Expected Value

EV stands for expected value, and players usually speak in terms of positive EV (+EV) or negative EV (-EV). This simply refers to the value of a certain play in a poker game. If you call a $20 bet to win a $100 pot and you are better than 5-to-1 to win the hand, you have made a +EV play. If you are worse than 5-to-1 to win the hand, you have made a –EV play.

The Importance of EV in Poker

Put simply, expected value is what poker is all about. If you make more positive EV plays then negative EV ones over the course of your playing career, you will be a winning player in the online poker rooms. If you make more negative EV plays, you will be a losing player.

Calculating EV

Calculating expected value is not always easy and how you will do it will vary given the situation. For example, some players will refer to a decision to sit in a game at higher stakes than you are ready for as “-EV.” Even though this is not as clearly quantifiable as putting $50 into a pot that is only really worth $20 to you, it is still meaningful. If that game has stakes so high that the variance will wipe out your bankroll before you have a chance for your +EV plays to work, you are in a –EV situation. If you are in a game where most of the other players are making more +EV plays than you, you are in a –EV situation. Of course, more simply, calling bets when you don’t have the correct odds to do so is –EV.

Using EV
EV is a helpful analysis tool because it will alert you as to what the correct play will be should a similar situation arise again. Your goal as a poker player should be to identify common –EV moves that you make and replace them with +EV moves.

We can not deny the fact that gambling has already become a part of our everyday lives and daily routine. Online gambling, whether legal or not, should be done with great care. Many have engaged in online casino games, so if you want to get involved in online gambling, it is important for you to check the local laws of where you live, to ensure that gambling online is not illegal. If you can not get any information with regards to the legality of gambling, then the right thing for you to do is to get in touch with the local authorities and discuss with them the rules to make sure that it is indeed safe to gamble online. There are many places where gambling is legal, but you still have to check if the casino has a proper license to operate.

Online casino and gambling online is considered legal only to those people who are above eighteen years of age, so another thing to consider would be the age requirement. There are also many online casino websites in the internet that are readily available, so you also have to make sure that these online casinos are legal. But you have to be careful, before you actually play at an online casino, be sure to take legal advice just to be sure.

What Is Added Value?

Added value simply means that something is worth more than you are paying for it. If someone sells you a seat at the main event of the World Series of Poker for $5000, you have gained value, since it is worth $10,000. On the other hand, if Phil Hellmuth offers to sell you half of his World Series of Poker main event winnings for $6000, you are probably gaining value, even though the face value of such a proposition would be $5000, because he is such a strong player.

How Can You Take Advantage of Added Value?

The most common situation you will find yourself in where you can gain added value is in a tournament with a large guarantee. A guarantee means a certain amount of money will be paid out no matter how many entries they get. Generally, the buy-ins are enough to cover the guarantee but if not, you have added value. For example, with a $100 buy-in tournament with a $200,000 guarantee, the tournament would need to get 2000 players to make their guarantee. If they do not, you get added value, because there is more money available than has been contributed per person. Be on the lookout for these opportunities.

Sound familiar?

Then young Billy (Billy junior) chips in (excuse the pun…) with “why dont you watch internet poker tv?”, with that durrr look on his face, like I cant believe you “old folk” dont know about this… you can watch it any time it suits you, no fuss all you have to do is go to the site… durr…

Got some good poker hands this weekend, was very pleased with how things worked out. I stayed at home and mostly played poker online, which was a good decision because it paid off nicely. I also got a good tip off about Poker Central, a great poker portal for poker bonuses, freerolls, a choice of poker rooms and reviews to help you make that choice – thats if you are looking for new deals. With their bonus code you are entitled to special promotions, its worth a look…

Peter Eastgate the 2008 World Series of Poker champion from Denmark is playing and he reaches for the chip stack and grabs the wrong color chip thinking it is a lessor value. Daniel Negreanu notices and tells everyone, and Eastgate admits to his mistake – it kind of gives it all away the players still in the hand realize that his hand is not that strong, they out play him and he loses the hand.

I wonder if the poker game would have played out differently if Negreanu had kept quiet and if Eastgate had made it look like that is what he wanted to do. The other poker players may have thought wow, he has a serious hand to bet that much and they may have folded if he had kept applying pressure, by increasing the raise by a lot.

It ends up costing Eastgate $25,000 because he threw the wrong color chip into the pot – phew!!! What an expensive mistake!!! Bet he won’t do that again in a hurry!

Because they do nothing about trying to improve their situation. Change jobs, get a second job or just get a job in the first place. Start a business, look for opportunities don’t just sit around and complain!

Then again you can look for ways of making your money last longer. You could look for promotions, shop around a bit and compare deals. Poker players should be looking at online poker review sites, weighing up the best casino bonus options, so that they can get that better bonus.

The casino bonuses allow you to play poker or other casino games for longer, giving you a better chance of winning the jackpot. Its all sitting there waiting to be exploited, you just have to get off your rear-end and do something about it.

Don’t know if it was just the tables I happened to be playing at, but they were quite happy to fold when I applied the pressure. Maybe I came across as an extra aggressive player… who knows? But as soon as I put in a really huge raise, these guys just gave in. Most of the time they were just giving away the blinds, but still it was so defensive and tight.

Wonder if people are getting afraid of losing money because of the harder times?

Poker strategy depends on so many things, its hard to say exactly what you will do in a certain situation. Ask a poker pro what they will do and they will probably tell you a different answer each time… Sometimes you don’t even know why you stick with a certain hand, maybe its just a feeling you get or a slight sign of weakness…

A casino forum or poker chat rooms are good places to exchange ideas and winning poker strategies online. You have to apply the filter to what some guys say, because there will always be the ones that are full of themselves – the know it alls!

Dwan and Antonius resumed their match this week but they still have 43,000 hands to play! I enjoy railbirding but I like to see a result… I’m going to grow old waiting for these two to finish! It looks pretty even at this stage, both are neck and neck, sparring away at each other…

I think I’ll glance at the online casino news and poker news once in a while just to keep an eye on whats happening in the Durrrr Challenge, but I’m certainly not going to lose any sleep over this one… waiting for a result.

Why didn’t they make it over say 10,000 or 20,000 hands of poker, thats enough surely to see who is the poker champion?