The fundamental Principle – Pot Equity

The key-factor towards a perfect play is the so-called pot equity. The pot equity is given as your winning chances in percent relatively to your opponents’ hands, assumed that all opponents see the showdown.


For instance, you hold AQo, playing against two opponents with random hands. Your chances of winning the pot are 46%. Let’s say you raise and both opponents complete their small and big blind with random hands. The pot size is 6 small bets, you own 46% of these small bets, i.e. 2.76 small bets. You have invested 2 small bets, thus you made a profit of 0.76 small bets.

Of course, these values are only theoretically. You don’t stop playing after the pre-flop phase and many things can happen afterwards. If you have a weak post-flop play and your opponents play perfect you will lose some of your profit while proceeding. Nevertheless, analyzing huge databanks show that the pre-flop edge will abide to the showdown.

As a matter of fact every equity advantage should be exploited with a raise. You have an equity edge if your equity is higher than the average equity. If there are n opponents the average equity would be (1/n)*100 percent.