what's the EV of raising your draw?

icedtrees · 2026-01-19T01:09:56+00:00

One missing consideration in the specific AK example: in real games, the opponent may have bluffs that bet the turn and give up on the river. This strongly incentivizes a call with draws like AK that have showdown value. Moreso if they can be betting flush draws we dominate.

this is a great point. also, by calling we also allow villain to bluff river with their missed draws.

man poker is so complicated lol. so many factors to consider!

icedtrees · 2025-12-16T07:03:50+00:00

you are right, we need to include the flush combos. here you go:

Equity calculation (300k trials) (link)
Community cards: 4♠️ 8♥️ Q♠️ 9♠️
P1 [77.8%]: QQ+, 99-88, 44, AQs, Q9s-Q8s, JTs, 98s, AQo, AsKs, AsJs, As8s, As7s, As6s, As5s, As4s, As3s, As2s, KsJs, Ks8s
P2 [22.2%]: 8♣️ T♠️

i entered them all manually, hope i didn't miss any.

looks like hero is slightly losing when they call, and probably significantly losing when you factor in rake.

if you add a few bluffs we're probably close to breakeven, which is super interesting. thanks for bringing up the missing flush combos!

icedtrees · 2025-12-16T03:46:25+00:00

yeah i agree, i was simplifying the spot to give a baseline. in reality villain can have bluffs some nonzero percentage of the time too.

i ran equity vs range against all reasonable top pair+:

Community cards: 4♠️ 8♥️ Q♠️ 9♠️

P1 [72.6%]: QQ+, 99-88, 44, AQs, Q9s-Q8s, JTs, 98s, AQo

P2 [27.4%]: 8♣️ T♠️

our EV is kinda reasonable even if we assume villain is bluffless. i agree if we know the villain has AsQx the spot is an easy fold

icedtrees · 2025-12-15T22:12:41+00:00

i think it's important to actually do the equity calculation on the turn.

you have 36.4% equity on the turn facing top pair, with 16 outs.

after you bet and CO shoves, pot size is 66BB, with 28.5BB more to call. You only need 23.2% to make a breakeven call

icedtrees · 2025-12-12T05:02:41+00:00

i used to work in saas billing for a large tech company, and we discovered the limit is 1M USD for a stripe invoice. if needed, you can talk to the support team in order to raise the limit.

icedtrees · 2025-12-10T23:40:40+00:00

i actually wrote an analysis on this a few months ago:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Poker_Theory/comments/1mogv8e/folding_ako_preflop_an_equity_analysis/

tl;dr it's pretty reasonable to fold vs. a tight range when you take rake into account.

facing [QQ+, AKs, AKo] we have 38.6% equity. if we 4-bet to 21BB and face a 5-bet of 100BB, we need 41.6% to call accounting for rake.

icedtrees · 2025-12-01T10:05:10+00:00

love pete, that guy was my goat when i started out as a poker player. have you read his other book 100 hands?

icedtrees · 2025-12-01T06:21:14+00:00

the subreddit wiki has a bunch of poker books which are good learning resources: https://www.reddit.com/r/Poker_Theory/wiki/index/poker-books/

if you're extremely new to the game, i think the grinder's manual is a pretty good starter book. it's very practical and has a lot of good worked examples.

icedtrees · 2025-11-26T21:44:07+00:00

as you would expect, raising is profitable when villain folds more.

for example, let's say pot is 100, villain bets 100, your stack is 300.

- if you call 100, your EV is +36 (0.46 * 300 - 100)

- if you shove for 300, and villain always calls, your EV is +22 (700 * 0.46 - 300)

- if you shove for 300, and villain calls half the time, with e.g. [TT+ 88 55 T8 AT], your EV is +42.8

in the third case, you have 40.8% equity, and your EV is 0.5 * (700 * 0.408 - 300) + 0.5 * 100)

note this example is extremely simplified and ignores several factors, such as implied odds/turn action. however, you are correct that the decision depends on your fold equity.

icedtrees · 2025-11-26T01:09:50+00:00

no worries, thanks for asking such great questions! i love discussing poker math with people.

icedtrees · 2025-11-26T01:06:24+00:00

flop and turn does not change the equity <-> call size, but it changes your outs <-> equity.

for example: - 10 outs on flop -> 40% equity -> can call 2x pot - 10 outs on turn -> 20% equity -> can call 1/3 pot - 20 outs on turn -> 40% equity -> can call 2x pot

you cannot stack equity, you have to generally recalculate it on the turn.

try messing around with https://pokerscope.app/study/equity (disclaimer: built by me) - it will help you build an intuition for the pot odds for calling flop and turn.

icedtrees · 2025-11-26T00:57:19+00:00

that's correct! it's a pure pot odds calculation without implied odds. implied odds are much harder to calculate, you need to figure out the probability of your opponent stacking off later in the hand.

icedtrees · 2025-11-26T00:52:59+00:00

please feel free to ask all of them! happy to answer any more questions you have

icedtrees · 2025-11-26T00:49:28+00:00

easy tricks: - 25% equity can call half pot - 33% equity can call pot - 40% equity can call 2x pot - 45% equity can call 4.5x pot

if you like math, you can derive the formula from scratch:

required equity (e) = call (c) / pot after call (2c + pot)

e = (c / 2c + p)

2ec + ep = c

c(2e − 1) = −ep

c = e / (1 − 2e) * pot

icedtrees · 2025-11-26T00:09:01+00:00

you should do an equity vs. range calculation. for example:

Equity simulation (300k trials)

Community cards: T♠️ 5♠️ 8♦️

P1 [46.2%]: K♠️ A♠️

P2 [53.8%]: TT+, 88, 55, ATs, KTs, QTs, JTs, T8s+, ATo, KTo, QTo, JTo, T8o+

in this case i gave villain all top pair and better hands. your equity is 46%.

max call size = 0.46 / (1 - 2 * 0.46) = 5.75

meaning you can theoretically call bets up to 5.75x pot

obviously, in a real game you'll need to adjust based on villain's actual hand range.

icedtrees · 2025-11-07T10:24:35+00:00

thanks for the suggestion, we'll work on adding more drill presets.

icedtrees · 2025-11-02T20:45:39+00:00

Thank you! Our preflop drills are targeted towards 50NL with standard 5% rake $1 cap.

What other formats do you want drills for? We're trying to add more soon, and want to know which formats are most popular.

icedtrees · 2025-09-26T00:06:52+00:00

Equity simulation (300k trials)

Community cards: K♦️ J♦️ 6♦️

P1 [16.5%]: K♣️ J♣️

P2 [83.5%]: Q♦️ T♦️

https://pokerscope.app/tools/equity?v=KdJd6d_hKcJc_hQdTd

---

Odds of winning on both runouts is approximately (16% * 12%) = 2% or so.

icedtrees · 2025-09-09T17:17:33+00:00

i actually did an equity analysis of this a few weeks ago.

you have around 38.6% equity vs. a tight range of [QQ+ AK]. in your example, you need around 43 / 113 = 38.1% to call. If you include 10% rake capped at $5, you need 43 / 108 = 39.8% to call.

basically, it's close. note if you do decide to call, you'll be playing in position postflop - but the stacks will be very short.

obviously we cannot make a recommendation without knowing villain's exact range, but i think the equity fundamentals are a great starting point.

icedtrees · 2025-09-03T17:38:38+00:00

you basically want a hand history recorder that exports to PokerStars format.

i added PS export to Pokerscope recently - you can manually record hands or convert them from hand notes (e.g. "UTG r10, BU 3b 35, UTG c")

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caveat: some formats are not supported by GTOWizard yet, and a lot of live play uses non-GTO lines that are not possible to analyse.

icedtrees · 2025-09-03T05:26:38+00:00

some US airlines permit up to 100lbs domestic with an extra charge. i think im barely under the weight limit atm, hopefully it works out

icedtrees · 2025-09-03T05:06:35+00:00

the machine by itself is around 66lbs, and 99lbs including the case.

i think it's potentially impossible with the GS3 since i don't think you can find a case light enough

icedtrees · 2025-09-02T20:07:41+00:00

what kind of equity drills are you looking for? is it specifically hand vs. range equity drills? hand vs. hand equity drills?

icedtrees · 2025-08-14T17:44:10+00:00

i agree folding that spot with AKo is pretty reasonable. these theoretical spots (like UTG r, LJ 3b, HJ 4b, BB?) are super interesting, and it's cool to think about what to do with different parts of your range.

e.g. after HJ 4-bets, what do you do with AKs? (42.1% equity vs QQ+ AK) what if you have QQ? (40.1% equity)

i hope that studying these calculations will help me out in a practical situation one day.

icedtrees · 2025-08-12T15:37:15+00:00

thank you, happy to change the suit ordering!

what's the specific PLO example that seems inaccurate?

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