Explain Poker Like I’m Five: Fold Equity

When you’ve played poker for years, it’s easy to forget that technical poker speak may as well be a different language. Many players just picked up a deck of cards for the first time and are wondering what the hell a reverse implied range merge against a large stack to pot ratio is.

Maybe you are new to poker as well and want to start analyzing the game at a deeper level, but the lingo and foreign concepts get in the way. To help, _Card Player_ brings you this brand new series, Explain Poker Like I’m Five.

Every issue, we’ll take on a new term or idea, perhaps one you might come across elsewhere in this very magazine, and we’ll break it down to its simplest components.

The Concept: Fold Equity

What Is It?

Fold equity is the equity you stand to gain based on the probability that your opponent will fold to a bet or raise. It is an important aspect of short-stack play, most often in tournaments because the greater the fold equity someone has, the less likely it is that they will get called if they move all in. As fold equity decreases, opponents will start to call with a wider range, increasing the likelihood of getting called or going broke. The formula for fold equity is FE = Probability Your Opponent Will Fold * Opponent’s Pot Equity

Okay, Now Explain It Like I’m Five

The more chips you bet, the more fold equity you can gain because it will cost your opponent more of their stack to call. The less you bet, the less fold equity you can gain because it will be cheaper for your opponents to call.

Give Me An Example (Or Two)

You are sitting in a tournament and are short stacked, with 10,000 chips, in the small blind. The action folds around to you and you look down at 2 2. The blinds and antes are currently 800-1,600 with a 200 ante, making the pot total 4,200. Since your opponent in the big blind almost certainly has two overcards and this would be a classic coinflip, your chance of winning the pot should the hand go to showdown is roughly 50 percent.

That 50 percent represents 2,100, or your equity in the pot. So if both hands were tabled face-up and the board was run out, you’d win an average of 2,100 chips every time you moved all in and were called by two random overcards. However, because you still have fold equity, your chances of winning the pot are significantly higher than 50 percent, as is your overall equity of the pot.

So, again, you have 10,000 in chips in your stack. If you move all in, you estimate that your opponent would fold 70 percent of their hands. When factoring in your 70 percent fold probability with your opponent’s 50 percent pot equity, you get a fold equity of 35 percent.

You then add that 35 percent fold equity to your 50 percent pot equity, giving you a total of 85 percent. That means that when you move all in for 10,000 from the small blind, you stand to win the pot 85 percent of the time, either by getting your opponent to fold, or by winning the coinflip. You also stand to profit 3,570 chips every time you make that move, which is 85 percent of the total pot.

However, if you were severely short stacked, let’s say with only 5,000 in chips, your opponent would be much more likely to call. If he’s only going to fold 10 percent of his hands, then your total fold equity would only be 5 percent, for a total of 55 percent. This means that you only stand to win the pot by moving all in 55 percent of the time, earning an average of 2,310 chips each time you make the move. ♠