Expected Value - Anticipating the Outcome

Expected value, also known as expectation, is a fairly advanced concept in poker strategy but is important because it helps you determine your next course of action at critical points in the game.

Your aggressiveness should come very often from your measurement of the expected values for you because then you can tell if the odds are in your favor. It’s more of a theoretical concept, so you’ll understand it better if you keep an open mind and active imagination by trying to play poker online.

Play This Out in Your Head

Imagine that we’re betting on the outcome of a regular six-sided dice. If it comes up as an even number, I pay you $50. If it comes up as any other number, you pay me $1. Should you take this bet? Of course!

Basically, three out of the six sides of the die would make you win, while the other three would give the win to me. That’s (3/6) or, simplified, (1/2) chance for each of us. That’s a 50% chance of you making fifty bucks and 50% chance of you losing a dollar.

Remember that, to calculate your expected prize, multiply the percentage by the amount of the prize, in this case (0.5 * $50 = $25). However, should the die show one of your three losing sides, you lose a mere dollar. The formula is the same for your expected losses, so that’s (0.5 * $1 = $0.50).

How would you know if the bet is worth it? Find out the expected value for the bet, which is your expected prize minus your expected losses. That’s ($25 - $0.50 = $24.50). Now, you won’t be making a sure $24.50 for the bet.

However, if we continue betting on the same die with the same conditions for a long time, your average winnings over all the times you bet would and should come out as $24.50.

The Application

The concept of expected value should help you decide when and when not to bet, check, call, raise, or fold. Obviously, it’s a very effective tool for weighing out your options to see which course of action would be advantageous and disadvantageous for your wallet.

As a player, you should know how to do these calculations and how to do them quickly so that you could still factor them into those moments when you have to make a decision. Any good player should be able to tell when the time is right time for which action.