Fold Equity Calculator

In this blog post I explained the mathematics behind the fold equity formula which is useful for deciding whether or not shoving is a +EV move.  You should read that blog post to get a feeling for the math going on behind the scenes of the fold equity calculator.  The Slice fold equity calculator makes those calculations easy and does the necessary equity estimations on the fly.   Below I'll go through step-by-step instructions on how to make use of the new calculator!

1. The first step is to set the current pot size (excluding any bets on the current street).

2. Next, if you are in position and facing a bet, you can enter the villains bet size (in the box marked  2 in the picture above).

3.  Set the amount of money you have in your stack.  Villains stack size is the amount of money they have left after any bet they have made.  For example if the villain starts with a stack of 750 and makes a bet of 250, you'd enter 250 in box 2 and 500 for the villain's stack.  If the villain starts with a stack of 750 and checks to you, you'd enter 0 in box 2 and 750 for the villains stack size.

4.  There are two different charting methods available, the first is a graph of your expected value as a function of how often the villain folds.  The second method plots how often the villain needs to fold to make a shove breakeven as a function  of the potsize.  More on these below.

5. Set your hand in the Hero Range box and give villain the range of hands (or single hand) that you think they will call a shove with.

6. Hit Run!

7. If you chose the EV vs. Fold % chart you'll see a graph that looks something like this:

This is a plot of your expected value versus how often the villain folds.  So in the above chart, if the villain never folds than you can see your expected value is somewhere around -$25, if the villain folds 100% of the time your expected value is  $235 (i.e. the money that is currently in the pot).  The spot where the line crosses the 0 expected value line gives you the fraction of time that the villain has to fold in order to make a shove breakeven (EV=0).  The breakeven shove value is also given at the top of the chart.

If you chose the Breakeven vs Fold % option you'll see a plot like this:

The blue break-even line represents how often the villain has to fold in order for a shove to have EV=0 as a function of pot size.  Anything below the blue line is a negative expectation shove and everything above has a positive expectation.  For example if there is a pot size of 100, and you think that the villain folds around 20% of the time, then shoving is -EV.  If the villain folds 40% of the time, then a shove is about breakeven and if the villain folds more than 40% of the time a shove will be +EV.