IS POKER FAIR?

 Is Poker Fair???

Simple question, right? I know, I know, it’s not that simple. Let’s cut right to the answer and then we can discuss how we got there. The quick answer is YES…and NO. What do I mean? Well, poker in the short run can definitely be UNFAIR, but we don’t play for the short run, do we? We play for the long run where it is FAIR! We’ve all been involved in a big pot that we were a huge favorite in only to lose when our opponent spiked a miracle card on the river. That is the short run. It was one hand. As much as it stings that we lost that hand, we have to move on because we play for the long run. In the long run, we win money by making positive expected value (+EV) decisions.

I’ve given this brain teaser question to friends of mine who expressed an interest in learning poker: We are given a coin that we are going to flip. For every time it is flipped and lands on HEADS, I am going to give you $1.10 and for every time it is flipped and lands on TAILS, you have to give me $1.00. How many times do you want to flip it? I’ve had all sorts of different responses to this riddle. I’ve also had questions asked about the problem such as “how much money do I have?” and “is it a fair coin?” For the purpose of this exercise, let’s assume that you have an unlimited amount of money and it is a fair coin. And don’t answer, “well if I have an unlimited amount of money then I don’t need to risk it.” The objective is to make the best practical +EV decision.

The correct answer is “as many times as possible”. Why? Because you have the edge of getting $1.10 vs giving $1.00 on a 50/50 proposition. If you flip the coin a few times, could you lose money? Of course. If you flip the coin 5, 10, 15 or 20 times, you could also conceivably still lose money. How about if you flipped the coin 10,000 times. You would undoubtedly make money. The more times you flip the coin, the greater chance that you have of making money. Your best outcome overall would mathematically come from flipping the coin an infinite amount of times. It is this type of logic that is imperative to use in poker especially when you are playing in a cash game. You want to be making the best +EV decision for the long run in order to have the best chance of making the most money. Now there may be some times in a cash game where you want to or need to vary from this. One scenario would be if you feel that your opponents are perceptive and you want to establish a specific image early in a cash game session in order to take advantage of it later in the session. In this case, you may want to sacrifice the best +EV decision early in order to gain the best +EV overall advantage for the session. Another scenario would be if you frequently play with the same players. You would want to vary your play against competent players so that they don’t know how to play against you. This kind of partially flows into understanding the concept of GTO (Game Theory Optimal) Poker which is a topic for another day.

In tournament play, there are definitely other factors beside making the best +EV play that come into play when making decisions. There is a value to your tournament life which comes into play. There are situations on the money bubble that come into play. If you are playing for a satellite seat, there are even more situations that come up where the best decision is to deviate from the most +EV play based off of the payout. Here is an extreme satellite example. Let’s say that you are playing in a satellite to win a $10K buy in to the Main Event and that there are 4 of you left with only 3 of you getting seats. Let’s say that 3 of you have 100 big blinds (hero, villain #1 and villain #2) and 1 player has 1 big blind (villain #3). Let’s say that villain #3 and villain #1 both fold and villain #2 with 100 big blinds shoves all in. You should fold every time regardless of your cards. Think about the math of this. Let’s say you have AA and the guy who pushed all in has KK. You are approximately an 80% favorite here to win the hand and basically get a satellite seat. If you fold based off of the fact that 1 player has only 1 big blind left and in this case is in the big blind the next hand, you are (without going into the math of it) well above 80% to still win a seat which is the goal here. It doesn’t matter if you finish 1^st, 2^nd or 3^rd. It only matters that you finish in one of those top 3 spots. Therefore, it makes sense to fold. Obviously, the shove by villain #2 is also a very poor decision as well. I realize that this is an extreme example, but you would be surprised with some decisions that players make especially at lower stakes. Sometimes, in the heat of battle, players just react instead of thinking about all of the factors. Make sure you are not one of those players. Take the time to think about the whole situation before making your decision and you will be more profitable in the long run.

Want to hear more about poker? Check out the monthly Nerdthusiast Poker Podcast!

---Frank DiRe

Nerdthusiast Content Writer    

@FLD15 on X (Formerly Twitter)