1-3 opponents, max. (Note, too, the small spike of green that A5o has against 9 opponents; this is probably due to the fact that A5 can make wheel-type straights, plus is just strong enough by itself to win the occasional pot).

Next up is suited connectors. Note how poorly the bigger connectors do in multi-way pots as compared to the lower cards. Again, this is probably due to the bigger cards being counterfeited by the top 20% hands they're up against. This is also basically proof of what pros like the Guru have been preaching for years: i.e., they'd much rather play 65s than 98s in multiway pots.