EV Poker - your guide to poker

EV (expected value)

EV is an abbreviation for expected value. Regardless if you play poker, blackjack or on horses you will always have an expected value for the outcome of your play.

ROI (return of investment)

It's good to know you ROI as you will when know how much you can expect to win in a certain number of tournaments and you can also compare between different poker forms to discover there your best profit are made.

Starting hands

There are 1,326 different starting hands in Texas hold'em, but if you leave out the different color constellations there are totally 169. The starting hands are divided in four categories after how well they perform in poker.

Different ways of multi-tabling in poker

Multi-tabling in poker can potentially increase the winnings. There are three main ways to arrange the tables: tile tables, cascade tables and stack tables.

Optimizing Ace King

A new book written by James “SplitSuit” Sweeney Adam “W34ZSL” Jones deals with the most complex hand in poker, ace-king. Read the review about this book.

How to play Short-deck poker

Short-deck poker (a.k.a. Six-plus Hold'em or Triton Poker) is a variant of Texas Hold'em design by Chinese poker players and it occured recently in the Triton Super High Roller Series 2018.

Poker and short-term statistical noise

In the field of statistics, noise and signal are two often referred terms. Noise is mostly irrelevant data whereas signal is the vital matter.

All poker tips articles

EV (expected value) is one of the most important aspects in all sorts of gambling. EV in poker can be measured in many ways - some ways less exact than others. One important area in poker that varies from positive to negative EV is the starting hands.

Poker EV graph

This diagram shows the best starting hands in Texas hold'em and their EV based on the amount of big blinds they win in the long run (the numbers are based on over 100 million dealt pocket cards played at full tables in Poker Room). AK indicates suited and AK off suited.

+EV and -EV

The second diagram shows us an example of +EV (positive expected value) and -EV (negative expected value). As before, the focus lies on starting hands and here we have a collection of marginal hands (the numbers are based on the same information as mentioned above).

How to think about EV and using the given information

EV tells us when to play and when to pass. It's simple, but at the same time not. We have learned a few things about which starting hands that works well in general, but there are always more things to care about. Poker EV is complex just because poker is a complex game. We are dealing with lots of imperfect information and how we succeed depends on our ability to make good judgments  at many factors. This will come with knowledge and with plenty of knowledge you will make better approximations about the EV in the situations that turn up on the table.

See more EV graphs: EV versus result graphs

Do you know your EV? That's great, but what's your return of investment, ROI?

If you are playing heads-up matches and know that you win 6.5 out of 10. The next step is to know exactly how much money you win and the ROI of every single game. The reason for this is that you want to compare your profit in different game forms and on different buy-ins.

Read more: ROI (return of investment)

It’s not the case that all professionals in poker has a high IQ. A successful person, career-wise, has in average a higher IQ than the normal, but this is only the case if larger groups are studied, therefore, exceptions are common.   

Already in the 1990s would online poker exist in small scale and without money involved. But at the end of the decade could Planet Poker as the first poker room online offer poker with real money.

As more people started to play more and more poker rooms were showing up together with online casinos. Today it's hard to keep count with all the Internet poker sites out there.

EV Poker is a guide there you will find rules, strategies in the game variants of Texas hold'em, Omaha and Seven Card Stud. You can also read the poker online guide that tells you all about rake, freerolls and a lot more that's good to know before playing on the Internet. Besides that, there are also reviews of the most popular poker rooms and actual bonus offers that will give you the perfect start in your online poker experience.