Fold equity

I played a hand this weekend that I thought illustrated, albeit very simply, the concept of fold equity, and why you shouldn't ignore it.

This is early in the $27.50 25K guaranteed on PS, blinds are 25/50, I have 2575 and villain has 1260. No specific reads. Villain is in the cut off, I'm on the button. Everyone folds around to villain, who minraises to 100. I have AJo, and given the weakness of his raise and his position (a random could easily be raising ATC here), I 3 bet to 450. The blinds fold, and villain calls.

This is villain's first mistake. Flatting my 3 bet forced him to commit over 40% of his stack. Unless he was trapping with a premium hand, his stack was insufficiently deep to flat a raise and see a flop, especially out of position. But he does flat, and we take the flop with a pot of 975 - villain has less than a pot sized bet left behind (810).

Flop is A66 rainbow. Villain checks, and I bet my TPGK for 450, about 40% of the pot. Villain raises all in for 810, meaning I have to call a remaining 360 to win 2235. I call, and villain turns over QJs, and when neither of us improve I take the pot and bust villain.

I started laughing once villain shoved. I was getting better than 5 to 1 on a call; there are literally no two cards I could be holding that I would ever fold here once I made the cbet.

For my part, I was very aware of the stack sizes from the moment I 3 bet villain preflop. Given his stack size, if he wanted to play the hand pre, he should have shoved - at that point I would have had to call 1160 to win 550, and would have to be very confident I was ahead of villain's range in order to make a call (I would have called, as I read his minbet for weakness). Given the odds I would have been getting, villain would have had fold equity.

As played, villain only had some fold equity if he had open shoved the flop; I would then have had to call 810 to win 1785, or a little better than 2 to 1. Since I had flopped top pair with a good kicker, I would have called, but what if I was holding JJ or TT and the flop came AK6, or even the board that did arrive (A66). That ace and the the pressure from villains hypothetical shove may have caused me to lay down a hand like TT. Again, he would have had a decent amount of fold equity, since the odds I would have been getting would have been insufficient to call if I believe villain had hit an A and I was holding an underpair, or pretty much any hand without an A or a 6.

Obviously as it happened I wouldn't have folded pre or on the flop, but the lesson here is that if you are going to commit all your chips, best to do it in either one of two circumstances. One is when you have the nuts, or close to, and which point betting properly to give your opponent proper odds to call is a skill I'm still struggling to develop. Imagine villain had had 66 here - his play would then have been very good, since he allowed me to bet and gave me odds to call his shove with any two cards.

If, however, you don't have the nuts (pre or post), then your best bet is to shove with a significant amount of fold equity. If your opponent is holding the nuts he won't fold, but in all other circumstances, which will be a healthy percentage of the time, you will at least force your opponent to consider folding, and may in fact force him to fold a better hand. If, for example, I had a read that the villain in this hand was a very tight player, then a minraise/shove pre would almost certainly have gotten me to lay down AJ here. He could have made that play with ATC and gotten me to fold, because of his reputation (tight) and the amount of fold equity. If that same player, even knowing he is tight, played the hand this way, there's no way I fold, because reputation or no, the pot odds I am getting eliminate his fold equity.

I probably don't explain this as well as I could, but I found this hand funny and thought it demonstrated fold equity, and that this specific villain had zero idea of how this concept should work.

Good luck to one and all, and I'll see you at the tables.

SGT RJ